Here’s When And How To Watch

One of my favorite movies of 2024 is coming soon to a streaming service near you, though perhaps not a streaming service you subscribe to.

The hit Broadway musical-turned blockbuster movie Wicked is headed to Peacock in just a few weeks. Personally, this means nothing to me. I already own the 4K Blu-ray disc, which is quite frankly the only way you should watch this movie if, that is, you have a 4K Blu-Ray setup. Not only is the image crisper on a disc, the sound is way better, so if you have an expensive surround setup and a nice TV, I highly recommend you invest in physical media to go along with it.

But I digress! Wicked lands on Peacock on March 21st. The film stars Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum and more. I called the adaptation a “spectacular, cinematic triumph” in my review. Both Erivo and Grande are phenomenal. And while it does run a little long, I was never bored.

I was also in the unique position of having just seen the Broadway musical on Broadway just a couple months before I went to the movie. The changes from the stage to the screen were excellent, and while I love the stage version, I loved being able to get a little closer to the characters in the movie.

“Wicked is a stunning success in just about every way,” I gushed in my review,
from its stellar performances to its sound design and special effects, to its inventive sets and costumes and ability to capture what made the Broadway musical so special in the first place—defying both gravity and my expectations at every turn.”

On Rotten Tomatoes, Wicked has an 88% score with critics and a 95% score with audiences. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and is nominated for 10 Academy Awards. Hopefully it beats out another musical nominated for a whopping 11 Academy Awards: Netflix’s controversial and widely panned Emilia Perez which has a bafflingly high critic score of 72% on Rotten Tomatoes and a much more understandable 17% with audiences. My colleague Paul Tassi agrees with audiences on this one, noting that it’s “impossible to recommend to any fans of the individual genres it tries to operate within.”