Ariana Grande, Josh Gad Will Lead Oh, the Places You’ll Go Animated Movie Musical
The upcoming film will feature songs by EGOT winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
Ariana Grande and Josh Gad
Dr. Seuss classic Oh, The Places You’ll Go is coming to the big screen, and with some Broadway talent along for the ride. According to Variety, the movie is due to hit movie theatres March 17, 2028, and feature songs by EGOT-winning Dear Evan Hansen writers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
But that’s not all. Leading the voice cast will be Wicked film star and Broadway alum Ariana Grande, opposite fellow Broadway favorite Josh Gad. Leading the project are directors Jon M. Chu (Wicked, In the Heights) and Jill Culton.
But we’ll have to wait for pretty much everything other than that. The Dr. Seuss book is more of a collection of inspirational phrases than a narrative story, and studio Warner Bros. is staying tight-lipped about the plot that will bring the beloved title to the big screen. There’s also lots more casting to be announced.
Grande teased the casting with an Instagram post of her and Gad from inside the recording studio.
The work of writer and illustrator Dr. Seuss is no stranger to the world of musical theatre, perhaps most famously via Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s 2000 Broadway musical Seussical, which is a mash-up of several of his stories and characters. The first Seuss screen outing was a musical, too, the ill-fated now-cult hit original movie musical The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, with music by Frederick Hollander and lyrics by Seuss himself, his only direct involvement with a musical version of his work. Several of the animated versions of his stories have also incorporated songs, perhaps most famously The Grinch Who Stole Christmas‘ “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”
Chu seems to have become Hollywood’s go-to director for movie musicals, riding high on the wild and historic success of the two-part screen version of Broadway’s Wicked (starring Grande as Glinda). He’d already dipped his toe into the arena with his 2021 screen version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning In the Heights, and a new film version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and a Britney Spears biopic are both reportedly in his current development portfolio.
Gad burst onto the scene creating the role of Elder Cunningham in the original Broadway cast of The Book of Mormon, cementing his movie musical immortality voicing snowman Olaf in 2013’s Frozen. He made a Broadway return in Gutenberg! The Musical! in 2023.