''No lights on set?'': 'Wicked' first look photos of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo spark hilarious reactions online

A still from Wicked (Image via Universal) — A still from Wicked (Image via Instagram/@jonmchu)

Wicked's first glimpse just surfaced online after director Jon M. Chu released a couple of first-look photos featuring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. The Broadway play, which is being adapted into a two-part film, originally premiered in 2003 with Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda. This time out, Erivo will take up the role of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Grande will portray Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, on social media this weekend.

The images were, however, a little underwhelming with negligible visibility and very less context. The only noticeable elements in the photos were the color schemes of both the popular characters with glimpses of pink and green, respectively.

Ariana Grande in Wicked (Image via Instagram/@jonmchu)

Chu wrote in the caption:

"You weren't told the whole story. What happens when you veer off the Yellow Brick Road?"

The internet rarely takes kindly to mishaps, let alone a first-look photo without proper lighting.

After the release of the photos, all the fans waiting for Wicked jumped into action to criticize and make fun of the underwhelming set of photos.

How are fans reacting to Wicked's first-look photos?

The first look of Wicked sparked all sorts of funny reactions across social media platforms, almost all of them targeted towards the bad lighting. A similar phenomenon shook the original Justice League, which was heavily criticized for being too dark.

Most fans explicitly spoke about the lighting and brightness of the photos, creating a concerning environment for the Broadway adaptation ahead of its release later next year.

Apart from talking about the Jon Chu movie, many took the chance to express their disappointment at the low-light shots that have become a staple in recent years of Hollywood.

The first half of the Broadway adaptation is scheduled for a premiere on November 27, 2024. The film has been split into two parts because the director revealed how trying to cramp it in one part affected the film deeply. Chu spoke to EW about this earlier and said:

"As we prepared the production over the last year, it became impossible to wrestle the story of Wicked into a single film without doing some real damage to it...As we tried to cut songs or trim characters, those decisions began to feel like fatal compromises to the source material that has entertained us all for so many years."

Apart from the two witches, the film will also star some big names like Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, and Marissa Bode.

Edited by Rhythm Bhatia