Now that “Wicked” has made its big Thanksgiving holiday splash and is poised to make a Best Picture nomination run, people like Variety’s Clayton Davis are arguing that it is big enough to go all the way. But if there are even the slightest, realistic odds above zero percent that “Wicked” can win Best Picture, there is only one other major nomination it actually needs – and it isn’t one for Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, or director Jon M. Chu.
Instead, the only nomination that can make “Wicked” a serious win-competitive threat is for Best Adapted Screenplay. The fact that this is a significant longshot right now, for several reasons, is the very reason why getting it anyway would make a massive statement – and make all its other requirements to win a lot easier by comparison.
The biggest reason why a Screenplay nomination is necessary is that every Best Picture winner except one has needed it since the mid-60s. Ever since fellow musical “The Sound of Music” won without a Screenplay nomination in 1965, the only film that won without it was “Titanic” in 1997 – and that megahit swept almost every other category it did get in. As massive as “Wicked” is through its first 10 days, it is nowhere near that level of gigantic yet.
In addition, the last musical that did win Best Picture also needed a Screenplay nomination first, when “Chicago” got it in 2002. It also had a Best Director nomination for Rob Marshall, but in truth, “Wicked” doesn’t really need to match that with a nomination for Chu – not as badly as it needs to get into Best Adapted Screenplay.
Winning Best Picture without a Best Director nomination is very rare, yet it has been done more lately. In fact, it has currently been done in three-year intervals, starting with “Green Book” in 2018 and “CODA” in 2021. By that pattern, a film like “Wicked” would be due to keep it going this year – although those last two examples got it done by winning a Screenplay Oscar.
Even if there is a world where “Wicked” gets into Best Adapted Screenplay, there’s no world where it wins, especially with “Conclave,” “Sing Sing,” “Nickel Boys” and “Dune: Part Two” seemingly locked as the top four. With that in mind, many would argue that if it can’t win either a Best Director or Screenplay Oscar, there is no path to winning Best Picture. However, the very last film to do that was also the very last musical to win it all.
“Chicago” had pretty much the exact Best Picture win package “Wicked” aims for, with Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, and a couple of tech wins. Still, scratching out a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination was just as telling and important, although it didn’t come anywhere close to winning. As such, even if it doesn’t match “Chicago” in getting a Best Director nomination, “Wicked” can still survive as a Best Picture-winning option then – but it cannot survive missing Screenplay.
Getting in that category would be historic regardless, if only because “Wicked” is a musical. With rare exceptions like “Chicago” and “La La Land,” musicals almost never get a Screenplay nomination in this day and age. For that matter, when Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” missed that nomination in 2021, despite having far better review scores than “Wicked” and having Tony Kushner as a writer, it was the last nail in the coffin for its chances in Best Picture.
By that standard, there really should be no hope for a film like “Wicked.” And by a more current standard, it is at greater risk because there is another musical looking to defy that trend too – in this case, “Emilia Perez.” But ever since its now consequential move to Best Adapted Screenplay, it has been assumed that “Emilia Perez’s” secure place as a Best Picture nominee, a Best International Feature favorite, and a likely favorite of foreign voters will help it squeeze into the category. And by joining the four other presumed safe nominees, that would shut out “Wicked” right then and there.
However, between “Wicked’s” box office numbers, its review scores that are actually equal to if not better than “Emilia Perez,” and its potential as a populist voting favorite, there is a case to be made that it could be too big to deny and too big for “Emilia Perez” to hold off by Oscar voting time. Plus, for all the questions, mockery, and rants about how “Wicked” stretched a 90-minute Act One of the Broadway show into a 150+ minute “Part One,” it can be argued that pulling it off anyway – to some extent or another – is a big enough writing achievement to be honored. Of course, “Emilia Perez” created an entirely new musical without any Broadway template, but those who aren’t so impressed with the movie probably won’t give it extra credit for that. Truthfully, the biggest reason “Wicked” could become a threat to “Emilia Perez” for the last Adapted slot is because there really aren’t many other options left. In this thin year for the category, the only other possibilities are very fragile at best right now.
“The Room Next Door” could slip in on the strength of Pedro Almodovar’s name and a possible Best Picture nomination, yet his first English-language screenplay had its share of critics even at Venice. “The Piano Lesson” and “Queer” might be dead in the water for anything other than just one acting nomination by voting time, and “The Wild Robot” and “Inside Out 2” both have mountains of past bias against animated films in this category to get through. “Hit Man” could have a shot, if only as a way to get co-writer Glen Powell on the Oscar red carpet, and “A Complete Unknown” would need to become a very safe Best Picture nominee to overperform here.
With these films being what remains of the Best Adapted Screenplay bubble, it is very easy to picture all of them fading here by nomination time. If “Wicked” has the most forward momentum among them by then, in the box office and otherwise, it could surge past them to make the fight for the last slot one big musical showdown with “Emilia Perez.” Of course, even in that scenario, “Emilia Perez” would still be the odds-on favorite anyway, with its international voter advantage and likely bigger nomination package overall. But if, on the off chance, “Wicked” overcomes that anyway – then in all honesty, nothing else the rest of the way would be more difficult to pull off.
Compared to overcoming “Emilia Perez” in Adapted and defying the longtime bias against musicals in Screenplay, everything else “Wicked” would need to do to win Best Picture is far easier. If it’s already strong enough to do that, then it’s a lot easier to assume it could keep surging during the start of industry voting – enough maybe to steal a PGA win like “Green Book” and “CODA” did during their late surges, and also perhaps to take SAG Ensemble like “CODA” did. And as noted above, all it really needs for a Best Picture win package is Best Supporting Actress and at least two tech wins, all of which would not take a whole lot to pull off either.
Still, there is easily a world where “Wicked” has those tech wins and a win for Grande but doesn’t come close to winning Best Picture anyway. After all, the likes of “Les Miserables,” “West Side Story,” “Dreamgirls,” “La La Land” and every other awards season musical after “Chicago” fell short, even with acting wins and/or tech wins. Either way, a musical winning Best Picture, especially a “Part One” musical like “Wicked,” would be a major modern-day, stat-breaking winner.
Nonetheless, that is nothing compared to the stat-breaking a Best Picture-winning musical without a Screenplay nomination would do. For all the stats that have already been broken in the expanded ballot era, this one really does seem like a step too far. In that context, any actual Best Picture win campaign for “Wicked” is useless without a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination under its belt to at least make all its other stat-breaking more manageable.
At the moment, even with all the momentum after its massive opening and early conversion of skeptics, it still seems way too much to ask that “Wicked” could pull an upset and be a Best Adapted Screenplay nominee, let alone a Best Picture winner. Even so, if it could defy those odds for that unlikely nomination – a nomination every Best Picture winner but one needed in the last 58 years – then it would no longer be a fringe or filler Best Picture nominee. And from that point on, everything else it needs to win would get much easier from there. Yet for “Wicked” to make this happen, no other nomination but Adapted – not Director, not Actress, and not any tech category – must be its top if not only priority.
So what do you think? Will “Wicked” receive an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay? If so, do you think it will be a serious threat to win Best Picture? Please let us know in the comments below or on Next Best Picture’s X account, and be sure to check out Next Best Picture’s latest Oscar predictions here.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
