The whimsy, color, and fun of Dr. Seuss’s storybooks have become staple titles for young readers. Among his many publications, one book in particular has also become popular across ages, offering kernels of life wisdom that remain valuable and resonant all throughout our lives, especially in times of change. This is Oh, the Places You’ll Go, Seuss’s final publication, which was released a year before his death in 1991. Over thirty years later, the story’s legacy continues to grow with the announcement of a feature film adapted from the book. Though the film was announced in early 2025, recent news of new cast members on board continues to bring the vision into greater clarity.
The Places We’ll Go: Characters To See Ourselves in
While the illustrations that accompany Oh, the Places You’ll Go picture a single boy making his way through terrains of “wide open air” and “weirdish wild space,” Seuss’s story offers encouragement to all readers. In explaining life’s ups and downs, from soaring to slumping, he writes to an unnamed “you” in what feels like a personal address. In its film adaptation, actors Josh Gad and Ariana Grande have been named as voices to embody these characters we so easily relate to. While the specifics of their roles are yet to be revealed, the two are slated to be among the leading voice cast of the film.
Grande and Gad at Work
This Oh, the Places You’ll Go film is one among several up-and-coming projects for both Gad and Grande. For Grande, this includes Wicked: For Good, the much-anticipated sequel to the adaptation of the first half of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West that was released in November 2024. Additionally, a role for the popstar in Meet the Parents 4 has recently been announced. Work still to hit theaters for Gad includes a handful of other voice roles, as he is reprising roles in both the Frozen and Angry Birds series for the third installment of each.
Though Oh, the Places You’ll Go will be Grande’s first voice acting role in over a decade, she’s not inexperienced in the medium, having shown her chops in older projects including the English dub of the 2011 feature film Snowflake, the White Gorilla, and a two-year stint as the voice of Princess Diaspro in the Winx Club revival series.
Oh, the Details to Know
Co-leading the filmic interpretation of Seuss’s story will be Jon M. Chu, making it his third project directing Grande after his work on both halves of the Wicked duology. Also at the helm of direction will be Jill Culton, an animator and storyboard artist as well as director and screenwriter. Her credits in animation and storyboarding include films such as Monsters Inc., Toy Story, and A Bug’s Life, and her directorial debut came with the 2006 feature Open Season.
In the few other known roles thus far, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, a duo also known for work on La La Land and The Greatest Showman, are slated to compose the film’s original songs, and J.J. Abrams and Gregg Taylor will produce. Production as a whole will take place under Warner Bros studios, and the film is set to release in IMAX on May 17th, 2028.
Through the years since Seuss published his first book in 1937, his classic childhood characters have evolved into a universe of their own. In this latest addition transformation of the cartoonist’s creations, Ariana Grande and Josh Gad are promising picks to carry on the wonder and magic of those places you will go.
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