Jon M. Chu to direct Wicked for Universal

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Jon M. Chu recently left Disney+’s new Willow series, but that doesn't mean the Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights director is done casting a spell on audiences.

It's been announced that Jon M. Chu will replace Billy Elliot helmer Stephen Daldry as the director of Universal's Wicked. The three-time Tony Award-winning stage musical was adapted from Gregory Maguire’s bestselling novel by book writer Winnie Holzman and composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, who is also collaborating on the screenplay adaptation. The story explains how a green-skinned woman framed by the Wizard of Oz becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Maguire's tale is the ultimate fairy tale origin story and one that could have you rooting for the villain by the time it is done being told.

Chu was lined up to direct Disney+’s new Willow series, but after Covid-19 kept pushing the project back, he exited the high-profile project. While it's a bummer to lose Chu on Disney's Willow, I'm thrilled to hear that he'll be taking over as the director of Wicked. If you've never read Maguire's novel, you might want to give it a look. The book frames the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba, as much more than a crone who antagonized Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz. It's been several years since I read the book, but I remember it telling a compelling story that made me feel sympathy for one of fiction's most notorious villains.

We'll be sure to bring you more details as Jon M. Chu's Wicked continues to gather steam.