‘Wicked: For Good’ First Look: Toto, We’re Not In Shiz Anymore

Ozians, it’s almost time to follow the yellow brick road again. Wicked: For Good—the second film adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical, once again starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande—soars into theaters on November 21, 2025. And Vanity Fair has your exclusive first look at all things Elphaba and Glinda ahead of the trailer’s release.

“I can’t believe we’re here. That’s crazy to me,” says Jon M. Chu, logging onto Zoom as “Chutanium 2.0.” The Wicked director can hardly contain his excitement. “What’s nice about movie two is it’s so different from movie one that it doesn’t feel like we’re talking about what you just saw. It’s the new chapter.”

Chu knows he’s got some big ruby slippers to fill. Inspired by the musical of the same name, which was based in turn on the novel by Gregory Maguire, the first Wicked film was both a critical darling and a commercial behemoth. It quickly became the highest-grossing movie musical of all time, scoring 10 Oscar nominations including nods for both Grande and Erivo. It ultimately took home Oscars for costume and production design, as well as a Golden Globe for cinematic and box office achievement.

“I think we always had the bar very high for us,” Chu says. “Thank God, because the alternative universe was not a fun one to be living in. I’m glad I’m in this multi-verse.”

While Wicked tackled act one of the Broadway musical, Wicked: For Good takes on the second act, which covers a time years after Elphaba and Glinda decide to part ways. Elphaba, now an enemy of the state of Oz, has taken to the western skies and the woods, while Glinda has become a public figure controlled by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh).

“Our heart was broken when Glinda can’t make the choice that we want her to so badly at the end of movie one, and it feels empowering for Elphaba to fly away from society,” Chu says. “In movie two, we get to see the consequences of those choices. The temperature is up.”

Although For Good finds the witches in a very different stage of life, Chu shot both part one and part two simultaneously in London. “A lot of movie two was shot before some of the stuff in movie one,” Chu says. This forced Erivo and Grande to do some serious work plotting out the time jumps. “We had big boards with what timeline we’d be in, and they had notes all over their script so we could all be in sync of where we’re at,” he says. Rather than get whiplash, the stars handled the time shifts like the pros they are. Chu likens the process of editing For Good to delving into a time capsule, and hints that some aspects of the sequel will shed light on choices made in part one.

“Things that you may have noticed in movie one, you’ll see why those things are there,” he says. “It is designed to be seen big and felt deeply.”

Finding actors who could handle all of Wicked’s sprawling story was paramount for Chu. “Casting-wise, we had to have people who could handle both sides of Galinda, both sides of Elphaba,” he says. “You can do the fun Shiz version of these characters, but can you go to the next level? Can you land the plane? This plane is big, and the world is big.”

In other words, Toto, we’re not at Shiz anymore. Or as Chu puts it: “Kids gonna grow up.”

Of course, part of the magic of Wicked is Stephen Schwartz’s indelible score. The first act has many of the musical’s most “Popular” songs— including “Defying Gravity,” “What Is This Feeling,” and “The Wizard and I”—but Chu has a message for those less familiar with the second half of the score: “There are some bangers.”

He name-checks the act II opener “Thank Goodness” and “For Good,” which gives part two its name. “‘No Good Deed’ is just a fucking banger,” he adds, blushing at his own foul language. “I don’t even know how to use safe words for that. Cynthia on that thing is just ridiculous. And ‘As Long as You’re Mine’—it’s just gorgeous.”

And a few surprises are also in store. “I think it’s been reported we have two new songs,” he says. (Oh, yes, it has.) But Chu stumbles a bit trying to describe those tunes, written by original Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, without giving too much away. “They’re great additions to this movie. They were necessary in this movie to help tell the story,” he says finally. “To have Stephen Schwartz back behind the keys… it’s pretty extraordinary to watch him work.”

Chu also gave VF more details about the fateful night that he, Erivo, Grande, and Schwartz met for the first time after the two stars were cast. “When we first met, the girls came to my house in person and sang ‘For Good’ on my piano,” he says. “The other half of the story that we never tell is that Stephen played their songs for them for the first time there as well.” (Yes, each witch will receive her own new number—”I think I can say that,” says Chu.) “He’s sitting there, and he is like, ‘Would you guys like to hear the songs I’m thinking of for you?’ And they were like, ‘Yes, please.’”

