Why Dorothy Won’t Be Wearing Ruby Slippers In Wicked

3 days ago

A history of cinema's favourite pumps

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When it comes to defining Hollywood history, Dorothy’s ruby slippers claim a top spot as one of the most memorable items in cinema. So it’s no surprise that, on finding out her slippers were not red but in fact silver in Jon M. Chu’s recent box office hit Wicked, we had questions. And lots of them. Why does Dorothy not wear ruby slippers in Wicked? Let’s find out.

The Story Behind Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers

Why Are Dorothy’s Shoes Silver In Wicked?

In both the Wicked film and stage show, creators chose to keep Dorothy’s shoes silver to remain true to L. Frank Baum’s original novel. ‘They’re not ruby,’ confirmed Wicked costume designer Paul Tazewell, in an interview with People. ‘In the book, they were these odd little silver boots.’

In the new film, the slippers are silver and a Thropp family heirloom. They make their first appearance on the feet of Nessarose, who is gifted them by her and Elphaba’s father on starting at Shiz University. In the story, it’s mentioned that they once belonged to the Thropp sisters’ mother.

But could there be another reason the shoes weren’t a dazzling shade of red? Some fans have suggested that the absence of the ruby slippers comes down to a dispute over legal rights. The ruby slippers were created by MGM, who produced the first Wizard of Oz film – and now, the rights to many of MGM’s classic films are owned by Warner Bros. The new Wicked movies are a Universal property, which means that the team might have had limitations on what they could use.

Director Jon M. Chu previously told Variety that they had ‘boundaries of what we could reference or not’, which suggests there could have been copyright limitations. But Chu has also since stated that the ruby slippers were never a priority.

And despite the debate, Wicked still paid homage to the original ruby slippers. Eagle-eyed fans will have noticed that the shoes, which are handed over in a case to Nessarose, have a special moment onscreen beyond dramatic flourish. When the case is opened, it’s to reveal the silver slippers sat on a red pedestal lined with what look like, you guessed it, rubies. Sneaky. (You can catch the clip in the trailer above.)

Why Did She Wear Ruby Slippers In The Wizard Of Oz?

When MGM first began work on 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, they did stick to the source material and use silver slippers. But when production made the switch to Technicolour (which had been perfected for cinema just a few years prior), the studio decided to switch to red so that the colour would stand out better against the backdrop of a yellow brick road. It’s said that the red sequined shoes were a better fit for this style of filming, as they highlighted the vivid colour of the three-strip Technicolor film stock.

Costume designer Gilbert Adrian set to work creating the shoes, settling on a pair of pumps decorated with approximately 2,300 red sequins per shoe. And that was that; Dorothy’s ruby slippers stepped into cinematic history.

Where Are The Ruby Slippers Now?

At least six or seven pairs of the MGM ruby slippers were supposedly made, although producer Mervyn LeRoy once estimated there to be as many as 10 pairs. Regardless, only four pairs that were used in the film have been accounted for.

The first belongs to a private collector, the second and third to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the fourth to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota (although not for long).

The last pair has quite a storied past – other than being a costume staple in The Wizard of Oz. The slippers were on display in the Judy Garland Museum up until 2005, when a burglar broke in and took off with them. They weren’t recovered for several years, when a sting operation by the FBI in 2018 revealed a local man had been behind the theft. The shoes were returned to the Judy Garland Museum in early 2024, but it wasn’t long before their owner, collector Michael Shaw, decided to put them up for auction.

They sold for $28 million through Heritage Auctions on 7 December 2024, breaking the record for the most expensive piece of move memorabilia ever sold. The title had previously been held by the white dress Marilyn Monroe wore while standing on a windy subway grate in The Seven Year Itch, which sold at auction for $5.52 million in 2011. The buyer remains anonymous.

Who Will Play Dorothy In Wicked Part Two?

The team behind the Wicked franchise have kept the identity of Dorothy’s actor under wraps, and it’s not looking like they’ll spill anytime soon.

While not a full character in the stage production – we only get glimpses of her shadow or snippets of her voice – there’s plenty of space for Dorothy’s story to unfold in Wicked Part Two. Although whether that will happen remains a mystery.

Chu emphasised in an interview with Variety that, while Dorothy might be there, she won’t necessarily be a focal point of the film. ‘In the show, Dorothy is around,’ he said. ‘They [the two stories] have to intersect, and you can only tease it so much. I won’t say whether she’s a character, necessarily, in movie two. There’s a part of me that wants everyone’s Dorothy to be the whatever Dorothy they want. And yet, there is interaction and some crossover. So I’ll leave that up to Part Two.’

Instead, the spotlight will stay firmly on Elphaba and Glinda – and the world they inhabit. ‘The Wizard of Oz is potentially a dream. It’s a world where there are no real stakes,’ explained Chu. ‘Knowing that Elphaba and Glinda live in a world of real stakes, we had to reestablish with the audience that this was real.

‘So we dropped everyone into the crime scene, maybe the most famous crime scene ever in cinema and literature, of the iconic hat in the puddle. There are all these little clues before we see the full landscape of Oz. It’s this living, breathing place with real cultures, so we immediately establish this is not a dream world. After we go somewhere over the rainbow, we see that those four iconic characters exist in this real world. And we will revisit those characters in movie two.’