Director Jon M. Chu has been notoriously tight-lipped about details for his upcoming project, the highly anticipated Wicked movie. During a recent red-carpet interview with E!, the director disclosed he couldn’t give many details outside of calling his rendition of the hit Broadway play “epic.” Today, the Crazy Rich Asians director was feeling generous and shared a formal letter on social media revealing major details for the upcoming Wicked film, including an anticipated release date.
Special #Wicked Movie Announcement… ✌🏼🎬🧹🌸💚sent from my OzPhone: pic.twitter.com/4qPpvVD4rR
— Jon M. Chu (@jonmchu) April 26, 2022
Jon M. Chu’s Wicked Movie Gets A Release Date And More
Wicked is a record-breaking Broadway musical that tells the origin story of The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West. The film will be Jon M. Chu’s dramatic retelling of the musical.
Prior to today’s announcement, the casting of Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba had already been public knowledge. However, today Chu revealed larger pieces of the Wicked puzzle-like when and how we’ll be viewing the musical.
In a formal letter addressed to Wicked fans, Chu confessed that Wicked would be broken up into not one but two feature-length films, the first of which is expected to be released just in time for 2024’s Christmas season. Chu insists that the film must be broken up in two because, during production, the cast and crew realized containing the Wicked story in one movie would cause “real damage” to its complexity and jeopardize the reputation of a show that has sold out Broadway tickets since its 2003 release.
Chu had this to say about his decision to make two Wicked films “with more space, we can tell the story of Wicked as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys of these beloved characters.”
Jon M. Chu’s History With Musicals
If any director were to take on such a tall order as Wicked (which notoriously has some of the most challenging Broadway songs to sing), it would be Jon M. Chu; given his track record, the musical is in good hands.
Jon M. Chu’s lengthy filmography is chock full of music-related projects, from directing pop music videos to full-length musical films. In addition to translating Lin-Manuel Maranda’s In The Heights, Chu has directed Step Up 2: The Streets, its sequel Step Up 3D, and several projects for award-winning pop artist Justin Bieber.
Are you excited about the Wicked movies? How do you feel about Jon M. Chu’s decision to break the musical into two films? Let us know in the comments.
