Jon M. Chu Reveals ‘Master Plan’ Behind Wicked Is ‘Whole Reason’ They Made It (Exclusive)

Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and director Jon M. Chu had wicked levels of ambition in bringing a beloved musical to the big screen. 

Wicked: For Good, which will become available to watch at home on Tuesday, Dec. 30, concludes the two-part origin story of Grande and Erivo’s witches of Oz based on Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s long-running Broadway show.

Shared exclusively with PEOPLE is a behind-the-scenes video of the team assembling the hit films. 

“From the beginning, there was always a master plan of this story,” says Chu, 46, in the clip, which shows glimpses of stars Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Bowen Yang, Michelle Yeoh and more in action. “The fact that people responded to the first movie and fell in love with these characters means the world to all of us.”

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The sequel “is where it all comes together, where it all smashes into a bigger thing,” says the filmmaker. “Deep down, we knew that this was always going to be a bigger story.”

The critically acclaimed Wicked: Part One, released in November 2024, was a box office smash, becoming the highest-grossing stage-to-screen musical in history. The awards season darling earned 10 Oscar nominations, including for Erivo, 38, and Grande, 32, and earned two wins for Paul Tazewell’s costume design and Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales’ production design. 

After separating the Broadway musical (itself based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 revisionist prequel novel to The Wizard of Oz) into two movies, Chu “wanted the stakes to be higher, the scope to be bigger, the emotions to be deeper” in the sequel, he says in the new clip. 

Grande points out that developing and filming both Wicked movies spanned five years, reflecting ahead of the release of For Good. “To be approaching part 2, which is kind of the final chapter, is really quite emotional,” says the star. 

“I know that we put our hearts and souls into this,” says Erivo. “This is like the culmination of a lot of hard work and a lot of love.”

For Chu, Wicked: For Good is “a reveal of the power of when we all can come together and tell a story,” he concludes in the clip. “And in my opinion, that’s the whole reason that you make Wicked in the first place.”

Universal Pictures’ Wicked: For Good will be available to buy or rent on Dec. 30.