Why Wicked 3 Would Be a Mistake

With Wicked: For Good now playing in United States theaters, fans of the franchise are wondering if Wicked 3 could become a reality. It’s probably for the best that it doesn’t.

Wicked and Wicked: For Good are adaptations of the 2003 stage musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman. That musical is a loose adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel — which, itself, is a reimagining of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz book. That story famously turned into the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland.

Schwartz recently told The Ankler that he and Holzman are already working on another project set in Oz following the release of Wicked: For Good.

“What I will tell you without giving away too much is that Winnie Holzman (the original Wicked book writer and film’s co-screenwriter) and I are doing some work right now on ideas that aren’t a sequel to Wicked, because I think the Glinda and Elphaba story feels complete — but there are other aspects that could be explored,” Schwartz said. “Gregory Maguire, the original Wicked novelist, has several books, for example. But there’s another idea that Winnie and I are discussing: not a sequel, but an adjunct. Let me put it that way.”

Why is Wicked 3 a bad idea?

With the stage play now having been fully adapted over the course of Wicked and Wicked: For Good, Wicked 3 would have to tell a brand-new story that fans will be unfamiliar with. Of course, the Wicked book was part of a series — including 2005’s Son of a Witch, 2008’s A Lion Among Men, and more — so there is some source material that the filmmakers could pull from.

Having said that, the Wicked musical and movies are such a deviation from the source material that Universal Pictures would have to start over and accurately adapt those novels from the beginning if that’s the route they wanted to go, as jumping into Son of a Witch would be tonally confusing and wouldn’t make much sense to those expecting to see more of Glinda and Elphaba’s adventures.

Maybe Schwartz, director Jon M. Chu, and everyone else involved with Wicked could come up with a good, original pitch for Wicked 3. But that’s a big risk, especially considering that the weakest parts of Wicked: For Good are arguably all the new additions, namely the two new songs. Assuming that Wicked 3 would still be a musical, they’d then have to come up with an entire catalog of new songs, which doesn’t sound like a particularly promising idea.

Plus, sometimes it’s best just to let things go out on a high note. We don’t need to devalue these characters or the legacy this story has had on pop culture. It’s okay to let things end.

Source: Comingsoon.net