RETURN TO OZ

WICKED Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande defy gravity as the Broadway smash reaches cinemas.

- LAUREN MILES

Jon M. Chu is transporting us back to the world of Oz for his adaptation of the Broadway phenomenon Wicked. It’s something the In The Heights director has dreamt of for a long time, and it’s coming to fruition as not just one film, but two, due for release in consecutive years.

‘I just remember being blown away by how cinematic it was,’ Chu says of seeing the stage show for the first time. ‘I loved, emotionally, how it moved me, the relationship between these two women.’ The two women in question are Elphaba – an ambitious girl born with green skin, who’s better known as The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West – and Galinda, who would later become Glinda the Good in the famous 1939 movie. Wicked offers a revisionist spin on the classic story, portraying Elphaba as purely misunderstood.

It’s a tale that Chu found transferred extremely well to the screen, given the central themes of friendship. ‘You get to do the close-up; we could be there right with the girls,’ he says. ‘In a weird way, it brought the audience more in line with what the story was telling - this very intimate story of the relationship between these two women that’s very complicated and nuanced.’