Jon M. Chu Claps Back at Rumors He ‘Forgot’ Color Grading in Wicked Films

It only took a clock tick for director Jon M. Chu to shoot down rumors that color grading was never completed on Wicked: For Good.

An X account called DiscussingFish shared a parody post on Monday, November 24, that read, “Jon M. Chu has confirmed he ‘Forgot’ to do the color grading for both ‘WICKED’ movies. ‘My fault.’” The post shared a link to a Variety article where Chu, 46, discussed creating an extremely emotional scene between Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo).

Many X users began to reshare the post on their feeds, before Chu chimed in from his personal account to comment, “Click bait,” in response.

Chu faced similar scrutiny about color grading when Wicked, the first installment, was released last year. During a November 2024 interview with The Globe and Mail, the interviewer mentioned the film was “a little desaturated.”

“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,” Chu responded. “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.”

One thing Chu wanted to accomplish with the first Wicked film was to create “a way we have not experienced Oz before.”

“It’s been a matte painting. It’s been a video game digital world,” he added. “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.”

Wicked dazzled audiences with its colorful portrayal of Oz and Emerald City, as well as Shiz University, earning 10 Oscar nominations. The film nabbed the award for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design at the Academy Awards in March.

“We have the environment,” Chu continued of the magical land of Oz. “The sun is the main source of light. You see the vast landscapes. You see the air. You see creatures exist here. These two characters that will go through two movies, their relationship with the land is important; their relationship with the nature of this land that the wizard imposed himself. The [color] contrast goes up over time because that is what Elphaba brings to this world.”

Chu also addressed color grading concerns after the first images of the Wicked cast in costumes were released in 2023.

“I chose those images specifically. It was so early, and we had just started shooting,” he told Variety in November 2024. “I wanted images that were evocative and provocative to show it’s not some bright, poppy story. We didn’t even have the effects done. The background was blue. I had to have VFX put in the sky. I was coloring it on my iPhone. We’re not doing this through a real process. I love playing in the shadows, but I did have my iPhone brightness very high. When I released the photos, literally from my iPhone, I realized, ‘Oh, everybody really doesn’t turn up their brightness that high.’ I felt bad because I did that. There was no going through the studio.”