Jon M. Chu asserts that there's a good reason Wicked isn't called "Part One"

Sorry folks: it's not because they're not making a part two

By Emma Keates | September 19, 2024 | 1:58pm

Photo: Universal

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Jon M. Chu asserts that there's a good reason Wicked isn't called

When Jon M. Chu announced in 2022 that his Wicked film would be split into two parts, fans experienced a feeling sudden but not new. For this writer, it wasn’t quite loathing, but more of a resigned frustration that yet another exciting adaptation had fallen into the trap of making two half-movies instead of one good one. Hadn’t we learned from Deathly Hallows or Mockingjay? What about the three-part The Hobbit fiasco?

Sure, that last one might be asking a little too much. Peter Jackson didn’t even learn from his own mistakes, and is absurdly splitting Andy Serkis’ upcoming Lord Of The Rings prequel, The Hunt For Gollum, into two parts. But Chu is insisting that he’s not that girl and knows everyone hates a “Part One.” In fact, he chose to leave the qualifier out of Wicked‘s title altogether.

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“This isn’t half the homework,” he explained to Entertainment Weekly of his decision. “If we were going to split it into two, we need to make sure that movie one is emotionally satisfying and by the end, you feel like that was a f—ing movie. [sic] I don’t like movies where you leave and feel like, ‘Well, I’ve got to wait for the next one.’ This should leave you with the highest of highs and so connected to these women.”

Over the past few months, longtime fans have expressed a bit of confusion over the fact that the entirety of the Wicked stage show clocks in under three hours, which means Chu and his team are going to have to pad a lot to get two full blockbusters out of it. “We were able to find other moments that could blossom and we could add our own little twist to it,” Chu said, promising expansions to the scene in the Ozdust ballroom (the most swankified place in town!), the backstories of both the Wizard and the munchkins, as inspired by original The Wizard Of Oz and Wicked authors L. Frank Baum and Gregory Maguire, respectively, and the story of “an awakening of a generation,” which the director teased as “a little bit of Pleasantville, a little bit of The Truman Show.” In the original musical, Elphaba is the first to discover that the Wizard is a sham and that almost everything she believed up to that point is a lie.

Will “Defying Gravity,” one of the greatest act one closers of all time, be equally satisfying as the conclusion of an entire movie—especially when fans have to wait until next November for the continuation? Who knows, but original composer Stephen Schwartz seems pretty confident, telling Variety that “we found it very difficult to get past ‘Defying Gravity’ without a break.”

Now, it remains to be seen if Chu decides to stick with calling the second film “Part Two.” Maybe, instead, we could see Wickeder. Maybe Wicked: Gravity Defied? The possibilities are unlimited.