Ariana Grande, right, as Galinda Upland and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba Thropp in a scene from the upcoming film, "Wicked" / Courtesy of Universal Pictures
The musical fantasy film, "Wicked," adapted from the beloved Broadway show, is set to captivate Korean audiences with its world premiere here.
While the highly anticipated film is set to release in North America on Nov. 22, it will debut here two days earlier thanks to the popularity of its stage version in Korea.
"Wicked" reimagines the classic, "Wizard of Oz," centering on Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), who has yet to discover her true power, and Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande), who hasn't found her true nature, as they build their friendship and face unexpected challenges and adventures.
The musical film's distributor, Universal Pictures, is working to tailor this magical encounter and adventure to be more relatable for Korean audiences, a decision largely influenced by the stage version's phenomenal success in Korea.
The stage version, based on Gregory Maguire's novel of the same title, gained widespread recognition in Korea when it premiered in 2012, becoming a box office hit that year. In 2013, a Korean-language version featuring Korean actors debuted and also achieved significant success.
Due to the high popularity, the film version of "Wicked" will be released in both subtitled and dubbed versions in Korea, a rare move for a major film release here.
Korea is one of the few countries to receive a dubbed version of a foreign-language film. For "Wicked," however, the actors who played Elphaba and Galinda in the stage musical — Park Hye-na and Jeong Sun-ah — reprise their roles for the dubbing, aiming to attract fans of the stage version.
Musical actress Park Hye-na, who played Elphaba in the musical "Wicked," reprises the role in the dubbed version of the film “Wicked.” Captured from Universal Pictures' YouTube channel
To further promote the film to Korean fans, lead actors Erivo and Grande made a video appearance on tvN's popular show, "Amazing Saturday," last weekend.
In the video, the two actors surprised viewers by challenging K-pop stars Taeyeon and Key, mentioning that they had heard about their great chemistry and wanted to match it.
The Korean film market peaked as the world's fourth-largest in 2019, with around $1.6 billion in revenues. After experiencing a sharp decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, it rebounded in 2023 to become the world's ninth-largest market, with box office earnings of $1.24 billion, according to Korean Film Council data.
Given its significant presence in the global market, industry watchers note that Hollywood films have been implementing Korea-specific elements such as world premieres or actor visits and video greetings specifically for the Korean market.