Insiders Say Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo Could Be Headed for Oscar Gold — Here’s Why Wicked: For Good Might Dominate Awards Season
Hollywood loves a comeback, a surprise, a cultural tidal wave — but every now and then, it loves something even rarer: inevitability. That’s the energy swirling around Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo as Wicked: For Good storms into awards season. The sequel to last year’s blockbuster musical hasn’t just thrilled audiences or demolished box-office expectations. It has awakened a new conversation, one that insiders are now having with increasing seriousness — could both stars win Oscars this time?
The anticipation didn’t appear out of thin air. When Wicked premiered in 2024, it immediately became a global cinematic event, one of the few movie musicals in recent decades to fully ignite mainstream excitement. Audiences praised not only the visual spectacle, production design, choreography, and musical numbers but the film’s emotional resonance — and the acting. By the time awards season rolled around, that praise had materialized into confirmation: Cynthia Erivo earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress as Elphaba, and Ariana Grande received her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress as Glinda. Though neither won, their nominations alone stunned skeptics who once doubted a Broadway adaptation could break into Hollywood’s most selective club.
The sequel arrives with even more momentum. Wicked: For Good debuted to enormous buzz, passionate fan reactions, enthusiastic critical reviews, and box-office numbers that studios dream about. That combination is significant — not just because the Academy increasingly pays attention to films that shape the cultural moment, but because returns like these signal sustained love, not one-off curiosity. The story now feels too big, too beloved, and too emotionally rooted in audiences’ lives to ignore. The first film may have introduced the cinematic world of Oz — but this one deepens it, complicates it, and heightens the stakes for both Glinda and Elphaba. And that evolution is exactly what Oscar voters often look for.
Award strategists quietly acknowledge that Erivo may have the harder path — not because her performance lacks power, but because the Best Actress category is notoriously competitive and rarely dominated by musical roles. But her portrayal of Elphaba has grown richer, more vulnerable, more conflicted. The sequel puts her character at emotional crossroads that demand nuance, restraint, and vocal ferocity — all traits Erivo has mastered. She moves not just through lyrics or grand monologues, but through silences, eye contact, trembling breaths, and the self-doubt that audiences recognize as human, not mythical. That lived-in quality has prompted early industry voices to describe her performance as “career-defining,” a phrase that tends to linger in Academy circles.
Grande, meanwhile, enters this awards season with a different kind of narrative strength — one rooted in transformation. For years, she was known primarily as a pop superstar with extraordinary vocal range and chart dominance. Her film career was, at best, secondary. But Wicked changed that perception, recasting her as a serious actor capable of balancing comedic timing, emotional truth, physical commitment, character detail, and musical intelligence. The sequel builds on that foundation and pushes her further. Glinda’s arc widens and darkens, revealing insecurities, moral compromises, and a longing for redemption. Grande meets those challenges with unexpected stillness and gravity, proving that her first nomination wasn’t novelty or luck — it was foreshadowing. That consistency has made her one of the early frontrunners in the Best Supporting Actress race, according to insiders already tracking campaign patterns.
Then, there’s the deeper factor, one that analysts love to underestimate: cultural affection. Grande and Erivo are not only respected performers — they are admired, cherished, and rooted into the emotional lives of global audiences. That doesn’t guarantee Oscar wins, but it grants visibility and conversation, two pillars of any successful campaign. They also share something rare in contemporary awards seasons — genuine artistic partnership. Interviews, press events, and red-carpet photographs reveal not competitiveness but mutual admiration. They appear as collaborators, not rivals, and that energy frames them as a pair worth honoring together.
Still, even the strongest contenders face obstacles. Oscar season is unpredictable by nature. Release timing, competing campaigns, studio support, unexpected critical darlings, shifting voter demographics, and global political climates can dramatically alter momentum. Musicals, despite occasional exceptions, remain underrepresented in major acting wins. Sequels, too, must overcome skepticism — the belief that second chapters rarely surpass first ones.
But Wicked: For Good seems to defy those expectations. Instead of resting on the achievements of its predecessor, it expands its thematic reach. The story isn’t just about friendship anymore — it’s about consequence, responsibility, sacrifice, and the emotional cost of power. That darker maturity gives both leads more dramatic room, and Academy voters often reward characters who evolve, struggle, and fracture onscreen.
There’s also undeniable awards infrastructure working behind the scenes. Universal Pictures mounted a sophisticated and effective Oscar campaign for the first film, resulting in multiple nominations across artistic, technical, and performance categories. That institutional experience — combined with the passionate fandom surrounding the franchise — creates fertile ground for an even stronger showing. Most experts believe Wicked: For Good will compete heavily in technical categories like costume design, sound, production design, makeup, hairstyling, visual effects, and original song, which helps keep the film constantly in voters’ peripheral vision. And when a film remains visible, so do its actors.
The Academy has also shifted noticeably in the last decade, both in diversity and international membership. Those adjustments tend to benefit emotionally sweeping films with cross-cultural reach, and Wicked certainly qualifies. Its themes — belonging, transformation, misunderstood identities, the fragility of good intentions — resonate globally. It’s hard to ignore a story that speaks to the human experience while wrapped in emerald-green spectacle.
Awards conversations remain speculative for now, but the buzz has weight behind it. Hollywood publicists, critics’ groups, analysts, guild members, and Oscar bloggers — the people who collectively map the emotional pulse of awards season — are already talking. Not in vague, cautious terms, but with specificity, excitement, and possibility. They believe we may be watching the earliest moments of a historic Oscar run.
But if you ask Grande or Erivo directly, neither seems interested in positioning themselves as frontrunners. They speak instead about gratitude — for the roles, for the collaboration, for the audiences who embraced a world that could have been too whimsical or fantastical for the modern era. That humility, too, resonates with voters. Awards bodies often respond not only to artistic excellence but to narrative sincerity, generosity, and emotional accessibility.
So, can Wicked: For Good earn Oscars for Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo? The answer, at this stage, is neither guaranteed nor far-fetched. It sits in that exciting middle place where art, industry strategy, cultural moment, and audience love intersect. The pieces are there. The performances are there. The momentum is real. And if that momentum carries through winter, Hollywood may soon find itself cheering for two witches who flew higher than the Academy expected.
Until then, the race continues — not with frantic desperation, but with anticipation. Because whether or not Oscar gold ends up in their hands, Grande and Erivo have already achieved something rarer: they’ve made people believe in movie musicals again. And sometimes, belief is how the magic begins.
