Is it possible to capture lightning in a frame? Jon M. Chu believes so—and he argues that AI couldn’t have captured one of Wicked’s most unforgettable moments.
If there’s any creator who understands the power of viral storytelling, it’s Jon M. Chu, the director behind Wicked: For Good. At WIRED’s Big Interview event in San Francisco, Chu—who started as a YouTuber and later directed Crazy Rich Asians—shared how engaging with fans online during the creative process reshaped his approach to cinema. While directing Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never in the late 2000s, Chu watched Bieber use Twitter to introduce fans to the behind-the-scenes world. When a clip Bieber posted joking that the director was following him on set went viral, Chu observed his fan base swell by tens of thousands in a heartbeat. That moment crystallized a core truth: direct connection with the audience can power a project from inception to afterglow.
Chu explains that the story begins before filming starts and continues long after the final cut. This is a big reason fans feel so invested in Wicked—and in Wicked: For Good—and why the marketing and press cycles emphasize the relationships built by the cast during production. The bond among stars, including Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, grew under the pressure to craft something extraordinary and commercially viable. Chu likens the crew’s camaraderie to a tight-knit Silicon Valley team burning the midnight oil to launch a new product.
As a Bay Area native, Chu has long felt indebted to the tech world that helped launch his entertainment career. In the 1990s, while he was still a teenager, tech-minded customers at his parents’ Chinese restaurant would gift him computers, video cards, and software when they learned of his filmmaking ambitions. Those acts of generosity gave him a head start when he studied at the University of Southern California. “I was built by the generosity of this place, and I feel a great responsibility when I’m back,” he reflects.
That longstanding relationship with technology shapes Chu’s stance on AI and filmmaking. He describes himself as open-minded about how AI can intersect with the art and craft of cinema. He’s intrigued by AI’s potential for gathering information and organizing it, and he’s invested time in learning how to incorporate AI into his own process to grasp its possibilities.
Yet Chu also emphasizes the value of practical, on-set work. While Wicked benefited from flexible, improvised moments on real stages, trying to script every line, move, or personality in advance could have produced a sterile result. If Wicked had progressed strictly from storyboard to screen without the ability to pivot, audiences might not have encountered those now-iconic moments—the sort of spontaneity that defines great cinema. Chu highlights a specific example: a spontaneous wink from Erivo when Elphaba dons her cape in the first film. If that wink had been pre-scripted, it would have felt contrived; because Erivo performed it in the moment, the image endured as a vivid, lasting piece of cinematic history.
In Chu’s view, the magic of cinema lies not in rigid planning but in the serendipity of strong collaboration and the willingness to follow where creativity leads. When asked to reflect on these experiences, he suggests that art thrives at the intersection of prepared structure and open-ended improvisation—and that sometimes the most memorable moments arrive when a performer seizes an unscripted instant of truth.
What do you think about the balance between planning and spontaneity in big productions? Do you believe AI will eventually replicate the instinctive magic of on-set improvisation, or is human spontaneity an essential edge that technology can’t fully capture? Share your thoughts in the comments.
