“Wicked” Director Jon M. Chu Responded To Critiques That The Movie Looks “Desaturated”

Jon M. Chu defended the color grading in the new Wicked movie.

The director has been hit with criticism over the handling of color in his musical adaptation pretty much from the jump. When the first promotional images of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda respectively dropped last April, Jon told critics at the time, “Don’t worry we still have a year and half to show you our colors! Trust me, plenty of colors in Oz.”

Now that the movie is out, Jon was asked by the Canadian publication the Globe and Mail about the movie’s “aesthetic.” Journalist Radheyan Simonpillai said to Jon, “Going back to The Wizard of Oz, what made that movie so special was how it leaned into the ‘glorious Technicolor’ for its storytelling…Wicked is a little desaturated.”

In response, Jon said, “I mean, there’s color all over it. I think what we wanted to do was immerse people into Oz, to make it a real place. Because if it was a fake place, if it was a dream in someone’s mind, then the real relationships and the stakes that these two girls are going through wouldn’t feel real.”

He added, “It’s also [presented in] a way we have not experienced Oz before. It’s been a matte painting. It’s been a video game digital world. But for us, I want to feel the dirt. I want to feel the wear and tear of it. And that means it’s not plastic.”