We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto — because this post has HEAVY spoilers for Wicked: For Good. You’ve been warned!
If you are a person with a disposable income and a passion for musical theater, it’s highly likely that you either just saw or about to see Wicked: For Good this weekend.
If you’ve seen it already — or if you’re a huge fan of the musical — you already know that Wicked: For Good ends with Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) fleeing Oz entirely after the former fakes her death (a faux-melting, if you will).
The two characters go to an unnamed desert land that is referenced in the turn-of-the-20th-century book that started all of this Oz-mania, Frank L. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as the “Deadly Desert.” Sounds scary!
And as it turns out, Wicked: For Good director Jon M. Chu and his team of Oz-heads originally had darker designs for this part of the film’s ending — or, at least, so he revealed in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly.
In the chat, Jon revealed that he and his team considered concluding the film with “versions of that desert that were a lot darker and scarier — like walking into your fears.” Why didn’t they, then?
Well, Jon decided that the sandy locale itself “is not dead space, it’s possibility. No one has explored that horizon because everyone’s too scared.”
“Let’s put sparkles in that sand!” he added regarding the film’s ultimate ending.
So, here’s the question: Do you agree with Jon, or do you think Wicked: For Good needed a little bit more darkness to its grand finale? Let us know in the comments!