It took director Jon M. Chu more than five years to bring the hit Broadway musical “Wicked” to the big screen. Now that both installments are complete, he reflects on the project’s epic scope.
“This is a movie for me,” Chu told Variety on the next episode of the Awards Circuit podcast, which was recorded at the 13th Middleburg Film Festival last weekend. “When we thought about all the arcs, we were thinking of it as one giant chunk.”
The same goes for this “Part 1” of Chu’s extensive and in-depth interview about the musical that has consumed the past five years of his life. He started the project as a father of two and ended it as a father of five. In fact, he was unable to attend because his fifth child was born the day “Wicked” premiered.
Mr Chu’s claims place him firmly on one side of a debate that has long intrigued moviegoers, particularly the debate surrounding Peter Jackson’s 2001-2003 Lord of the Rings trilogy. Audiences have debated whether these films should be considered three separate films or one single cinematic production. Jackson himself describes the trilogy as one story told across three films shot simultaneously in a single production period.
Now, Chu finds himself in similar territory, crafting an epic musical in two parts, seeing them as inseparable halves of a whole.
“Wicked,” Cynthia Erivo (greenface), director Jon M. Chu (center), and Ariana Grande (right) on set, 2024. ph: Giles Keate /© Universal Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection
©Universal/Courtesy of Everett Collection
The first film, “Wicked,” was released in 2024 and introduced audiences to Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba and Ariana Grande’s Glinda. The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. However, Chu was not among the five nominees for Best Director, making him one of only two directors in history to receive 10 nominations without being nominated as a director. The other one is Denis Villeneuve from “Dune” (2021).
The long-awaited sequel, “Wicked: For Good,” due in theaters in November, completes a journey that has been living in Chu’s head for years.
“When you live with something for five years or more and you dream about it and then you wake up in front of your nightmares, it’s something you can’t get out of your head,” he says half-jokingly. “We haven’t processed it yet.”
Chu said the process of saying goodbye was unexpectedly emotional.
“Everyone was getting very emotional, but I still couldn’t feel it,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘No, I’ll see you next week.’ But I don’t think there’s anyone in the office right now, so it’s really sad.”
Choo didn’t make the decision to take on Wicked, arguably one of Broadway’s most beloved and well-protected productions, lightly. From the moment Universal announced him as director, there were high expectations.
“Everyone has an opinion about ‘Wicked,'” Chu says with a laugh. “Everyone has an opinion on ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ Everyone has an opinion on all the different versions, from ‘The Wiz’ to the original. Everyone has their own opinion. And thanks to the internet, everyone has a microphone. So I felt Knives Out.”
The pressure exceeded fans’ expectations. The project was greenlit during the COVID-19 pandemic, when musical films were considered risky and romantic comedies were out of favor.
Shannon Finney
“There were times when I’d just get ready and lay on the ground in the kitchen and think, ‘I don’t know. I hope everything goes well,'” he admits. “But I love this job because I get to make a big difference. It’s essentially the only medium where you can get thousands of people together and build a spaceship and take people to another planet.”
For Chu, fear is part of the job.
“If you’re not going to take a giant swing, what are you doing here?” he says. “That’s why I fell in love with movies. You watch ET or Batman or Jaws and you come together and experience something bigger than yourself.”
Chu promises that “Wicked: For Good” is more than just a sequel. This is the culmination of all the emotions that were built in the first movie. “Once you’ve seen ‘Movie 2,’ you’ll never forget it. It’ll always be tied to the experience of Movie 1,” he teases. The director says audiences should expect a deeper, more mature tone that pushes the emotional and visual boundaries of the story.
“It’s the moment when everything we’ve built falls apart: friendships, heartbreak, magic,” Chu explains. “When it comes to the last song, when they sing ‘For Good,’ my heart beats like a freight train. I’ve lived with this story for five years, and it still makes me cry every time.”
Nevertheless, Chu says he is finally ready to close the chapter. “This is a big story for me, but now I can finally let it go.”
