Why was the evil sequel “Part 2” removed from its title

When it was first announced that John M. Chu, the director behind films like “Crazy Rich Asians” and “In the Heights,” was set to adapt the news-splitting feature Stephen Schwartz. Two parts. On some level, It makes sense to split the “bad guys” in halfgiving it a two-act cinematic structure that mimics the stage version. With all that said the films were originally called “Wicked: Part One” and “Wicked: Part Two,” and Part One hits theaters in November 2024, Box office smash It earned rave reviews from critics. thenIn December of that year, Zhou (To diverseamong other outlets) that the sequel to the epic film will actually be called “Wicked: for Good,” taking its title from the earnest duet sung by Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) and her political best friend Glinda The Good Witch (Ariana Grande Butera) in the show’s canon the second.

So why change? As Chu told Variety in early January of 2025, “For Good” is just a better title. “Who wants a movie called ‘Wicked: Part Two’?” Chu asked with an outlet speech on the National Board of Review Awards red carpet. “On the script, he always said, ‘For good,’ and so it was just a point like, ‘Do we really want to call this ‘Part 2’? And no one wants that.”

He explained, “I mean, this is the destination.” For goodness sake, we know, like, where are we going with this movie? Let’s finish this thing,” Cho continued. Okay, then!

Splitting blockbuster films into two parts is nothing new; Since “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” got the two-parter treatment in 2011, studios have (somewhat shamelessly) tried it over and over again with anticipated releases to try to squeeze more money out of the project. According to John M. Cho, though, is the story of “Wicked” — which, in case you’ve been living under a rock, is a sort of “The Wizard of Oz” based on Gregory Maguire’s novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch” West” which focuses on Elphaba Thropp’s magical (and dark) journey as she becomes the Wicked Witch of the West – is simply too massive to fit into one film.

“As we prepared this production over the past year, it became increasingly clear that it would be impossible to wrestle the ‘bad guys’ story into one film without doing some real damage to it,” Zhou wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) While the film was still in the early stages in April of 2022. “When we tried to cut songs or trim characters, those decisions started to feel like fatal concessions to the source material that had entertained us all for so many years. So we decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make a ‘wicked’ movie.” “Only, but it’s two!!!! to the journeys of these beloved characters.” According to Stephen Schwartz, the award-winning librettist of the Tony Award-winning Broadway show, Cho is right.

There is one huge The reason “bad guys” really needed to stretch across two movies, to quote Broadway’s Stephen Schwartz…and it all goes back to a little fat bit called “Defying Gravity.” Yes, the song that closes Act 1 of “Wicked” and convinced musical theater kids around the world that they too could belt it out like Cynthia Ivo or Elphaba Idina Menzel’s original on Broadway, is just… Very epic That simply happens in the middle of the movie, as Schwartz revealed in June 2022.

“We found it very difficult to get through ‘Defying Gravity’ without a break,” Schwartz explained in a newsletter honoring him known as “The Schwartz Scene” (via diverse.

Not only that, but Schwartz said that he and Shaw, along with the rest of the film’s creative team, Try To contain the “bad guys” in just one movie and simply couldn’t figure out how to make it work. “The truth is that we have been trying for some time to make one movie, even if it had to be a very long movie,” Schwartz revealed in a statement. “But we kept running into two problems. The first was that even as one very long movie, it required us to cut or delete things that we wanted to include and that we thought fans of the show would appreciate the story.” Add in the “defying gravity” of it all, and this decision, in the end, makes sense.

“Wicked: Part One” is available for rent or purchase on digital streaming platforms nowand Resleded “Wicked: for Good” hits theaters on November 21, 2025.