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[0:00] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's The Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon.

[0:03] Robert Bannon: Jon M. Chu, everybody, is here, and this weekend is the biggest weekend in the entire movie career for a music theater nerd like me. I am so excited. Let's go! Congratulations.

[0:14] Jon M. Chu: Thank you. Thank you.

[0:15] Robert Bannon: So what can you tell us about Wicked for Good and why we need to see this movie? If we've seen the first one, if we haven't seen this, this is it, Jon?

[0:23] Jon M. Chu: This is it. This is the big epic conclusion. This is the moment that we've been waiting for, where the movie musical reaches its peak. Just for now, there's more to go, but for this one, you get to see Elphaba and Glinda find who they are as adults and break the patterns of their past generations and the stories that they were told and come up with their own stories and break the bubble and break free and get out. And it's not easy and some wicked things will happen and they must forgive each other, but that friendship will be tested by the state, will be tested by their own doing, and in the end, hopefully they come out for good. And in a weird way, if movie one is a statement, movie two is a challenge, not just to those two women who are now off on their own adventures, but to us and what we want to be and with the stories that we want out there in a time where we really need vision for this world.

[1:24] Robert Bannon: We sure do. I'm exhausted for you. You have been everywhere. You've been out here killing it from Dancing with the Stars to promoting this movie. John, I have something to tell you.

[1:36] Jon M. Chu: Yes.

[1:37] Robert Bannon: It's probably going to be a big giant monster hit. You could take a nap, John Chu.

[1:41] Jon M. Chu: Can I? I'm not quite sure yet.

[1:43] Robert Bannon: Don't even worry about it. Do you ever look back? I was reading about you and your career and you have had an incredible career, your rise from when you started in short films and what you're doing. Do you ever look back and say, like, this movie grossed billions of dollars. It's been inspiration to the next generation of filmmakers, actors, people out here literally changing pop culture. And do you look back to that, John, that started and ever, what do you think about this ride?

[2:12] Jon M. Chu: I think that without all my years in this business, without all the mistakes, without all the disappointments, without all the things I felt where friends have disappointed me or I've disappointed them or what I thought I could do, I couldn't quite do or what I thought I understood, I didn't quite understand, but then I learned how to understand. None of this is possible without all of those years and all of those struggles. I could not get to the truth of what it feels like to leave somebody without having loss. I could not get to the truth about what it feels like to not believe in the value of home anymore unless we've gone through COVID and looked at our home and felt like strangers. I could not have looked at my country and seen, are we these people, without having a dream that I lived through where this country was so kind to me and given me my dream.

And so when I look back at everything, I'm very grateful. But I think that there's so much more to do and that the movie musical has affected me more than any genre. As a kid, in my family's Chinese restaurant, it is musicals that made me believe in magic. It is Michael Jackson videos that made me believe in beautiful things that were fun and gorgeous, but also that tapped into joy for me. And so the fact that I get to do that now, it is the absolute privilege of my life. I know that these things don't last, that I know that they are ups and downs. Thank God that I know that as well. And so I will appreciate this for what it is. And I'm going to be around for a long time. So I got a lot more musicals to make.

And we're going to test this thing. We're going to try to push musicals beyond what we think they can be so we can find new ways of how they can fulfill our lives. And we're going to recruit more people to do more musicals. And we're going to make people never say again that the movie musical is dead. But maybe it starts with Wicked here and we just keep going. So it's just one point in the road, I guess.

[4:10] Robert Bannon: Well, you know, I was when you talk about you growing up in your family's restaurant at Chef Choose and growing up out there in California and Los Altos and being in love with musicals. And now the next generation, I see so many kids on Instagram. I saw so many theater camps, so many theater groups all going out, buying their tickets, going to witness. So fun. It's got to be amazing to see all the videos, the people singing along.

[4:30] Jon M. Chu: Love it. Those are my people. Those are my people. Those are people I hung out with at camp. Those are the people I went on tour with as a 16-year-old that had a terrible voice, but I could tap dance a little bit. And so I'm the guy with the camera that would get all those people on in a scene. And they would be the people that would work with me and work and help me on my projects, dancers and actors and singers. And so I just feel like, you know, the world being such a cynical place and it's theater kids who are printing out the vision now. And so to be able to make a movie that crosses all those things and shows the beauty of theater, shows the beauty of music and movement, and that it's just as badass as a superhero movie and that women's friendship can be just as complicated and interesting as any other relationship, as a romance or whatever you want to call it in cinema. To me, that is that's that's that's the dream that we get to wake people up a little bit.

[5:25] Robert Bannon: Well, I think Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have. Listen, they were superstars. I've never seen anyone on Broadway do what Cynthia Erivo did in person. And now to see what she has done on the screen with this film and to see what Ariana Grande has done from a pop superstar to being an incredible leading actress in a movie musical and this incredible and to see Jeff Goldblum sing and dance to see this. Michelle Yeoh.

