Do the Oscars care who won the presidency? As the country recovers from the emotional rollercoaster of the 2024 presidential election, Hollywood will be coping with this charged political atmosphere at events throughout awards season. And that could determine the movies that the Oscars choose to elevate. After all, the Academy Awards have a long […]

The 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards will be held on Feb. 23, 2025, with nominations announced Jan. 8. But movies and TV shows are already jockeying for position in the awards race, which are voted on by SAG-AFTRA actors. Variety took a look at some of the titles competing in the busy landscape.  Film Categories […]

“Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo’s production company, Edith’s Daughter, has signed a first-look deal with Universal Pictures. The pact expands on the Tony, Grammy and Emmy-winning star’s relationship with the studio after Erivo starred as Elphaba in the highly-anticipated film adaptation of Broadway musical “Wicked.” Part 1 of the Jon M. Chu-directed film will be released […]

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual […]

In “The Wizard of Oz,” there can be no doubt which witch is the worst witch: That would be the one with the army of flying monkeys, who melts upon contact with water. But in “Wicked,” the green-skinned spell-caster turns out to be far more sympathetic than Glinda, her ostensibly “good,” oppressively pink rival. Loosely […]

Is “Glicked” the new “Barbenheimer”? Whether “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” inspires an unorthodox double feature à la last summer’s simultaneous blockbusters “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” remains a question. Either way, there’s a box office battle brewing between Universal’s pink-and-green musical and Paramount’s bloody sword-and-sandal epic, both of which open on Friday. “Wicked,” director Jon M. Chu’s […]

A “Wicked” promo is alighting in millions of Snapchatters’ chat inboxes. On Tuesday, Snapchat and Universal Pictures will debut the first-ever Sponsored Snap, an ad for “Wicked,” the adaptation of the smash Broadway musical starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. The film opens in theaters on Friday, Nov. 22. In the 10-second “Wicked” Sponsored Snap, […]

Egyptian locations will soon take the spotlight in three wildly different titles all set for release next year. While blockbusters “Wicked Part Two” and “Fountain of Youth,” from director Guy Ritchie, both make use of the country’s historical riches and otherworldly expanses, filmmaker Neil Burger will channel the breakneck pace of modern Cairo with his […]

Moviegoers can channel their inner Glinda and Elphaba during sing-along screenings of “Wicked.” But they’ll have to wait. Interactive showings of Universal’s upcoming movie musical will be offered in roughly 1,000 North American cinemas starting on Dec. 25 — approximately one month after “Wicked” lands on the big screen. Exact plans, including the location count […]

Judy Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft has joined the chorus of moviegoers raving about “Wicked” ahead of the musical’s theatrical release. Luft’s mother, of course, is an icon of cinema having played Dorothy Gale in 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz.” “Wicked” serves as a musical prequel to that story, with some of the events of “The […]

Jeff Goldblum is handing off the dinosaur-sized torch to “Wicked” co-star Jonathan Bailey. Bailey is taking on the role of paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis in the latest “Jurassic Park” film, “Jurassic World Rebirth” – and nobody’s more excited to see it than Goldblum. “The hope of the world resides, and I can think of no […]

A snafu by Mattel — which accidentally printed the URL for a porn site on packaging for dolls based on Universal Pictures’ “Wicked” movie — has yielded a bonanza of traffic for Wicked Pictures, the adult-entertainment company that actually owns the web address. In the last two days, searches for “wicked.com” (the URL misprinted by […]

Something wicked this way comes on the packaging of Mattel’s “Wicked” dolls. There’s a website listed on the toy box, but instead of linking to the webpage for the movie adaptation of the Tony-winning musical, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, Mattel has mistakenly listed the URL to a pornographic website. The film’s official website […]

Jon M. Chu had a pretty good excuse for missing the premiere of “Wicked.” The director of the two-part musical epic couldn’t make the starry Los Angeles event because his wife gave birth to their fifth child, a girl, on Saturday, Nov. 9 — the same day as the pink-and-green celebration. “This movie has always […]

Like Zendaya (“Spider-Man,” “Dune” and “Challengers“) and Margot Robbie (“Barbie“) before them, “Wicked” stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are taking method-dressing to “gravity-defying” new heights — and we’ve assembled some of their most swankified looks. Grande and Erivo play Glinda and Elphaba in the long-awaited film adaptation of the Tony-winning Broadway musical “Wicked,” directed […]

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual […]

Prime Members can travel to the Land of Oz earlier than the rest of us thanks to a new partnership between Amazon and Fandango.  The deal, part of Amazon’s “Oz on Amazon” campaign, offers Prime members the chance to exclusively screen “Wicked” in theaters on Nov. 18, four days before its theatrical release on Nov. […]

Ariana Grande understands why some “Wicked” fans have reservations about her playing Glinda in the film adaptation of the Tony-winning musical. During a recent interview with the “Sentimental Men” podcast, Grande was asked what scared her the most after she was offered the part in Universal’s movie musical. “I felt a little bit of the […]

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual […]