Michelle Yeoh is Playing Madame Morrible in the ‘Wicked’ Movies

(L to R) Michelle Yeoh as Professor Anemone in 'The School For Good And Evil.' Photo: Helen Sloan / Netflix © 2022.

Director Jon M. Chu clearly enjoyed working with Michelle Yeoh on ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, as he’s planning to get the band back together.

But perhaps that should be orchestra, as Yeoh is joining the cast of Chu’s two movies based on the Broadway musical ‘Wicked’.

The story, which views the characters and story of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ through a new perspective, originated with Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel.

Maguire’s book, and the stage show created by writer Winnie Holzman and composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz that adapts it, takes place before and during the time Dorothy lands in Oz. The main focus is on young witches Galinda (who will go on to be known as Glinda the Good) and Elphaba, fated to be called the Wicked Witch of the West.

Elphaba comes from a troubled home and, with her deep green complexion is treated as something of an outsider at Shiz University. Yet she forms an unlikely – and, initially, unwilling – friendship with Galinda, the most popular girl at the college.

Together, they chart very different journeys through the land of Oz, which is changing all around them. Animals, once sentient and important members of society, are reduced to basic creatures. The small-statured Munchkins are steadily being more oppressed.

'Wicked' Broadway Musical Poster.

Galinda rises in popularity and political influence, but Elphaba, who speaks out against what is happening, is shunned and, when she shows her true magical powers, hated.

Ariana Grande is playing Glinda, while Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba. ‘Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey, meanwhile, will be Fieryo. The Big Man on campus at Shiz, he’s a party animal who prefers having a good time to thinking and gets engaged to Glinda. But his true feelings for Elphaba surface and he helps her to escape, ending up captured by the Wizard's guards, and tortured. A spell Elphaba casts to try to save him instead—spoiler alert!—transforms him into the scarecrow we know from the movie.

More recently, Jeff Goldblum entered talks to play the Wizard who (spoiler alert again if you haven’t seen the stage show, read the book or seen the movie is revealed to be Oscar Zoroaster Diggs, a very human conman who uses trickery and machinery to rule the city of Oz and control people. While it felt like a perfect match, he has yet to lock in a deal. And more recently, Broadway veteran Ethan Slater won the role of Boq, who falls for Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose.

Variety reports that Yeoh will play Madame Morrible, the headmistress of Crage Hall at Shiz University, who hitches her wagon to Glinda when the young witch becomes more politically powerful.

It’s been a good year for Yeoh, especially thanks to the awards attention she’s getting for her performance in ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’.

The two ‘Wicked’ movies are currently scheduled to land in theaters around Christmas in 2024 and 2025.

Michelle Yeoh as Scian in Netflix's '‘The Witcher: Blood Origin.'