[5:51] Jon M. Chu: Michelle Yeoh swings with the whole thing. What have you added to this? If people love the musical, if people have seen the Broadway show now or or you've only seen part one, you've only seen Wicked, what do we have in store for the second one for the lovers of it and for people who are new to this?

[6:07] Jon M. Chu: We get to go deeper. We get to explore these characters further. You know these characters, but you've never gotten to be this close to them, how they struggle with home, how they struggle with the bubble, how how it struggles after for good. What do you feel like after you sing that song? How do you close the door to that chapter? Oh my God, you cannot. That is not something you can experience on stage because we're not that close to them. And in this and in terms of physicality and now we get to be there and you don't have Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo giving such truthful experiences in that that are very personal. And to me, you get to feel the full breadth of how you knew these people exist.

They exist in your soul, so you know they are there. But now you get to actually witness some of these moments that we that you've probably asked yourself. And so that was really fun for me to explore with our actors and with our all the designers and our movie. I don't call them designers. I call them storytellers, really, because every costumes and production design and camera and choreography, they all had to be telling the same story. It is I think you will get feel the feel the juice of what you've always known has been there.

[7:17] Robert Bannon: Well, you know, you're epic. You're you're an epic director, period. And this cast is epic. But what I would love for you to talk, take a moment about is your crew and the thousands of people who have worked on this movie and the incredible background workers, the actors that have been on the set for.

[11:32] Robert Bannon: I'm so excited. I mean, people, I mean, I don't know what you're doing this weekend. I know that what I know what I'm doing this weekend, we already got our tickets and we're ready to go. He already, he says, Hey, welcome to the Roundtable. The husband and I will be out at the theater this weekend. You're out of the theater this weekend. Just wait to see how successful this film is going to be. I was looking at your filmography, some of the films that I mean, you have done a lot of music with his work with Justin Bieber, if it's Gem in the Holograms, if it's Step Up, if it's, we all know Crazy Rich Asians, you did in the Heights and it kind of ushered in this, you're the go-to musical director guy.

Like did you, I don't know about the go-to, but I'm down. I'm down for that label. I listen, I love musicals. I, if I could be a Stanley Donen, if I could make movie musicals for the rest of my life, what it is the best. If any director directs a musical, it's really hard to go back because it's just so much fun. And you, you have roads that you don't, you cannot take in any other genre.

[12:34] Jon M. Chu: Yeah. Well, listen, the rumors are true that you've got more musicals up your sleeve in the future. I'm all for only Jon Chu. I'm just letting you know. I'm just like, you know, give me a sniff of this. He's got his daddy by, he's really there. It's daddy time. So this weekend, how are you going to celebrate? How are you going to be able, are you going to shut the phone and put the computer away? Are you going to party it up? What is your plan to get through opening weekend here of Wicked for Good? I've had hits, I've had bombs. What I realized is that opening weekend needs to be a celebration no matter what it is. And if you don't go to the movie theater to experience it with the public, then you miss, the one thing you've been waiting for this whole time is to see your baby get oxygen and it's no longer yours and they're going to turn to what it is.

But that moment that they get to breathe for the first time, I love to go to the theaters. I love to hide and hear people and hear people laugh or discuss it. And so that's what I'll be doing this weekend, somewhere, somewhere out there. I won't say exactly where, but.

[13:36] Robert Bannon: Look, if you want to head to Detroit, my neck of the woods, Popcorn Omni, okay? As long as it's in the hot air balloon one. I want the big wicked hot air balloon and the cup. I need the full, I need all the collectibles. Or the music box one is pretty crazy. Have you seen the music box one? I saw it. I've been seeing them on Instagram. I'm ready. I want to say from me to you, thank you so much for the body of work, the representation, the love and the details that you put in this. It's a sacrifice you take away from your family, from your personal life to give us the joy and your work will live on forever. We owe you an incredible sense of gratitude and you're going to give us so much joy. You are so charismatic.

You are a superstar. Did you see him on Dancing with the Stars? He's a star, everybody. I just got so many emails. You better not grade Alex this way or Robert that way. I was so scared. I was like, I don't know how to do this. And then you get there and they're like, hey, if you're the first judge that talks, you've got to lock your score in before they stop dancing. And you're like, ah, it was a lot of panic. You're a star. He's a star, everybody. Everybody, wicked for good. Who can say if I've been changed for the better? You'll be changed for the better. After the film, you got to check it out. Congratulations. It's such an honor. We're so excited to be that you're here and we look forward to all that is to come. The best is yet to come.

[14:45] Jon M. Chu: Yes, here we go. Thanks, Robert.

[14:47] Robert Bannon: Thank you. Thank you all so much.