Does Wicked’s Director Think Glinda Knows What Happened To Elphaba In The Finale Of Wicked For Good? What He Says

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Spoilers ahead for Wicked: For Good.

As a millennial who grew up loving musical theater, I’ve been incredibly excited about the Wicked movies for the past couple of years – they feel like a major event! While it’s still uncertain if For Good will be an Oscar contender, the film is already a huge box office success. One big question fans have been debating is whether Glinda understands what happened to Elphaba at the end, and the director, Jon M. Chu, has finally shared his thoughts.

I was so captivated by the first Wicked movie, seeing how Glinda and Elphaba became friends. But For Good really digs deeper – it jumps forward in time and shows their relationship getting much more complicated. It was heartbreaking watching Cynthia Erivo’s character appear to be killed by Dorothy, even though it turned out to be a clever plan for her and Fiyero to escape Oz and finally find some peace. The really sad part is Glinda doesn’t know any of this; she genuinely believes her best friend and former love are gone. I was really curious about whether Ariana Grande’s character actually knows they’re alive, and director Jon M. Chu recently talked about that in an interview with Variety, saying…

I have a clear vision, but I want people to be able to find their own meaning in it.

The musical makes it obvious Glinda doesn’t realize the truth, and Fiyero and Elphaba regret not being able to tell her before they left Oz. While that’s still largely true in the movie Wicked: For Good, a longer look at Ariana Grande adds some uncertainty. According to director Jon M. Chu, that ambiguity was intentional.

As someone who really defends the second act of Wicked, I’m very familiar with the source material. While I always understood the stage show’s ending, I found the movie’s finale to be a little more ambiguous. In a recent interview, director Jon M. Chu explained why he chose this open ending, saying:

This wasn’t a typical, perfect story. It came from very real human feelings, and something wonderful grew out of that.

He has a point. Though Wicked is a fantastical story linked to The Wizard of Oz, at its heart it’s about the complexities of being human. The characters are imperfect, they stumble, and they try to reconnect. Some succeed, like Glinda and Elphaba who own up to their errors in the song “For Good,” but others, like Nessa and Boq, don’t find their way back to each other.

While Wicked is a popular musical, many viewers were already familiar with the story when they watched the film adaptations directed by Chu. Despite this, the movie still had some unexpected moments, especially its somewhat open-ended ending. I personally prefer the original version, where Glinda mistakenly believes her family has died. Maybe that makes me sound cold, but I find it more impactful.

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2025-11-25 18:10