Filmmaker Jon M. Chu performed important roles in delivering not one however two bundles of pleasure this month.
The primary arrived Nov. 9 when the Palo Alto-born filmmaker and his spouse Kristin Hodge welcomed daughter Stevie Sky into their enchanted kingdom; they now have 4 kids.
The joyful occasion coincided with the glitzy Los Angeles premiere of one of many largest movies of 2024, Chu’s cinematic model of the beloved Broadway chestnut, “Wicked.”
It whisks into theaters on Friday.
When requested if welcoming a brand new daughter and being director of one of many vacation’s largest films means he’s not getting a lot sleep proper now, the affable Chu jokes again.
“I haven’t had sleep for like three years,” he stated. “My wife’s an angel. So life is full right now and my heart is full. So it’s only all blessings.”
Chu’s Half 1 of “Wicked” (Half II is slated for a November 2025 launch) runs so long as all the stage manufacturing however doesn’t appear to be it and boasts an eclectic solid that features Tony Award winner Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the ostracized Depraved Witch of the West within the making, and pop star Ariana Grande as goody two-shoes Glinda (or Ga-linda, as she’s fast to level out). The 2 irk one another as odd-couple roommates at Shiz College’s ladies’s faculty, Crage Corridor. It’s overseen by headmistress Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh). “Bridgerton” heartthrob Jonathan Bailey additionally co-stars because the dashing prince Fiyero Tigelaar who catches the flamboyant of each.
Chu helmed 2018’s phenomenally profitable “Crazy Rich Asians” and, later, the peppy musical “In the Heights.” The latter, launched within the aftermath of COVID-19, did not ignite the hoped-for box-office site visitors. “Wicked” skilled turbulence in its personal flight to the display screen when the author’s strike halted manufacturing proper earlier than filming of the show-stopping quantity “Defying Gravity,” which concludes this movie. Erivo sat with that music for six months after which belted it out, Chu stated.
Chu has all the time adored musicals and fell in love with “Wicked” throughout its 2003 world premiere run at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre. The 45-year-old fondly remembers coming to San Francisco together with his household to see ballet, opera and numerous musicals productions. Chu’s mother and father are beloved South Bay icons: Lawrence and Ruth Chu and run the well-known Chef Chu’s restaurant in Los Altos.
With “Wicked,” Chu was swept away from the very begin.
“I feel very lucky to have the most pure patient-zero experience,” he recollects. “I knew nothing about what I was about to watch, but I remember very specifically when it blew me away, when I was intrigued by the bubble, when the little nods to the (‘Wizard of Oz’) movie really connected with me.”
For that motive, it’s a little bit of a thoughts blower for Chu, who additionally helmed two “Step Up” dance films, “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” “Jem and the Holograms” and extra, that he’s the one directing the movie model some 20 years after seeing the musical with the fam.
“It feels like destiny,” he says.
His love for musicals acquired nurtured whereas attending college within the South Bay.
“Our school (Pinewood in Los Altos) was very much into theater,” he stated “I played Oliver. I was obsessed with ‘The Phantom of the Opera.’ I had the pop-up book. I had the beach towel. I had the porcelain mask. I loved ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.’”
He discovered himself “surrounded by a culture of music and entertainment at the highest levels, at the biggest scope.”
Chu’s curiosity in filmmaking got here within the mid- to late-‘90s, the advent of digital video. For a 13- to 14-year-old kid the hardest part was gaining access to the equipment.
To the rescue came the generosity of the regular patrons at his parents’ restaurant.
“People came into the restaurant and gave my dad equipment for me because they knew I was into videos,” he recollects. “I was in the right place at the right moment, at the right time in a restaurant, which is essentially a house of stories, because everyone’s telling stories at all times.”
Having the digital camera in his hand proved to be a sport changer.
“I was the youngest of five, people sort of ignore you,” he stated. “But with a camera in my hands, everybody paid attention. They would let me go sit with them. Or they wanted to see what I was shooting. And looking into that lens was sort of like putting on a mask. And the way they look at you is different. I maybe got addicted to that. … It took me a little bit to understand the power of that.”
Chu recollects listening to his immigrant mother and father singing songs from the unique 1939 “The Wizard of Oz” round the home. The American Dream “was very real in our household,” he stated.
However he discovered himself “waking up to a different reality” as soon as he left the Bay Space and began faculty. The stage musical “Wicked” introduced what he was feeling to the forefront.
“Suddenly I walk into a store and they treat you differently,” he recollects. “I was sort of coming to grips with is this the way the world is? And this musical came and upended this idea of the fairy tale and said … in a very earnest way who decided what a villain should look like, who decided what a hero should look like.”
That caught with him by the method of creating the film. One of many trickiest elements was casting the 2 feminine leads.
Erivo wowed them along with her efficiency, even when she first got here in wearing denims.
Chu, although, was reticent when he heard Grande was .
“I was like no way. Ariana Grande can’t do this. No way.” However he agreed to see her.
“She comes in and she’s the most interesting person in the room,” he recollects. However he nonetheless wasn’t completely satisfied she was the appropriate one for the position. Throughout a call-back, he requested if she might “take off the Ariana Grande stuff.”
“She became totally different, and she was willing to go there,” he stated. After a 3rd audition, she acquired the half.
“Wicked” Half II comes out Nov. 21, 2025, however Chu isn’t kicking again until then. He’s growing a movie model of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” and is engaged on an animated musical of Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” After which there’s that the “Crazy Rich Asians” musical developing, an in-development potential sequel to that huge box-office hit. And, oops, he’s additionally tapped to direct Britney Spears’ memoir.
All might nicely flip into much more bundles of leisure pleasure and Chu’s thrilled about that.
“Just not more kids,” he stated with amusing.
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