Wicked: For Good director defends adding new songs following backlash

26 November 2025, 14:33 | Updated: 26 November 2025, 14:51

By Sam Prance

'No Place Like Home' and 'The Girl in the Bubble' in Wicked: For Good have received a mixed response from fans.

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Wicked: For Good introduces two new songs to the musical and now director Jon M. Chu has defended adding them.

Ever since Stephen Schwartz first teased that Wicked: For Good would include new original songs, people have been desperate to see how they would fit into the soundtrack. Now, the film is out we know that Elphaba's 'No Place Like Home' acts as a protest song and Glinda's 'The Girl in the Bubble' explores her emotional growth as a character.

However, fans have criticised the songs for failing to live up to the original soundtrack. Now Jon M. Chu, composer Stephen Schwartz and writer Winnie Holzman have explained why it was necessary to add the songs to the film.

Read more: Wicked's Michelle Yeoh initially turned down Madame Morrible because she doesn't "sing"
Read more: Wicked: For Good director explains why he scrapped "darker" ending

Watch the Wicked: For Good first look

Discussing the reasoning behind adding the new songs, Jon M. Chu told The New York Times: "It was about: We need to go deeper with understanding where Elphaba and Galinda are during their journey. Those were either going to be scenes or they were going to be songs."

Jon then revealed that Stephen, who wrote every song for the original musical, was keen to write two songs: "I would never have pushed Schwartz to write a song because he needs to be inspired by a moment, but he raised his hand immediately.”

Winnie, who wrote the Wicked script, said that original Glinda actress Kristen Chenoweth always wanted Glinda to have an Act 2 solo. However, they said no at the time because there wasn't time for it in the stage musical.

She said: "It really is a very streamlined second act. The first act is really rich and has a huge ending, which is amazing, and then it’s like: ‘Let’s go like a freight train. Let’s not linger. Let’s not exhaust the audience."

Referencing Wicked: For Good, Winnie added: "But this is a whole different situation now."

'No Place Like Home' and 'The Girl In The Bubble' were written for 'Wicked: For Good'. Picture: Alamy

As for the inspiration behind 'The Girl in the Bubble', Stephen explained: "Because it’s a movie, we have this beautiful bubble. So that led to the metaphor of the girl in the bubble. It sort of laid itself out that that would be the song."

Meanwhile, 'No Place Like Home' sets out exactly how much Elphaba cares about Oz: "Elphaba makes an enormous sacrifice at the end out of love for Oz. Winnie and I and the team felt that it was really important from a storytelling and emotional point of view to understand how much Elphaba actually loved her homeland."

The song contains direct nods to race and immigration: "We talked for hours about what it means to be in America and to be someone like her. That felt to me like what Elphaba would say whether she was in Oz or America in our current situation. She would take action. She would try to get allies to help her."

Stephen added: "It always bothered me when people thought it was a happy ending, and I’m like: ‘No, it’s not. It’s bittersweet, there’s great loss on everybody’s part here at the end." I think that is more vivid in the movie, partly because of the existence of this song.”

Speaking to Deadline, Jon also said: "I felt like I wanted it to work even more. And I knew we had the opportunity. Also, I knew the girls better....I knew what was missing emotionally for me."

What do you think? Do you like the new songs?