In the trailer, you can hear Erivo trill a snippet of a melody that will be thrillingly unfamiliar to any Wicked superfan. Might it come from one of the new songs? Chu won’t say. In the trailer, we also see Grande’s Glinda in a white wedding dress, potentially walking down the aisle to meet Jonathan Bailey’s Winkie prince, Fiyero—something that never happens in the stage play. (Remember: Glinda calls Fiyero her “fiancé” during “Thank Goodness”—not her husband.) Is a wedding in store for Grande’s character?

“It’s life or death for all of them, so a wedding seemed appropriate,” Chu says. He also hints at Glinda’s relationship with Fiyero and friendship with Elphaba, and how a wedding might up the ante for all parties involved. “It’s harder to forgive certain things in certain scenarios,” he says. “It makes it more complicated.”

And then there’s Elphaba. The trailer pictures her in the forest, casting spells. “I think anyone who knows the second act of the show wants a bit more of what Elphaba has been through,” Chu says. “It felt right to see what it feels like to lead that life, to go into ‘No Good Deed’ and decide, ‘You know what? If they want me to be wicked, I will be wicked.’ What kind of decisions does she make when she’s not within the Emerald City, or participating in society as usual? We get to see her rebel base. We go there.”

Oh, and if you liked Elphaba’s flying during “Defying Gravity,” hold on to your sharp black hat. “If you think Elphaba flew in movie one, in movie two, she flies,” he says.

Another major character also arrives: Dorothy Gale. In the stage play, Dorothy is only seen as a shadow behind a scrim, but in the trailer we see the girl and her crew walking down the yellow brick road and approaching the wonderful wizard of Oz. “That intersection is the place that we were first introduced into Oz,” Chu says of Dorothy, rumored to be played by newcomer Alisha Weir. “We tread lightly, but try to make more sense of how it impacts our girls and our characters than maybe the show does.” In case change makes you nervous, Chu adds some reassurance: “We’re delicate. We’re delicate. We’re delicate.”

Ultimately, Wicked isn’t about Dorothy—it’s about the enduring friendship of Elphaba and Glinda and how it shifts and changes over time. “I think the meat of what Wicked is all about happens in movie two. This is why this story exists,” Chu says. “This is where our childhood dreams collide with our adult selves.”

A few months remain before we reach the other side of the rainbow. That’s fine by Chu, who shares that he’s still doing “little tweaks here and there” on Wicked: For Good. “We’re almost there. We’re inches away,” he says. “I have a couple choices of things to flip around in the timeline. I can’t quite tell… They’re trying to rip the movie away from me right as we speak. I will not let it go until they rip it out of my hands.”

With the success of Wicked, Chu is more aware than ever that his work on part two is under a microscope. “What I’ve learned is that people are paying attention to every frame, and we paid attention to every frame,” he says. “Usually when you do a movie, people don’t pay attention as much as you want them to. Thank God people care. The worst is when they don’t care about what you’re doing.”

Although he appreciates all the attention to detail, this time, he’s working overtime not to give his critics any ammo. “Everybody, time to step your game up,” he says of Wicked: For Good. “When we’re in VFX reviews, I’m like, ‘Guys, this is going to be a meme. So if you’re not proud of this and you don’t want to see this repeated a thousand times in your feed, then just get it right.’ It allows us to all push ourselves again and not rest on our laurels.”

While he’s in the editing bay, the ladies have a press tour to embark upon. From “holding space” to their triumphant performance opening the 2025 Oscars, Erivo and Grande took the culture by storm last fall. This time, they’ll be going even bigger with a live concert of Wicked songs airing on NBC, which Chu believes will be a “history-making event.” And in the meantime, the first movie will be returning to theaters in limited release this summer, for all those who can’t wait till November.

“We want to finish this story in the way that this beautiful memory of Wicked can actually come full circle and can be with you for the rest of your life,” he says. “We want you to look at both movies in the end, and feel like it was one all along.”

As his time in Oz winds down, Chu can’t help but reflect on how it’s changed all of their lives. “We’re different people. I’ve had three kids,” he says, since beginning his work on Wicked. “The movie that we could have screwed up very quickly became a part of people’s hearts, and they became a part of ours.”