After a long time waiting, the movie adaptation of the Wicked musical is finally here! Well, it won’t hit theatres until December 2019, but that’s closer than we previously thought.

That is, that it wasn’t actually going to happen.

The movie has even found its director! Stephen Daldry, best known for his work on Billy Elliot, also directed The Reader and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. 

Daldry first signed on for the project back in 2012 in the hopes they could finish the film by 2016. Unfortunately, Daldry and his team have run into some production delays, pushing its release date to the end of 2019.

This latest Wicked news comes to us on the same day that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton finds its new Treasurer and Founding Father in Javier Muñoz. According to Hypable, Miranda and the original cast will be professionally filmed before Miranda and Soo leave the stage after July 9th.

According to the film’s IMDB page and Stephen Schwartz’s assistant, the Wicked film will follow the storyline of the musical adaptation instead of Gregory Maguier’s book of the same name.

Back in early 2015, Movie News Guide reported that Marc Platt (Into the Woods) said they were under “enormous pressure for the film adaptation.” 

Wicked is the second-biggest musical on Broadway since The Lion King. If our favourite green-skinned witch can hold onto that title for 10 years, the movie is bound to do well!

“We will make the movie, but like I said, the bar is really high. We’re going to scrutinize our work on the screenplay and our prep on the movie, and when we feel like it’s ready, okay. It’s in the works, it’s not in a rush,” he told Screen Crush.

Musical fans are no strangers to the waiting game. It took 30 years to finalize the film adaptation of Les Miserables, and almost as long for Into the Woods.

Grab a comfy cushion and polish those broomstick handles, dearies, we’re in it for the long haul!