Jon M. Chu Reveals Wicked: For Good's Original Ending Was "Darker"

Wicked: For Good was always going to be a more intense experience than the first movie, but director Jon M. Chu didn’t actually make it as grim as it was initially going to be. He described how the original plans for one of the film’s final scenes took place in a much scarier and more foreboding setting. But he had a good reason for wanting to change that up in the version that was released.

Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers for the ending of Wicked: For Good.

The alteration has to do with how Chu wanted to present the desert that Elphaba and Fiyero escape into at the end of their story. In one of the last moments of Wicked: For Good, Elphaba reunited with Fiyero (now transformed into a scarecrow) after she’s faked her death. Longing to escape Oz, the two set off into a deserted wasteland — but it’s not quite as scary as it sounds, as the sands glimmer with hope for their future together.

In Frank L. Baum's 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, this area is described as the Deadly Desert, a cursed place that Ozians fear. Chu said that he initially wanted to make this climactic setting more true to the book, telling Entertainment Weekly he tried out "versions of that desert that were a lot darker and scarier — like walking into your fears."

However, as he worked on the movie more, Chu said that he came to understand this area "is not dead space, it's possibility. No one has explored that horizon because everyone's too scared."

With that perspective in mind, Chu wanted to imbue a sense of hope into Elphaba and Fiyero’s final location. "Let's put sparkles in that sand!" Chu recalled saying when reimagining the Deadly Desert.

The new ending underscores the more optimistic touches that For Good gives to the story’s traditionally somber finale, providing the perfect glimmer of magic for longtime Wicked devotees.