Wicked: For Good will feature new original songs for Ariana Grande’s Glinda and Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba, which will expand their stories beyond their original stage play narratives, director Jon M. Chu said this morning during a session at Deadline’s Contenders London.
Speaking with Deadline’s Baz Bamigboye, Chu said he remembered watching one of the first performances of the original Wicked stage play and always preferred the play’s second half.
“I saw the show before everyone on Broadway, so I was sort of patient zero. I remember what it felt like to watch this new Stephen Schwartz musical. And I thought the second half was the reason to be,” Chu said.
“You get all this set up and then she breaks out. And that’s the fairytale side. The second half is their adult selves looking back at their dreams and their hopes and what they thought the world was and their stories, and all of it is shattered.”
To bring the weight of these decisions to a second film, Chu said he and his collaborators expanded several parts of the original production, including adding new songs.
“For me, what I think the second half needed was to know more about these individual women’s experiences,” he said. “How lonely is it when you make a choice like that and you have to stand up to power and you feel like you’re the only one doing it. That’s a very heavy, lonely experience… And what happens when you’re someone like Glinda who has this bubble of protection, where you don’t ever have to deal with the truth if you don’t want to. Are you able to pop your bubble of privilege? To me, those were the bigger questions of the Wicked saga.”
Chu added: “We needed more songs, because we needed more avenues into that mindset. Musicals are great because it’s not about being bigger, it’s about going deeper into these characters and minds and what they’re going through. So we have new songs that allow us to witness how they go through these thoughts, and the audience can experience.”
Earlier this week, we reported that Wicked: For Good became Fandango‘s best first-day ticket pre-seller of 2025, surpassing Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, and Superman.
Wicked: For Good now ranks among Fandango’s top 10 best all-time first-day ticket pre-sellers, which includes blockbusters like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour. Additionally, the film is the best PG-rated first-day ticket pre-seller of all time on the platform, surpassing Frozen, The Lion King, and K-Pop Demon Hunters: Sing-Along Event. The first Wicked also opened the weekend before Thanksgiving a year ago and posted the best opening ever for a feature take of a Broadway musical ($112.5M) in addition to becoming the highest-grossing big-screen version of the Great White Way showstopper at $473.2M domestic and $756.4M worldwide.
‘Wicked: For Good’ hits cinemas on November 21.
The post Jon M. Chu Talks Expanding Glinda & Elphaba’s Stories With New Songs In ‘Wicked: For Good’ — Contenders London appeared first on Deadline.
