Jon M. Chu delighted London Film Festival attendees on Friday with a sneak peek at the upcoming Wicked: For Good, and also teased what lies ahead in his next musical-to-screen adaptation.
The filmmaker pleaded with audience members at BFI Southbank not to record or photograph the short clip before the long-awaited follow-up to Wicked hits theaters on Nov. 21. He spoke extensively about filming the saga, detailing the BTS of a 10-time Oscar-nominated film and touching ever so slightly on what’s next for Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba and Ariana Grande‘s Glinda in the second installment.
The American director gave a nod to the first film’s infamously emotional press run — when Erivo and Grande, so impacted by the process and their characters, were often brought to tears in interviews — in his talk to festival-goers in London. It turns out, Chu thinks, that same intensity awaits us.
“Everyone’s like, ‘The girls were so emotional — why are they so emotional?’” he began. “It’s because we lived both movies. We lived their meeting, their separation, their death. We lived the whole thing before you ever saw one frame of it… When you guys catch up and see this movie, we already know what you’re gonna feel. I’m excited for everyone to be there and finally share it and you’re gonna see these girls are incredible,” he added.
“Wait until you see the Tin Man and the Scarecrow,” Chu also said. “These are not digital effects. These are real, physical makeup and hair. And it is extraordinary. I couldn’t show anybody here, but when you see it, when you look at it, know that there was no room for error on it. And the team that did it is just incredible.”
Chu discussed the casting process around Erivo and Grande, how he came to split the musical in two and his own relationship with musical theater before a glimpse of For Good wrapped up the session. Before it ended, he was asked if there were any other stories he’d find joy in adapting for the stage, just as Lin-Manuel Miranda did with Hamilton.
“I’m working on one that I feel like is something that I hold dear to my heart, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” said Chu. “It’s my favorite show, but it’s a hard one to reconceive for now or [work out] how to do it with the tone. But I love it so much, it’s so playful. I think we’ve cracked something in it that’s really cool.”
Chu is set to direct the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1968 musical for Amazon MGM Studios. He’ll reunite with his In The Heights producer Scott Sanders to develop and shoot the story, following the Old Testament tale of Joseph.
The BFI London Film Festival 2025 runs through Oct. 19.
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