Definitely Not a Cash Grab: Warner Brothers to Re-Release THE WIZARD OF OZ as WICKED: 1½

by Leah Windahl. @leah_windahl.

THE AMC ON 42^nd STREET, NY – Though usually a place where dreams come true, everyone has a nice time, and nobody gets bedbugs, the atmosphere at the 42nd Street AMC was decidedly bleak last Friday, as the audience emerged from an exclusive press-screener of Warner Brother’s so-called upcoming film, Wicked: 1½, which was clearly a re-release of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz.

“I thought this was going to be, like, a secret third film,” said micro-influencer Sophia Clover, her Glinda costume wrinkled from an hour and forty-two minutes of boredom.

“I kept waiting for Bowen Yang to interrupt the film and at least give quirky commentary, but it never happened. There was no riffing, no homoerotic undertones, and no offense to that guy who played the scarecrow but, like, there’s no way he’s winning Sexiest Man Alive. And not just because I’m guessing he’s dead.”

Other fans were equally quick to point out their disappointment.

“That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” remarked fellow audience member and Wicked superfan Anthony Knaggs, who took off work for this. “It felt like they ran out of time. Why did all the songs have the same tune? Come on, Stephen Schwartz. And what do you mean it was all a dream at the end? How does that even work? You’re telling me that the entire plot of Wicked exists in a girl’s dream? Why would they even introduce that? Also, Glinda was old as hell for some reason.”

When we gently pressed Knaggs to ask if he also thought Wicked: 1½ was actually just 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, he looked confused for a moment before flatly replying, “Sorry, I don’t know what that is.”

David Zaslav – doughy CEO of Warner Brothers – confirmed our suspicions.

“Yeah, so, we had planned to make some alterations to align the original film more closely with the latest installments, but ultimately we realized that that sounded like a lot of work, so… no thank you.” he said, calling in from his yacht somewhere in the Caribbean. “But if you look closely, you might notice a few familiar faces in the film.”

We here at The Broadway Beat did look closely, but all we noticed were a few poorly-placed CGI images of Jeff Goldblum and an audio clip of him going “Life, uh, finds a way” from Jurassic Park.

That said, if you can catch a showing of Wicked 1½ in theaters, we’d say go, if only for the licensed memorabilia. Sure, the exclusive popcorn bucket is just the Dune one with a Wicked sticker on it, but hey, merch is merch.