Release date, cast and plot

Evil fans don’t have to wait also yearning to return to the wonderful land of Oz.

The second film in Jon M. Chu’s two-part on-screen adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical hits theaters on November 21, 2025, almost exactly one year after Evil was released. Evil: Second part will see the Witches of Oz, Ariana Grande’s Galinda – aka Glinda the Good Witch – and Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba – aka the Wicked Witch of the West – continue where the story began with the first film.

Evilwhich hit theaters on Nov. 22, had the highest opening for a musical adaptation with an estimated $114 million at the domestic box office. (Grande and Erivo, despite an unconfirmed online rumor, were paid the same for their show-stopping lead roles.) The films are based on the 2003 musical of the same name, which was originally based on the best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire.

Evil tells the untold story of the witches of Oz. Winnie Holzman, the stage production’s book writer, wrote the screenplay for Chu’s film with Dana Fox. Academy Award-winning composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz adapted the musical for the screen. Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth originated the roles of Elphaba and Glinda on Broadway (and they made surprise cameos during the “One Short Day” sequence).

Evil ended with Erivo’s awe-inspiring performance of the stage show’s best-known musical number, “Defying Gravity.” Since “Defying Gravity” served as the end of the Broadway show’s first act, this Evil the ending helped herald Chu’s vision of splitting Acts 1 and 2 into separate films.

Chu’s Evil remained true to the stage musical, with little or no changes to the story’s overall plot. While there is no official confirmation yet on how closely the story of the second film will match the show’s second act, Chu spoke with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the film’s release to share insight into his vision.

“We knew we didn’t want to pull the movie away from the show so far that it wasn’t the show I loved,” he said of the filmmaking process. “We started talking about, what numbers can you cut to get it in? And the amount of numbers you have to cut to get this story in is just not plausible. You want all the songs, so you want to cut dance. Tell me which ones. It just became very clear that we had to make a choice. We’re going to make a three-and-a-half-hour movie that interrupts all of these things ?Do we do one at a time?And if we doing one at a time, then we have to make sure that movie is emotionally satisfying, so it doesn’t feel like we’re stopping in the middle of a story. … We all agreed that we split it.”

He continued, “And we found out that that room was necessary. Because if you, I don’t know, maybe end up on a ‘Defying Gravity,’ let’s say, you have Elphaba that’s going to be the most crucial moment in her life. So you have to set up Elphaba more than the show does. You have to see what her childhood was like? In the medium of film, you call things bullshit have time and space for to believe in that relationship. And you have a narrator of Galinda that wraps it all up, setting things up for movie two. So all those things are just a lot, and I think we found a beautiful balance in that.”

Chu and the team shot both films together. “We shot both films over 160 days and were stopped 10 days before we finished (due to the strike) our ‘Defying Gravity’ and flight days,” he shared THR.

The team completed the 10 days of production at the beginning of this year. Since the films were shot together, the cast remains the same for both films.

EvilThe second act takes a darker turn from the bright poppy moments of the first act. “Defying Gravity”, in both the stage musical and the film, serves as the moment when Elphaba “transforms” into the Wicked Witch of the West, who The Wizard of Oz fans know, with the added context, that the wizard and her mentor, Madame Morrible, played in the film by Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh, respectively, have labeled her “evil” after she refused to help their plot to strip the rights of the animals of oz. Elphaba and Glinda, who spent the first act and movie becoming friends against all odds, go their separate ways when Elphaba chooses to rebel against the wizard and Glinda stays behind.

This is how the story continues in the stage musical – spoiler alert for new moviegoers!

Act 2 takes place parallel to the events of the original The Wizard of Oz. It begins with Glinda, now officially christened Glinda the Good, and Fiyero, portrayed by Jonathan Bailey, now captain of the Wizard’s Guard, speaking to the public in Oz as officials of the Wizard. Morrible, telling a completely untrue account of the series’ first act finale, announces that Fiyero and Glinda are engaged to calm a mob worried about the Wicked Witch. Fiyero still cares for Elphaba and leaves due to the crowd’s horrible comments.

Elphaba visits her sister, Nessarose, played by Marissa Bode in the film, who has become the governor of Munchkinland. Nessa has stripped the Munchkins of their rights to have Boq, portrayed by Ethan Slater in the film, stay with her. Elphaba enchants their mother’s shoes with jewels so Nessa can leave, but Boq still rejects her. A spell gone wrong, which Nessa blames on Elphaba, turns Boq into the Tin Man.

The Wizard once again offers Elphaba a chance to join his cause, but she rejects him, and Fiyero helps her escape from the Wizard, leaving Glinda behind. The couple eventually confess their love for each other. Morrible and the wizard devise a plan to endanger Nessarose in order to get Elphaba’s attention. This starts Morrible causing the tornado in The Wizard of Oz that brings Dorothy to Oz and kills Nessarose, also known as the Wicked Witch of the East.

Glinda and Elphaba reunite and fight over Glinda giving Nessa’s shoes to the girl who has arrived in Oz, Dorothy. The pair eventually make up after Glinda warns Elphaba of the plan to kill her with a powerful musical number, “For Good”. Elphaba is apparently melted by a bucket of water and she ends up in The Wizard of Oz. Glinda tells the wizard Elphaba was his daughter, kicked him out of Oz, and had Morrible arrested for her plan to kill Nessarose. Fiyero, who has been transformed into the Scarecrow after trying to help Elphaba earlier in the show, returns to the scene of the meltdown, releases Elphaba from a trap door, and the pair run away together.

Dorothy and her crew can be seen briefly in Evil‘s first part of the film, only from behind, and in the trailer talking to the guide. The Wizard of Oz character is shown from behind or in silhouette, never explicitly in the stage musical.

Leads up to Wicked (Part Two) arrives in theaters on November 21, 2025, THR will update this post as more is developed on the second film.