Wicked Doesn't Have An Intermission But Its Producer Really Wanted One

Longform storytelling is a richly rewarding experience when done right. As so many fans of "peak"/prestige TV know, there's no greater high when an hours-long (or decades-long depending on how it's being viewed) narrative sticks the landing. The same goes for fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, at least as far as the Infinity Saga is concerned. While long-form stories are as popular now as ever, one particular aspect of it seems to be frowned upon: the long-form movie. On paper, this shouldn't be the case — the continued popularity of Broadway plays and musicals means that audiences will still show up for and sit through a single long night of entertainment and that the vintage presentation of a multi-act story separated by an intermission interval only serves to make the experience richer.

Sadly, too many cinemagoing audiences have been trained to view movies that stretch over a certain length to be unworthy of their time. There are many culprits for this — bloated blockbusters, uncomfortable movie theater environments, smartphone addiction, social media discourse — but perhaps one of the least discussed is the way that Hollywood is far more interested in manufacturing a franchise rather than presenting a complete, unique cinema experience. That's what's happened in the case of "Wicked" (aka "Wicked: Part One," as per its on-screen title) and the upcoming "Wicked: For Good," which is a "Part Two" in all but title, lest audiences be reminded that they didn't get the full story the first time around.

As it happens, this writer is not the only one who was hoping to see "Wicked" buck the trend and help the long-form movie (with intermission) make a comeback. Earlier this month, "Wicked" producer Marc Platt spoke at the Producers Guild of America Nominees Breakfast and made the revelation that a full-length version of "Wicked" with an intermission included was at one point on the table before being scrapped in favor of this current release plan.

Before becoming a high-grossing, multiple Academy Awards-nominated feature film, "Wicked" gained fame through being, of course, a highly popular stage musical, which adapted the novel by Gregory Maguire concerning the secret history of Elphaba, the so-called Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda, the so-called Good Witch, and other denizens of the magical land of Oz before Dorothy Gale arrived. The stage version runs around 2 hours and 45 minutes per performance and encapsulates the entirety of the musical's story. "Wicked" the feature film, however, only follows Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande-Butera) from their entrance into Shiz University to when Elphaba, having been framed by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum), defies gravity and decides to take her destiny in her own hands. In the play, it's the end of Act One, just before the intermission. It's also the end of the movie, a film which runs 2 hours and 40 minutes long.

While Universal Pictures and the rest of the "Wicked" team are making audiences wait until November 21st of this year before they can watch the rest of the story in "Wicked: For Good," according to Platt, this plan wasn't always a given. As the producer explained during the breakfast (via The Hollywood Reporter and Cinemablend), he had hoped to make "Wicked" pay homage to the Roadshow classics of his youth, and have it be more of a complete story than it ended up being:

"I remember going to the movies as a kid and watching musicals or 'Lawrence of Arabia' that had intermissions in it, and that was actually my dream for 'Wicked,' that we could do it with intermission. That was one battle I lost."

Platt did not make it clear exactly why or at whose insistence he lost that battle, but one can infer that quite a bit of pushback came from the studio, who were both probably worried that an ultra-long "Wicked" might push potential ticket buyers away, as well as saw bigger dollar signs in breaking up the story into two parts. Although the splitting of the film into two halves has unfortunately become a common occurrence, what's bizarre is why Universal would schedule the halves an entire year apart — "Wicked" fatigue could possibly set in by then, as well as the possibility that audiences could start to feel a little cheated about having to wait so long.

At that same breakfast, the topic of long-form storytelling and intermissions was addressed by others at the function, in particular producer Andrew Morrison, who produced Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold's "The Brutalist," a 3 hour and 35-minute movie that does contain an intermission interval. The film has had much success at the box office, helped by a special limited run in late December 2024 in New York City and Los Angeles, two of the biggest and most movie-friendly cities in the country. Yet it didn't flop when it was released wide in January, either. As Morrison explained at the breakfast, making "The Brutalist" an event was all part of the plan:

"Brady and Mona had always written it with an intermission. We thought it would be a fun way to create a communal experience. We were coming out of COVID and thinking about people missing this experience in theaters and being places together."

Without stating it too plainly, Morrison's comments hit upon a key element in the issue of Hollywood embracing long-form storytelling versus taking several bites of the same apple. Market research and polling may tell one story, and reading heated discourse on social media may tell another, but there's no such thing as a sure thing or not, so why not try? Morrison and "The Brutalist" team gambled on giving audiences a unique, fully-fledged, in-theaters-only experience, while "Wicked" was rolled out in a manner very tried-and-true.

This isn't a cut-and-dried case of a winner or a loser, mind you, but rather a missed opportunity: if Universal (or director Jon M. Chu and others behind "Wicked") had backed Platt's idea, it could've made "Wicked" an even bigger and more culturally important event than it was. After all, "Wicked: For Good" is already being positioned as not the final "Wicked" film; though it will complete the story of the stage adaptation, writers Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman have also publicly stated that they're secretly working on some sort of extension of the characters or their world. At the Producers Guild breakfast, Platt did say that the stage musical "cut out a lot of things that we wanted to elaborate upon," thereby justifying the movies' greater length. Essentially, "Wicked" is facing the same awkward future now encountered by Denis Villeneuve's "Dune" — if the series was going to be sequelized and franchised anyway, doesn't the splitting of one story into two films needlessly complicate matters? Or was it the best decision available to the filmmakers?

In any case, let's hope that Hollywood takes a cue from the reception to "The Brutalist" and producers like Morrison and Platt, and brings back the long-form Roadshow experience to movie theaters. It's important to remember that what audiences say they want and what they'll actually enjoy are not the same, so perhaps it's time to take a cue from a Kevin Costner movie (himself currently beleaguered in the multi-part movie drama) and remember that if you build it, they will come.