Here are some photos from the big London premiere of Wicked last night. They made a much, much bigger deal of it in London than they did in New York. Which I still think is so weird. This whole time, I actually forgot that Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh are both in Wicked, so I’m adding photos of them, alongside Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey. I also genuinely forgot that the studios are trying to recreate Barbenheimer – Wicked and Gladiator II come out out this Thursday/Friday. My guess? Gladiator II will slay the competition.
How long can I vamp before we have to talk about the premiere fashion? Ugh. First of all, I don’t mind Ariana’s look at all. She wore a custom butter-yellow Ralph Lauren gown which is appropriately princessy and Glinda-esque. It’s possibly her best look of the whole promo tour. Unfortunately, Ari had to stand next to Cynthia in this absolutely catastrophic Schiaparelli dress. It’s designed so that the crinoline is visible and popped out to the side. The sequined leggings make it look like she has mismatched robot legs. I apologize to everyone living for this promotional tour, but I genuinely think Cynthia has been so poorly served by the stylists. Is her hat an homage to the Tin Man?? OH MY GOD.
Additional fashion notes: Jeff Goldblum wore Burberry, Jonathan Bailey wore Ralph Lauren (the one premiere where he actually wore eveningwear).
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
-
- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 18: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo attend the “Wicked: Part One” UK Premiere at The Royal Festival Hall on November 18, 2024 in London, England. (,Image: 936053991, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Lounis Tiar / Avalon
-
- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 18: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo attend the “Wicked: Part One” UK Premiere at The Royal Festival Hall on November 18, 2024 in London, England. (,Image: 936054021, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Lounis Tiar / Avalon
-
- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 18: Ariana Grande attends the “Wicked: Part One” UK Premiere at The Royal Festival Hall on November 18, 2024 in London, England. (,Image: 936054097, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Lounis Tiar / Avalon
-
- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 18: Ariana Grande attends the “Wicked: Part One” UK Premiere at The Royal Festival Hall on November 18, 2024 in London, England. (,Image: 936054123, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Lounis Tiar / Avalon
-
- UK premiere of ‘Wicked’ at the Royal Festival Hall Featuring: Jeff Goldblum Where: London, United Kingdom When: 18 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- UK premiere of ‘Wicked’ at the Royal Festival Hall Featuring: Jonathan Bailey Where: London, United Kingdom When: 18 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- UK premiere of ‘Wicked’ at the Royal Festival Hall Featuring: Michelle Yeoh Where: London, United Kingdom When: 18 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- UK premiere of ‘Wicked’ at the Royal Festival Hall Featuring: Cynthia Erivo Where: London, United Kingdom When: 18 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- UK premiere of ‘Wicked’ at the Royal Festival Hall Featuring: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande Where: London, United Kingdom When: 18 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- UK premiere of ‘Wicked’ at the Royal Festival Hall Featuring: Cynthia Erivo Where: London, United Kingdom When: 18 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- UK premiere of ‘Wicked’ at the Royal Festival Hall Featuring: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo Where: London, United Kingdom When: 18 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
Is this is the longest publicity campaign for a movie ever? I swear I’ve been hearing about it constantly for over a year and could not be more sick of it. I also find Ariana Grande insufferable so that probably doesn’t help.
IMHO the dress is cool and would be fine if it weren’t for the tragic hat
My thought as well. The dress is cool and I love the robot leg. Someone deserves to be fired for that hat though.
Cynthia looks like her leg is bleeding. Ariana looks sick. Give her a sandwich. The only one that looks good is the guy in the white and black tux.
Yeah, I think it’s a dramatic, yet playful look that makes a statement without being costumey. My only quibble, besides the hat, is the neckline. Combined with the velvet gloves, it’s too much coverage in such a heavy fabric.
Also, I’ve been lusting after those Amina Muaddi pumps for months. I do enjoy the occasional shoe splurge (usually Aquazzura), but I can’t justify those.
Huh–I love Cynthia’s look. The hat is a little silly but I could chalk that up to Schiaparelli’s typically irreverent, more-is-more style. Ariana’s gown washes her out.
The hair color washes Ariana out too. I don’t think I can watch this because I won’t be able to focus on anything else!
I love Cynthia’s look but she could wear a sack and I’d say that. Arianna looks appropriately princessy.
I think they’re tying to keep the fashion along the lines of the movie characters, but yeah, I hate everything Cynthia Erivo is wearing. She’s a beautiful woman with gorgeous skin that should be showcased in more bold, daring colors, not just muted tones. And OK, I get that Ariana Grande is supposed to be Glinda so all her clothes resemble a typical fairy tale princess but this look is getting tired. I like to see both in different fashions next red carpet outing.
I feel like these are actually the best two looks they’ve worn — not too on-the-nose costume-y for Cynthia and not pink for Ari.
I’m confounded by Cynthia’s dress and leg. I mean it’s interesting? I’m also confounded by the furry animal on top of Jeff goldblum.
Wait, you actually think the meh-ly reviewed sequel of a modest hit from 20 years ago is gonna beat WICKED???? In any case wicked is tracking to beat gladiator by $20-$30 million.
You think Gladiator was a ‘modest hit?’ What do you consider a blockbuster, then? I do agree with you, however, that Gladiator is not going to beat Wicked.
I’m with you. I was really confused at the idea that Gladiator would “slay” Wicked. Gladiator 2 looks like a video game, and appears to have little connection to the original, both in appearance and tone. People too young to remember the first movie aren’t likely to be drawn in, and the people I know that are old enough to fondly remember the first don’t seem to think the sequel has much to do with the original, so they’re meh on it. I think it’s going to really underperform.
