Warning: This article contains spoilers for 2025’s Wicked: For Good.A major part of the story of Wicked: For Good is the messy love triangle between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), Glinda (Ariana Grande), and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), and the co-writer of the movie reveals how a deleted scene would have made it even more complicated. However, Wicked is primarily about Elphaba and Glinda and the ways their friendship is tested.
While Wicked: For Good depicts them on opposite sides of a political conflict, what really puts the Ozian witches at odds with each other is that they both have feelings for Fiyero, a prince and old classmate from their days at Shiz University. As he also does in the Broadway show on which the movies are based, Fiyero arrives at Shiz late and immediately begins a relationship with Glinda.
However, the foundation of this relationship is them being the two most popular, “perfect” people in school, and as Fiyero gets to know Elphaba, she points out that he isn’t happy living the way he has been. Although Fiyero is going through this arc, he stays with Glinda while Elphaba goes on the run, but eventually leaves the Emerald City with Elphaba.
Dana Fox, who co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Winnie Holzman, revealed to Deadline that there was a more romantic scene between Fiyero and Glinda in the sequel that included a kiss, which was ultimately deleted. Mainly, the filmmakers were concerned that the implication that Fiyero did love Glinda romantically made it too wild for him to leave her.
Check out Fox’s comments below:
There was a scene between Fiyero and Glinda that we cut in which they kissed; it was romantic and beautiful, but a little too passionate. Seeing that made it too hard to watch him make the choice he makes to be with Elphaba and made it too hard to make it OK that Elphaba ran off with him. It was too real that he and Glinda were actually feeling something together.
It was like a feeling that he really did love her, which he does care about Glinda a lot, don’t get me wrong. But he likes her in a different way. But this scene was too romantic, so it was like, “Oh, we can’t know that because then our brains will explode when he doesn’t choose her in the end. And then we’ll hate Elphaba, Glinda and Fiyero.” So, I think it was a good cut because it was too adorable that you simply couldn’t handle it.
Some fans might have argued that the scene would have helped justify Fiyero staying in a relationship with Glinda for so long and agreeing to marry her. But Fox emphasizes: “I don’t think there’s anything that I wish we hadn’t cut because everything we cut, I felt we cut for exactly the right reasons.” Fox also says she doesn’t know if it will be released with other deleted scenes.
The scene still could have been a problem if, rather than illustrating how Fiyero does care for Glinda but is acting on that in the wrong way, it came across as genuinely romantic, which Fox says it did. They ultimately deleted the moment because it was essential that all the main characters remain likable in the eyes of the audience, resulting in what is seen in the movie.
But the very nature of Wicked‘s complicated love triangle meant that someone was always going to end up unhappy, and Wicked: For Good focuses on how Elphaba and Glinda’s relationship endures it. Wicked: For Good, directed by Jon M. Chu and also starring Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Bowen Yang, and Bronwyn James, is in theaters now.
- Release Date
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November 21, 2025
- Runtime
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137 Minutes
- Director
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Jon M. Chu
- Writers
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Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox, Gregory Maguire
- Producers
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Marc Platt, David Stone