Good news! Wicked: For Good is coming soon, and so are the Winter Olympics — as advertised in two new magical videos promoting the biennial event featuring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
In one clip posted by NBC Sports on Thursday (Nov. 5), the Tony-winning actress who portrays Elphaba in Jon M. Chu’s live-action adaptations of the Broadway musical joins the United States curling team for practice. As they struggle with a faulty broom, Erivo holds up her character’s signature mode of travel and says knowingly, “Try this.”
When the gravity-defying broomstick helps the team achieve its desired results, Erivo does the adorable BFF wave that she and the R.E.M. Beauty founder do in the first Wicked film.
Speaking of Grande, a second clip posted Thursday by NBC opens with figure skating champion Alysa Liu performing a breathtaking routine on the ice before something like an earthquake interrupts her. The camera then zooms out to show that the athlete is actually inside of a snow globe, which the pop star has been gazing into and shaking.
The videos come just a few weeks ahead of the Nov. 21 premiere of the Wicked sequel in theaters, almost exactly one year after the first film arrived and shattered box-office records. Less than three months after the saga comes to a close, the Winter Olympics will kick off Feb. 6 on NBC and Peacock.
The partnership between Wicked and the Olympics marks a full-circle moment, as both Erivo and Grande attended the Summer Games in 2024 as part of their mammoth press cycle for the first film. Universal Pictures also arranged for the real-life Emerald City train from the movies to stop through Paris in honor of the event.
For the second film, the promotional blitz has been noticeably more lowkey, with Grande recently confirming that this was an intentional move to keep the film feeling like it was in the hands of true fans. This week, the first international premiere of Wicked: For Good took place in Brazil, although the two-time Grammy winner was forced to miss the event due to a “safety issue” with her flight.
“i am so heartbroken that i’m unable to be there with you all,” she wrote Tuesday (Nov. 4) on her Instagram Story, urging fans not to “wish danger” on her just because they felt upset by her absence. “we sincerely tried everything we could and i apologize from the bottom of my heart.”
Watch Erivo and Grande star in new ads for the Winter Olympics below.
