‘Wicked’ director recalls facing difficult task amid filming

‘Wicked’ filmmaker reflects on portraying ‘Defying Gravity’ on the big screen

Defying Gravity is one of the key songs in Wickedbecause it closes the entire film for the next part, which will come next year.

Director Jon M. Chu told GamesRadar+ that portraying the song on the screen after it was performed on stage was a tall task.

“The alternative was not possible, to be honest. We tried to make it into one movie, and you had to rip out songs and it became not Wicked. They had tried for 20 years to do that,” the 45-year-old added.

He continued, “I think the decision to make it one really opened the doors to like, ‘Okay, we have to believe these characters.’ You get away with things on stage that you can’t get away with in a movie.”

The filmmaker explained, “The audience is more skeptical in a movie, and so the emotional turns for the actors and for the characters have to be very solid. So it came out of a necessity more than anything.”

However, Jon added that they had to change the Broadway drama’s track for the film to some extent.

“But something like ‘Defying Gravity,’ the song, if you just use the song itself the way it’s used in the show, it doesn’t actually feel like the end of this epic journey that we’ve gone on,” he noted.

“So we had to break that up a little bit, which is scary. And we questioned ourselves at every turn. We did not make decisions lightly. We actually could make decisions and go backwards. We tried all versions, always.”

“But in the end of the day, it was like, ‘I’m rooting for Elphaba to have this for herself, and she can’t just get it. She has to earn it, too.’ She knows at this moment that you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone,” Jon explained.

“She has to prove it to herself. How do we show that through this number that already exists? And you’re not going to add new words to it. So what are you going to do?,” the director said.