G.O.A.T. Peter Dinklage to play g-o-a-t in the Wicked movies
Dinklage's casting, as talking goat Dr. Dillamond, was announced at Wicked's presentation at CinemaCon today
Jon M. Chu’s two-part Wicked film adaptation wasn’t exactly lacking for star power in the first place, what with Cynthia Erivo and Ariane Grande in its biggest roles, and back-up coming from the likes of Michelle Yeoh, Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey, and Jeff Goldblum. (The latter as the not-as-wonderful-as-advertised Wizard Of Oz.) Still, the film’s producers at Universal clearly felt that the musical adaptation—the first part of which arrives in theaters this November—could use just a pinch more of that big celebrity magic, revealing at CinemaCon today that Peter Dinklage has also joined the movie’s cast.
Specifically, Dinklage has been announced as the performer for Dr. Dillamond, the sympathetic talking goat who serves as a mentor to Erivo’s Elphaba, and who gets some of the most horrific treatment dealt out to anybody in both Greg Maguire’s original novel, and the massively successful musical built from it. Suffice it to say, then, that Dinklage is in for some fairly harrowing voice work in the part. The Game Of Thrones star comes to the project after a fairly busy 2023, with his most recent appearance being a co-starring role in Hunger Games prequel The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes.
Wicked was the centerpiece of Universal’s presentation at CinemaCon, with Grande and Erivo taking the stage together to hold hands and show off footage from Chu’s film. The director himself was also in attendance (along with Goldblum, Bailey, and Yeoh), telling the audience that, “We dreamed very, very, very big for Wicked. We wanted to honor the source material. But we also wanted to create a new world of its own — a magical land full of sights and sounds that will astonish.”
The first part of Wicked is scheduled for a November 27, 2024 release date; it’s follow-up will arrive on Christmas Day in 2025.