{"id":588,"date":"2024-11-25T16:21:15","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T16:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetab.com\/?p=411631"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"wicked-director-explains-the-reason-why-defying-gravity-was-so-different-in-the-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetab.com\/filmshrine\/2024\/11\/25\/wicked-director-explains-the-reason-why-defying-gravity-was-so-different-in-the-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Wicked director explains the reason why Defying Gravity was so different in the film"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wicked made history as the biggest film debut of 2024<\/a> this weekend and made theatre kids’ dreams come true. The most annoying person in your life was waiting with bated breath for the very last song in the movie<\/a>, which was of course the infamous Defying Gravity. The song itself was broken up with dialogue, suspense and dramatic buildup and lasted about 15 minutes to get through. It was so well done, you definitely left the cinema teary-eyed. But why was Defying Gravity so different from the Wicked musical version on stage? There are a few reasons why, and director Jon Chu has explained the huge process of filming the very dramatic finale of the musical-turned-film.<\/p>\n

In an interview with GamesRadar<\/a>, Jon Chu said that there was absolutely no alternative to making Defying Gravity a dramatic number. It was actually the reason Wicked had to be split into two parts.<\/p>\n

“We tried to make it into one movie, and you had to rip out songs and it became not Wicked. They had tried for 20 years<\/a> to do that. I think the decision to make it one really opened the doors to like, ‘okay, we have to believe these characters.’ You get away with things on stage that you can’t get away with in a movie. The audience is more sceptical in a movie, and so the emotional turns for the actors and for the characters have to be very solid. So it came out of a necessity more than anything.”<\/p>\n