Jon M. Chu reveals what he added and changed in "Wicked: For Good" after first film's success — including a cameo Patrick GomezOctober 19, 2025 at 1:45 AM 0 Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) in 'Wicked: For Good' The cast of Wicked must have felt swep...
- - Jon M. Chu reveals what he added and changed in "Wicked: For Good" after first film's success — including a cameo
Patrick GomezOctober 19, 2025 at 1:45 AM
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Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) in 'Wicked: For Good'
The cast of Wicked must have felt swept up in a tornado.
"One day we'd be shooting in their dorm room at Shiz and the next day we'd be shooting in the Kiamo Ko [castle], which is set years later," director Jon M. Chu recently told Deadline of filming both Wicked movies concurrently. "One day we'd be shooting 'What Is This Feeling?' And then the next day we'd be shooting 'As Long as You're Mine,'"
Chu says just 12 weeks after completing principal photography, he did an initial rough edit of both films, which he screened in one sitting before setting the second aside and focusing on the first installment ahead of its release last year.
It wasn't until January of this year that he looked at his cut of the sequel again, an experience he said "was very revealing because some choices stuck. And some choices we just had changed. The movie had changed or I had changed."
Here's what he revealed he changed... for the better?
A new version of "For Good"
"We added a couple of pieces of dialogue at its beginning," Chu told Deadline of the tearjerker finale duet between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande). "So [Elphaba] says, 'Look at me, not through your eyes, through theirs.' That's new. She used to say, 'Look at me. I'm limited'.... She says, 'Look at me,' and she pauses. We really wanted to refine the song."
Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Glinda (Ariana Grande) in 'Wicked: For Good'More — and younger — Glinda
Fans of the stage production will recall that the film ends similarly to how it begins, with Glinda speaking to the Munchkins from her bubble.
After watching the rough edit, Chu decided to revisit Glinda's final speech because, he said, "I just needed to refine it."
The director also insisted on filming a scene that had been cut during initial production: a peek at Glinda's childhood, which shaped Baby Glinda into the woman who arrived at Shiz in the first movie and colors her choices in For Good. (Much like the flashbacks of Baby Elphaba and Baby Nessa at the start of Wicked.)
"We had that scene in the script, and I knew we should have kept it, but we didn't shoot it at the time because we had a lot of other pressures," Chu said, adding that, at the time, producer Marc Platt had promised the chance to go back and add it if he felt they needed it.
Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) in 'Wicked: For Good'A celebrity voice for the Cowardly Lion
Chu told Deadline that around the time of the reshoots in March, he got the idea to DM an actor on social media, asking if they would be interested in voicing the Cowardly Lion, a grown-up version of the cub Elphaba and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) save in the first film.
"I was like, 'It's not a ton of lines, but maybe you have a little time. I know you're busy. I'll come to you,'' Chu said of his messages. "He was like, 'Why the f--- not, let's go!' And then we went ahead and recorded the lines."
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While Chu is keeping the identity of the star a secret, he did tease, "Man, wait until the red carpet when the actor who gave us the Cowardly Lion's voice steps foot on it. It'll be wild."
Wicked: For Good flies into theaters Nov. 21.
on Entertainment Weekly
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