Cynthia Erivo welcomes Wicked split

Cynthia Erivo thinks it is "exciting" that 'Wicked' will be split into two parts.

The 35-year-old actress will portray Elphaba in the big screen adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical and though she didn't know it would be two separate movies - which will be released in December 2024 and December 2025 - when she signed up, she's happy with director Jon M. Chu's decision because it gives "more room" to tell the tale properly.

She said: “I was like, ‘Well alright then, I guess we’ve got our work set ahead of us.’ It’s full on.

"And kind of exciting, because it means that we have more of the story to tell — more room, more real estate to tell these two stories.”

Cynthia has particularly enjoyed working with her co-star Ariana Grande, who will play Glinda.

She gushed to Variety: “I love her, truly. She is funny and unbelievably talented and unbelievably sweet and truly working hard. We’re both working really hard together. I’m excited for both of us.”

Jon announced in April that the 'Wizard of Oz' prequel would be split into two because he was concerned about doing "real damage" to the production if he cut it too heavily.

He said in a statement at the time: “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.

"We decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one ‘Wicked’ movie but two! With more space, we can tell the story of ‘Wicked’ as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys for these beloved characters.”