Jon M. Chu dropped Defying Gravity from the opening of Wicked: For Good because the director decided “we don’t need to go back” to the first movie.
Jon M. Chu removed Defying Gravity from Wicked: For Good.
The upcoming musical sequel would have started with another rendition of the blockbuster song which concluded 2024’s Wicked, but the 46-year-old director ultimately cut the track following a test screening of Wicked: For Good – deciding “we don’t need to go back” to the first film.
During an interview with Collider, Chu said: “What I had done in that first screening was I dropped us back into Defying Gravity. We ended Defying Gravity again, and we then catapulted in, just to get people back in it.
“What I found out is we don’t need it. We don’t need to go back. I thought people needed to be reminded of the feelings of that relationship [between Elphaba and Glinda] before coming into this relationship, where they’re not together anymore, but after that screening, I was like, ‘Oh, we just want to jump in. People are on it with us.’
“Having Defying Gravity, that sense at the beginning of this movie, doesn’t help us. We lived it. We have been processing that. Now let’s move forward.”
Wicked: For Good – which is based on the second half of the Broadway musical Wicked – follows Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) as their relationship is pushed to its breaking point when the Good Witch is forced to choose between her best friend and the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum).
The film also stars Jonathan Bailey as Prince Fiyero, Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, Ethan Slater as Boq and Colman Domingo as the Cowardly Lion.
Chu teased “the stakes are way higher” in Wicked: For Good, with the movie delving into the complex friendship between Elphaba and Glinda.
He explained: “It’s all about the girls, as they say. As we said to each other over and over, ‘It’s about the girls, stupid.’ These girls, if you thought they were great in movie one, in movie two, they actually get to shatter the dream. They actually get to rebuild these characters.
“They actually get to give them a wickedness and a goodness, and then have to forgive each other and be rebirthed into a new form. To me, this is the reason we made Wicked.
“Of course, there’s bigger action, bigger drama. The stakes are way higher. But at the end of the day, it’s this beautiful story of this friendship, and the things that hold us together as a world, and I think we need that more than ever.”
Chu added he would “absolutely” consider releasing Wicked and Wicked: For Good as a single cinematic experience so audiences could see all of the “really interesting scenes” he was forced to leave out.
The Crazy Rich Asians director said: “I really believe that for both movies, we put in the scenes that needed to be there. Movie one was a little bit harder because we had so many extra scenes, and I needed to hone that thing in. It was a really hard thing to even get.
“I wanted to make it even shorter, and I couldn’t find a way without compromising the feeling of the movie. My goal was a lot shorter, and then two hours and 45 minutes.
“We had to cut out a lot of really interesting scenes, great scenes, that I think you see more of the character, but it just wasn’t worth it in the overall experience of the movie.
“In movie two, we have less scenes like that. It was already pretty straight because now things are rolling. I think we cut the scenes that we needed to cut, and we made the right decisions.
“That said, of course, we will have plenty of things to show that are beyond it.”
‘We don’t need to go back’: Jon M. Chu reveals major change he made to Wicked: For Good