Wicked, on the other hand… I’m taking my daughters to see it tomorrow night. We live in a large to mid-size market. We bought tickets a few days ago, and we are going to a theater about 30 minutes away to see it because everyplace closer is completely sold out. I thought Wicked would do reasonably well, but I didn’t expect to see theaters completely sold out on a weeknight. It will be interesting to see the final numbers on Monday.
The audience for gladiator isn’t the same audience interested in seeing a Broadway musical. Plus there is the Denzel factor. Without him gladiator II is not much but this is Denzel’s movie.
I know there’s a lot of love for Bailey but I find his styling absolutely horrible. There’s always something weird going on with his clothes, in this case, the cut and length of his pants are terrible. I intensely dislike all the sheer shirts (and shorts) he’s been wearing too. I keep thinking his stylist must be drunk.
I don’t like Cynthia’s dress but disagree that she’s been poorly dressed in general during the promotional tour. I think she’s had some great looks, just not this one. Also,I really don’t understand why people are wishing for Wicked to fail. Why do people want a critically acclaimed film with two talented women leads to flop? I’m rooting for them.
There are 2 major reasons that I can think of: first, as you said, the film is fronted by two talented women, and as we’ve learned the hard way in the past couple of weeks, there are so, SO many who think that women are uppity enough as it is and need to be beaten back at every turn. The second reason is that Ariana’s homewrecking antics with one of her costars left a bad taste in peoples’ mouths.
Where have you seen or read about people wishing for Wicked to fail? All the buzz I’ve come across is positive. The one critique I have is that the studio isn’t promoting this as a musical, which for anyone even remotely aware of the original Broadway show knows very well that it has singing and dancing. And let’s be honest, the number of people who know about Ariana’s personal life is small and the number that cares even smaller. But repeating the story over and over perhaps gives some a reason not to see it. So, you know, maybe stop talking about it?
Oh, to be clear, I don’t consider her personal life to be a valid reason, and I also didn’t intend to throw wood on that fire. I was just remembering that, when that story first broke, there were a bunch of people on social media (maybe even a few here?) saying that they hoped the film would fail. I’m a lifelong theater geek and personally looking forward to seeing it.
I love, love, love that look! All of it! Ari is washed out, it is the rare woman that can carry that color of lemon and she isn’t it.
Goldblum is always odd — I feel like he let his flag fly for Ragnarok and now he is the same character in every movie since — but I do love the goat he is wearing around his neck.
Oh, I absolutely love Cynthia‘s dress! But that hat or whatever it is?! It’s almost as terrible as the dead animal on Jeff Goldblum‘s shoulders.
Jeff Goldblum is giving aritizia Anna Wintour from that one winter season when AW wore a coat with a wolverine pelt (or what looked like a wolverine pelt) on the back of it.
Anna Wintour WISHES she could pull off a Wolverine pelt half as well as the legendary Jeff Goldblum!
Tell me you don’t know the Wicked Lore without telling me you don’t know the Wicked Lore.
These are both inspired by the scenes when they visited Oz. Ariana’s yellow dress plus the glasses is perfection – Glinda wears similar in the stage show.
Cynthia’s costume reflects (pun intended) some of the Oz resident’s style (think Hunger Games Capitol).
Should they land without that context? Ehhh. Yeh, probably. But TBH they do. We complain when people wear the same boring shit, and complain when they push the boat out. Can’t win.
And, agree with the above – let’s not push that this is going to flop. Gladiator is big. This is big. The slightly insane marketing budget is likely going to cause it commercial challenge, but Barbie did so much similar and that was lauded soooo…….
*The Emerald City, in Oz. Way to miss the landing.
We get it. Even if some of us don’t know the musical, it’s painfully, excruciatingly over the top obvious that the fashion being displayed is related to the film or show. For me, it would be nice just to see Erivo and Grande in fashion that is not Wicked-related — it would not take away from their promotional tour or from anyone going to see the movie. These are two beautiful talented women that wear fashion well — would love to see them in other styles.
I think Ari’s is actually my favorite out of this lot. It’s lovely and I like the yellow.
I’m actually quite excited for Wicked! For what it’s worth, my friend works in PR and got to see Wicked this weekend for a trade industry screening in LA and she said it was fantastic, and that Cynthia and Ariana especially were very, very good. She couldn’t go into detail because I guess there’s an embargo, but her impressions were very positive and she thinks it’ll be an awards contender.
Apparently pics of Arianna looking like absinthe were on the front pages of all the UK papers but they were all solo pics. Not one picture of Erivo, although her and Grande had a gazillion photos together, even though Erivo is British and the main character in the film. “Unconscious” bias?
Ariana Grande is so off-putting to me. And why is this whole thing so damn serious? It’s a musical, I assume it’s supposed to be fun. These two are out here campaigning for the Nobel Prize or something. And trying to out-skeleton each other. Doesn’t appeal to me. The schiaparelli is good, though.
I love lamp — looks like Christmas Story leg lamp
Wicked is still a very successful musical on the West End, that’s why the UK premier was so big.
Whenever I see a pic of Ari, she always looks startled with her wide-eyed expressions and mouth that is always slightly ajar. I have noted that young Hollywood strives to make this the “ingenue esthetic”; however, I wish that she – and her peers would stop doing this.