It would be difficult for Jon M. Chu to mount a film adaptation of Wicked without paying some tribute to the Broadway sensation’s original stars, Idina Menzel (as Elphaba) and Kristin Chenoweth (as Glinda). Those of you who have seen the new movie – and based on box office numbers, it’s a large number of people – know that Menzel and Chenoweth appear in Wicked in the third act, when Glinda and Elphaba leave Shiz University and arrive in the Emerald City. They are a huge part of the musical number “One Short Day.” But when we spoke with Chu, we learned that they had different plans for Menzel and Chenoweth, and they changed rapidly as the shoot went on.
Jon M. Chu appeared as a guest on CinemaBlend’s official ReelBlend podcast, where he spoke about the film’s reception, and several elements of the filming of the Broadway musical. And when we brought up the cameo appearances of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, we talked about walking the complicated line of showcasing these talents, but not taking audience members out of the movie that they have shown up to see. As “wickedly” talented as Menzel and Chenoweth are, they have the ability of possibly stealing focus away from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, whose movie this very much is.
Jon M. Chu appeared as a guest on CinemaBlend’s official ReelBlend podcast, where he spoke about the film’s reception, and several elements of the filming of the Broadway musical. And when we brought up the cameo appearances of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, we talked about walking the complicated line of showcasing these talents, but not taking audience members out of the movie that they have shown up to see. As “wickedly” talented as Menzel and Chenoweth are, they have the ability of possibly stealing focus away from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, whose movie this very much is.
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00:00it's it's a tightrope that you have to walk to the placement and how you use them i'm sort of
00:04curious how you came up with that perfect spot yeah it was a tightrope that we all had to talk
00:08about a lot um with steven and winnie as well like where's the best place and we had them as cameo
00:13roles at some point oh maybe they're glinda's parents or maybe they're this or that and those
00:18were all fine and good but every time we sort of thought about it more it didn't feel like they're
00:23at the top of their game right now they're not like some people who don't do it anymore like
00:28they are there you want them to do their thing and i always felt like as a fan myself like if i see
00:33them in this movie i'm going to want them to do their thing um and so we had the section already
00:39of this wizard mania it wasn't exactly those words and it wasn't exactly it was actually a um more of
00:44a ride that they go on wizard mania was going to be this almost like a it's a small world where you get
00:49into a boat and it takes you through the history of oz and um and it was going to be a performance
00:54that happens around them and all this stuff and then send you back out to the wizard's palace
00:58um so we had that because we needed to set up what the show didn't have too much about that we had to
01:04do was set up the grimmery why the wizard was here what the prophecy is like we had a lot of information
01:09to give and it was during those conversations that um steven and i were talking and and i suggested
01:15we have this section anyway that's sort of outside of the of the narrative that we need to give
01:21maybe that's where you do it so you can add a little sugar to the information and he's like
01:25give me one night and he rewrote the whole thing as a performance for these girls and he did it and
01:32it made it was like so fun and um that that's where it felt like okay this is a great moment of
01:37sort of a send-off but even in the edit we we debated it back and forth like how much to give how
01:42much to see them plenty of shots where they bow where they leave where they wave goodbye and like
01:47how much is too much for the audience and so we we wavered back and forth a little bit and tried to
01:53find the right medium of that i mean that's that's somewhat in testing um but that's why i love the
01:57editing process too imagine being able to just say give me one night and then coming back with that
02:04and that one night was raining so it's like pouring rain we have this giant canopy over the stage
02:13but it's raining everywhere else our cameras are under you know our technocrine is under this
02:17canopy and and we're trying not to get them wet they have these beautiful outfits that if it gets
02:21wet a little bit they're going to drag and change and you have footsteps everywhere so we're trying to
02:25keep everything dry so that you don't have footsteps and wetness and it was but we had one night it was
02:31a magical night everyone everyone was there and it was just one of those crying nights all night
02:36you