Ariana Grande, who stars as Glinda in Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked,” reportedly didn’t want to perform a new version of “Popular” in the musical film. Stephen Schwartz — the composer and lyricist of the original Broadway musical as well as the movie of the same name — recently told the Los Angeles Times that he and his music team considered refreshing the “rhythm” of the number in the spirit of “being open to new things” for the film.

Meanwhile, fans have been in a frenzy over rumors that Grande was paid $15 million to star as Glinda the Good Witch in the two-part movie musical, while Erivo, 37, only got $1 million to play Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

There’s a subplot that has nothing to do with the movie that has popped up now that Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater star in it — back in 2023, there were rumblings that they were dating, which got very messy. And just recently, people noted their PDA on the red carpet at the New York premiere of the movie.