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Wicked:for good Director Jon M Chu has revealed that he refused to show the film’s powerful final shot to studio bosses.
Chu said he made this decision because he was concerned that Universal Pictures executives would use the image in a marketing campaign for the film.
is of the scene in question Ariana GrandeThe good witch Glinda whispers into Elphaba’s ear, played by Cynthia Erivo,
This is a recreation of the iconic poster of the original Wicked The Broadway musical, which premiered in 2003.
talking to business insiderChu – who also directed last year’s first installment – said that “it was always the plan” to end on that image.
“I was always going to end up on a whim,” he said. “Do you know how hard it was to force Universal not to use it in any marketing material? They even had a poster of it for the first movie, and I said, ‘Why are we releasing this poster? We should never accept whispers. Never. Never.’
“I wanted it to seem like we didn’t care, then suddenly it’s the last shot for goodSo the studio never saw that final shot, I imposed a big thing: ‘Don’t show this shot!’ They wanted it so badly,
The musical poster is one of the most recognizable posters on Broadway, depicting a smiling Glinda wearing a witch’s hat on a green background, with Glinda dressed in white and whispering in her ear.
“That poster is one of the greatest posters ever made,” Chu said. “You don’t know what Glinda is saying, because they never really do that in musicals. But that’s the key to friendship. We have these secrets.”
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Speaking about actors Grande and Erivo, he said: “The girls get to choose what they actually say in the scene. I don’t even know what they said.”
While Chu kept the shot hidden from the studio, Universal used a recreation of the original poster during marketing for the first time Wicked Film in October 2024.
Marketing materials paid homage to the original poster, and showed noticeable differences such as Elphaba’s face being clearly visible in the shot, unlike the original in which her hat is so low that her face is hidden.
many Wicked Fans highlighted the difference and thought of “correcting the mistake” by using Photoshop to lower the hat and hide Erivo’s face.
Erivo called digitally transformed images “The wildest, most aggressive thing I’ve seen”.
“The original poster is an illustration. I’m a human being in real life who decided to look right down the camera at you, the viewer… because, without words, we communicate with our eyes,” she wrote on Instagram at the time.
“Our poster is an homage not a copy, editing my face and hiding my eyes is erasing me. And that’s extremely sad.”
Now in theaters, for good Erivo is seen reprising her role as Elphaba opposite Grande’s Glinda.
sequel, Which comes a year after Chu was Oscar-nominated WickedAdapts the second half of the hit Broadway musical and welcomes a brief appearance from lead protagonist Dorothy the Wizard of Oz.
In Two star review of the film, IndependentThe film critic wrote: “Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s musical The Last of Us is adapted from Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel and is itself a recap of the Wizard of Oz Anyone who questions the wickedness of the Witch of the West was always a bit of a slob.
“And Jon M. Chu’s direction, despite so much budget and talent, fails to find a satisfactory resolution.”
for good In theaters now.