Universal's 'Wicked' Movie Adaptation Gets December 2019 Release

Stephen Daldry will direct the musical for Universal and producer Marc Platt.

Universal's Wicked is finally a go.

The studio announced Thursday that the musical adaptation of the hugely popular Broadway show and book will open in theaters Dec. 20, 2019. That puts Wicked in direct competition with a yet-to-be-revealed live-action fairy-tale movie from Disney.

Stephen Daldry has long been set to direct Wicked for producer Marc Platt and Universal, who are also producers of the long-running stage show, which is based on Gregory Maguire's novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Writer Winnie Holzman and composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, collaborators on the Broadway show, are reuniting for the film adaptation.

Wicked is an alternative telling of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic 1900 story of the same name, told from the perspective of the witches.

The Broadway show was nominated for 10 Tony Awards and won three, propelling the careers of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, among others. Now in its 13th year, Wicked has bested Rent to become the 10th longest-running Broadway show of all time.

In March, the production's grosses crossed the $1 billion mark on Broadway, with global ticket sales of around $4 billion.