As Hollywood grapples with AI's expanding role in filmmaking, Wicked director Jon M. Chu is drawing a clear line in the sand. Speaking at WIRED's Big Interview event in San Francisco, the filmmaker argued that cinema's most memorable moments come from human spontaneity - something machines simply can't manufacture. His example? Cynthia Erivo's spontaneous wink in Wicked that became an instant icon.
Hollywood's AI debate just got a powerful voice from an unexpected corner. Jon M. Chu, the director behind this year's blockbuster Wicked adaptation, made a compelling case for human creativity over machine generation during WIRED's Big Interview event in San Francisco.
The filmmaker, who's no stranger to technology having started as a YouTuber, drew a clear distinction between AI's utility and its creative limitations. "I'm fascinated by AI's potential for information gathering and organization," Chu told WIRED's senior culture editor Manisha Krishnan. But when it comes to the magic that makes cinema memorable, he believes human spontaneity remains irreplaceable.
His proof point? That now-iconic moment when Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba winks at the camera while donning her witchy cape. "If I'd written that wink into the script before the scene was shot, it would have felt rote and hacky," Chu explained. "But when Erivo did it spontaneously during a take, it felt perfect. Since she did it in the moment, it becomes an image that lasts forever."
This perspective comes from someone uniquely positioned to understand both tech innovation and creative storytelling. Growing up in the Bay Area, Chu credits Silicon Valley's tech community for launching his career. In the '90s, tech-savvy customers at his parents' Chinese restaurant would slip the teenage filmmaker computers, video cards, and software when they heard about his filmmaking interests. "I was built by the generosity of this place," he reflected.
That early exposure to technology shaped Chu's approach to modern filmmaking tools, including AI. He's actively learning how to integrate artificial intelligence into his creative process, but maintains that the technology serves best as a support system rather than a replacement for human intuition and spontaneity.
The Wicked production exemplifies this philosophy. Rather than meticulously pre-planning every camera movement and line of dialogue, Chu embraced practical sets and improvisation. "There was value in having practical sets and being able to improvise rather than having to write every bit of dialog, camera motion, or characterization in advance," he said.
This approach created the authentic relationships that fueled Wicked's viral marketing success. The bonds between stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo emerged from what Chu described as immense production pressure. "We only had each other, so we're very, very bonded," he explained, comparing the dynamic to Silicon Valley developers working intense hours to ship a new product.
Chu's understanding of viral marketing traces back to his work with Justin Bieber on the concert film Never Say Never. The then-14-year-old pop star used Twitter to introduce Chu to his fanbase, and the director watched his followers explode by tens of thousands almost instantly. "The story is being told before you even start shooting, and after you're done with the movie, you have to continue that story," he realized.
As Hollywood debates AI's role in filmmaking, Chu's perspective offers a nuanced middle ground. He's not an AI skeptic - he actively studies the technology and sees its potential for streamlining production workflows. But he draws a firm line when it comes to the creative spark that transforms good films into cultural phenomena.
The success of Wicked, which has become a cultural juggernaut partly due to that spontaneous wink moment, validates Chu's approach. In an era where studios are increasingly looking to AI for cost savings and efficiency, his film proves that some of cinema's most valuable moments can't be programmed - they have to be discovered in real time by human performers responding to human direction.
For an industry grappling with how much creative control to cede to algorithms, Chu's message is clear: embrace AI for what it does well, but preserve space for the unpredictable human moments that create lasting art.
Chu's perspective offers Hollywood a roadmap for the AI era - use the technology as a powerful tool for research and organization, but preserve the human spontaneity that creates cinema's most memorable moments. As the industry continues to integrate artificial intelligence into production workflows, Wicked's success demonstrates that audiences still crave the authentic, unscripted moments that only human creativity can deliver. The question isn't whether AI will transform filmmaking, but whether filmmakers will maintain space for the kind of magical accidents that turn good movies into cultural phenomena.
