Cynthia Erivo is sounding off about a new movie poster for her upcoming film “Wicked,” but fans are concerned she’s making more out of the situation than she ought to.
Earlier this month, Universal Pictures dropped the official poster for the film, which featured Erivo’s character Elphaba wearing green lipstick and looking directly into the camera as her costar Ariana Grande’s character Glinda whispers in her ear. The official art for the original Broadway musical of the same name shows Elphaba wearing red lipstick and a hat that covers most of her face.
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In an attempt to create a poster that matched the Broadway version, a fan took the official Universal one, altered it and posted it on social media. As it began to circulate, however, Erivo got wind of it and took to her Instagram story on Wednesday to express her displeasure, calling it “offensive” and degrading.
“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful AI of us fighting, equal to people posing the question “is your ***** green,’” Erivo wrote, referencing another popular AI video that shows her and Grande’s characters fighting in her since-expired post captured by NBC News. “None of this is funny. None of this is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us. The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION I am a real life human being, who chose to to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer ...because, without words we communicate with our eyes.”
She continued: “Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”
While Erivo may have been hurt, in an interesting turn of events, fans of the movie subsequently hopped on social media to call her out for making a mountain out of a molehill.
“Real bway stans have known that cynthia erivo is both insanely talented and SOOOOO insufferable. once she went off on a whole tangent about how she’s too good to ever be an ensemble member because someone FANCASTED her as a muse in a pretend hercules live action,” wrote one user on X/Twitter.
“[I] think Cynthia Erivo is a once-in-a-generation talent. I also think she needs to have a seat and calm the fuck down. She is playing a green person in a fantasy movie. It ain’t that serious,” said another.
“Cynthia Erivo’s ability to kill the vibe must be studied. Memes are just as much a part of building the hype for a movie, as the cast doing press tours. BARBENHEIMER, for example, was 100% an internet invention. Memes built these blockbuster numbers. Nobody was erasing you,” another wrote.
“Cynthia Erivo is out of her mind. NO ONE was erasing her. Fans of the Broadway show love the original poster and were expecting to see the original poster reproduced for the movie,” another commented.
“Wicked” hits theaters Nov. 22, 2024.
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