Wicked: For Good director Jon M Chu has opened up about the big decision he made to cut the musical's most iconic song from the film's opening scene. Explaining the choice, Chu said: "We don't need it".
While we already know what songs are going to feature in the upcoming film, Chu revealed that he initially intended to open the sequel where the first instalment ended with a recap of 'Defying Gravity'.
Speaking about the decision, Chu said he thought the song would "get people back in" to the action, though a test screening proved otherwise.
Asked what he learnt after the first screening for Wicked 2, Chu told Collider: "What I had done in that first screening was I dropped us back into 'Defying Gravity'. We ended 'Defying Gravity' again, and we then catapulted in, just to get people back in it.
"What I found out is we don't need it. We don't need to go back. I thought people needed to be reminded of the feelings of that relationship before coming into this relationship, where they're not together anymore, but after that screening, I was like, 'Oh, we just want to jump in. People are on it with us'."
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Explaining why he cut the song, Chu continued: "Having 'Defying Gravity', that sense at the beginning of this movie, doesn't help us. We lived it. We have been processing that. Now let's move forward.
"So, that was a big discovery for me personally. I did not need to do all the legwork to convince people to buy back in, and that gave us a lot of freedom in the movie to then cut it in that way and just dive deep right into the girls and their relationship without hesitation."
Related: "Marvellous" Wicked: For Good hailed as one of 2025's "outstanding movies" in rave first reaction
The film recently confirmed the tracklist for its soundtrack, which will include two new songs that were written exclusively for the sequel by Stephen Schwartz.
The brand new solo numbers titled 'No Place Like Home' and 'The Girl in the Bubble', will be performed by stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, respectively.
Wicked: For Good is released in cinemas on 21 November.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.
