Is it just us, or is the Wicked movie starting to look pretty good?

“This is a very cinematic show. This should be on the big screen,” director John M. Chu recalls thinking after the first time he saw Wicked. It’s true he was handed all the ingredients for success with the theatrical version: the Broadway show is colorful, comedic, dramatic, and diva-focused, with big set pieces, stunt work, and show-stopping tunes. But fans have approached this production with caution. Why are they splitting the movie into two films, some asked, especially when Wicked’s second act is narratively weaker than the first? Are the actors too old to play “college students”? A teaser released in February was met with mixed reactions, some skeptical of the muted colors, some rolling their eyes at the recent trend of trailers trying to hide that a musical is a musical. (We don’t actually see any singing or dancing in that teaser, just hear some disembodied vocals.) These are small qualms, perhaps, but enough to give real Wicked-heads pause.

Well, a new featurette for the film—released ahead of the first full trailer, due Wednesday—might set some of those fans’ minds at ease. The sets look massive and magical. There appears to be a lot of practical effects work, as evidenced by a snippet of Elphaba’s (Cynthia Erivo) sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) being elevated into the air on her wheelchair by wires. And the dancing! There’s a lot of big, choreographed moments with lots of dancers—we only get to see the behind-the-scenes, but it’s certainly promising.

Of course it’s not a shock that the film would look good, given Chu’s track record with 2021’s In The Heights, but Wicked is way bigger in scale, with the fantastical fantasy setting. It’s also bigger in scope—Wicked is one of the top-grossing Broadway musicals of all time, so there are way more eyes on this one. In The Heights also went straight to streaming at the same time as theatrical, so the box office performance was dicey. With Wicked, Universal is clearly banking on name recognition (of the show and its stars, namely Ariana Grande) to make this two-part movie a holiday hit, given the major, early PR push the studio has put behind this movie.

There’s never been any doubt that everyone involved with the Wicked film cares a lot about the show, and that’s reiterated in the featurette, appropriately titled “A Passion Project.” John M. Chu says it’s the one movie he always told people he wanted to direct; Erivo says she treated herself to see the stage version on her 25th birthday, and weeps with gratitude to be part of such a huge project. Grande has long been known as the world’s preeminent Wicked fan, emphasized by a clip of a years-old interview in which she affirms she’d love to play Galinda. Passion alone can’t always sell a project, especially given the mixed record of musicals at the box office in the last decade-plus. But done right, Wicked could mark a major musical success. Hopefully, the positive signs in this featurette prove correct on the big screen.