‘Wicked’ director explains why ‘The Wizard of Oz’ is different from new part

Wicked movie director Jon M Chu has dished out interesting details behind why new film does not match with the 1939 prequel, The Wizard of Oz.

The director, while speaking to Variety, explained why there were no original “Ruby slippers” and why the “yellow brick road” did not look the same as the previous film.

According to him, changing the most famous portrayals was due to rights reasons.

“We had boundaries of what we could reference or not,” John explained, saying, “We never use the ruby slippers.

“Nessa has on crystal slippers as in the L Frank Baum book [The Wizard of Oz], Gregory Maguire book [Wicked] and the [stage] show.”

The filmmaker also added that he does believe that the phrase “yellow brick road” was copywritten, but definitely the shape of the road was.

“We couldn’t do the spiral,” said John, adding, “We had to do a circle that continues to show it’s not where the road ends.”

Wicked is a two-part musical film adaptation of the stage musical of the same name starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.