This week one of the most anticipated films of the year arrives in theaters around the world: ‘Wicked: Part II’, in which the witches of Oz culminate a story for which alternatives were considered, “but it was always about an ending that was not happy”, explains to EFE its director, Jon M. Chu.
“Would an alternate ending have been possible? Sure. Did we explore it? Yes. We talked about it. But it was always about an ending that wasn’t happy, ‘they lived happily ever after,’ but about possibilities,” with the goal of discovering “if you’re brave enough to go into the unknown knowing who you are,” the filmmaker says in an interview.
Starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, the film, which opens on Friday 21, arrives amid great expectation for its possible ability to raise box office and, in fact, the pre-sale of tickets is the largest ever recorded in the U.S., according to the specialized media ‘Deadline’.
Filmed at the same time as the first installment, which was released in 2024 also directed by Chu, ‘Wicked: Part II’ gets “to the heart of the matter, to the nuances and complexities of growing up, of revisiting the past and realizing that maybe those stories weren’t right,” as was the case in the musical on which it is based.
“In the first film we had to hide all this because, although we had shot and edited it at the same time and for us it was the whole story, we just had to narrate the passage to adulthood of these two girls who become friends and how they became who they are,” relates the director.
The sequel describes how Elphaba (Erivo), the ‘Wicked Witch of the West’, “achieves her ultimate power and stands up for freedom and justice in the world”, while living condemned to exile and estranged from her former friend Glinda (Grande), the ‘Good Witch of the South’.
The latter, who has become a symbol of goodness, finds herself under the tutelage of Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), while preparing for her marriage to Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey, recently named the sexiest man in the world by ‘People’), all under the influence of the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum), whom Elphaba wants to unmask.
The end of ‘Wicked
“We used many different film genres as a reference. In the first film it could be the high school genre and, in the second, monsters and superheroes,” specifies the filmmaker, for whom “breaking with traditional cinematic clichés was always part of the project.”
His goal was to “tell the truth behind the stories” and “what happens when you analyze characters and villains they want you to hate,” the director stresses about the plot.
To achieve this, the film recovers symbols and iconography reminiscent of the war propaganda of the early twentieth century, with which enemies were demonized through posters and proclamations, and which in this case have Elphaba as a victim.
On the connection to realities such as migration, xenophobia, authoritarianism or conspiracy propaganda, Chu argues that “great stories, great musicals, whether it’s ‘The Sound of Music’ or even ‘The Great Dictator,’ are about real things that are happening at the time.”
And so he says, “That was always part of what we wanted to do in this film, a reflection on who we want to become. Once you know the truth, it’s a warning to everyone.”
On the LGTBIQ+ references, Chu responds that “if you go online, there’s a whole community that thinks it’s all a nod to that.” For him, “the essence of ‘Wicked’ is that it’s about inclusion and what it feels like to be different from what people think you should be.”
“It’s about love, a very deep love. And it’s about the courage to express that love no matter who you are or what that means. You could be a witch, you could be a lion, you could be a scarecrow. Love is love, is love,” concluded the director, reported Agencia EFE.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.
