Director Jon M. Chu has confirmed Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo will each have new, original songs in the forthcoming Wicked: Part Two.
Officially titled Wicked: For Good, the highly anticipated second half welcomes back both stars in their respective roles as Glinda and Elphaba. It will follow a now powerful Elphaba who’s been declared an enemy of the state by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh).
Ahead of the trailer release, Chu spoke to Vanity Fair about the sequel to his Oscar-nominated Wicked: Part I.
He assured fans who might not be as familiar with the second act’s score that “there are some bangers.”
“‘No Good Deed’ is just a f***ing banger,” he said. “I don’t even know how to use safe words for that. Cynthia on that thing is just ridiculous. And ‘As Long as You’re Mine’ — it’s just gorgeous.
“I think it’s been reported we have two new songs,” Chu added, teasing: “They’re great additions to this movie. They were necessary in this movie to help tell the story.”
Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz returned to pen the new songs after writing the music and lyrics for the stage production, which opened on Broadway in 2003.
“To have Stephen Schwartz back behind the keys… it’s pretty extraordinary to watch him work,” Chu noted.
Recalling the first time he met with Grande and Erivo, the Crazy Rich Asians director remembered “the girls came to my house in person and sang ‘For Good’ on my piano.”
“The other half of the story that we never tell is that Stephen played their songs for them for the first time there as well,” he said. “He’s sitting there, and he is like, ‘Would you guys like to hear the songs I’m thinking of for you?’ And they were like, ‘Yes, please.’”
In April, the first trailer of Wicked: For Good was screened exclusively at CinemaCon. The clip, which was released later to the general public, introduced classic Wizard of Oz characters Dorothy, the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow to the story.
It additionally included a brief portion of Erivo and Grande singing popular Wicked second-act songs, “For Good” and “No Good Deed.”
The first Wicked film, based on the first act of the hit Broadway musical, was a box office success but divided critics.
“Wicked looks like every other film now. That’s its problem. It may be the screen adaptation of the stage musical — itself based on a 1995 novel — but, within moments, it also tethers itself directly to the classic 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz,” The Independent’s Clarrise Loughrey wrote in a three-star review.
“And while that film’s Emerald City and Land of Oz have been cemented in the public imagination as brilliant-hued dream worlds, and the most famous demonstration of the Technicolor process, Wicked is shot and lit like we’re being sold an Airbnb in Mykonos.”
Wicked: For Good is out in theaters November 21.
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