Making Blockbusters

[upbeat music]

Hi everyone.

Hey everybody.

Jon, thank you so much for being here.

Of course, great to be.

Unless you're a Luddite,

which I doubt anyone here would be here if they were,

you've probably heard of Jon.

And of course, the wonderful world of Wicked.

Wicked was the highest grossing adaptation

of a Broadway musical in box office history.

It was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture.

Wicked: For Good, which is in theaters right now,

opened number one at the Global Box office.

Jon also directed the wildly successful phenomenon,

Crazy Rich Asians, which I love.

And you are slated to direct

the upcoming Britney Spears biopic based on her memoir,

The Woman In Me.

So we have tons to talk about, let's dive in.

Okay, you worked on Wicked for five years,

and this moment right now

is kind of the culmination of that.

Are you relishing this?

Are you feeling like you wanna be done

with Wicked? [Jon chuckles]

Like, how is this moment going for you?

Yeah, well, one, it's really great to be in the Bay.

I'm a Bay Area kid.

[audience cheering]

That's right.

I grew up in Los Altos.

My parents have a Chinese restaurant there for 56 years,

Chef Chu's.

[audience cheering]

And so this is my home, it's good to be home.

And I- I was built by the generosity

of this place.

The customers who would come into the restaurant,

would give my parents computers, video cards,

this is in the mid-nineties,

and software, Adobe [indistinct] software,

Russell Brown, all this stuff for this little- this kid

who was getting into movies.

And so I feel great responsibility when I'm out

in- went to LA to escape this place,

and now we're all crashing together.

And so, and when I started Wicked five plus years ago,

I actually saw Wicked for the first time

in the current theater here, before it went on Broadway.

And so, you know, The Wizard of Oz

is the great American dream.

It's what my parents who immigrated to this country,

into the Bay, dreamed of.

And they started their business

and they built this world for us.

And we believe in the, I'm one of five kids

and I believed in this dream, and I got to pursue it.

And so tackling Wicked,

which is taking the Great American fairytale

and then deconstructing it in a new way

and picking up its pieces

and trying to tell a new story through a new perspective,

that has always been really important to me

because that's me. That's how I grew up.

And, and yes, I am exhausted

after these five plus years.

I've had three children since working on this movie.

But how privileged are we to be exhausted by the dream

that we begged from the universe, for so many times?

So I, I feel honored [audience clapping]

to be honored.

Wicked is hugely successful both

critically and commercially.

You know, the press tours are- seem larger than life.

The outfits,

the brand collabs, [Jon laughs]

the viral moments.

It seems like it takes a lot more these days

to sort of make a true box office hit.

I mean, even Leo DiCaprio was working the podcast

[Jon] circuit to promote- I know, that's crazy.

One battle after another.

[Jon] Yep.

So like, how key are sort of influencers,

podcasters like platforms,

to getting butts into movie theaters?

I mean, I don't know what the data is,

but obviously it's a huge piece of the puzzle now.

And I've watched that change

even from Crazy Rich Asians to now,

it's such a different landscape.

Do you go on late night talk shows, daytime talk shows,

or is, or you get on these podcasts and the,

and everything's in, you know, 15 second, 20 second clips,

and that seems to be what people want.

You know, for I,

because I grew up in the Silicon Valley,

technology has always been, it allowed me to do what I do.

It gave me access before any,

before someone my age should have had access to it.

And I learned a lot during that.

And so my first movie, Step Up 2: The Streets was a sequel

to a dance movie.

But what I learned when I started that, this is in 2008,

the first Step Up movie had this

huge following on MySpace.

And, and yes, I was on Friendster and my, all that stuff,

but MySpace was the [host laughs]

first time I entered a movie

and they're like, Hey, you have to actually get onto

MySpace and understand this audience because

it's more about international box office.

So they, the music was shared, the album was huge

because it was a dance movie.

And so I got to go on that space

and got to meet, as I was directing the movie,

got to meet those people.

I got to have auditions on MySpace

and share our new music on MySpace

and understand why they love.

So, to me, it really influenced the making of the movie.

And when we released it, [throat clearing]

we even took people that audition and put them in the movie,

got them premier tickets.

And so, it was this great relationship.

My movies after that was Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

which I got to be when Justin was 14 years old

and he was just bursting onto the scene.

I was on Twitter, of course, he was dominating Twitter

at that moment, but he was still just on the rise.

And so I got to witness that.

I got to witness him when he was like,

Hey, you're gonna direct this movie,

but we have to introduce you to my audience.

I realized, oh, the story's being told

before the movie even begins,

before you even start shooting.

And then after you're done with the movie,

you gotta continue to continue that story.

And so for, for that, he had, he brought me into his trailer

and he's like, Hey, let's record something.

He's like, Hey everybody, this guy keeps following around.

Who are you? And it turns to me, I'm like,

Hey, I'm Jon, I'm gonna be

directing your movie, [host laughs]

and here we go.

And so at some my foll- I watched in real time,

my followers go up.

I mean, it was like 10,000 every five minutes.

It was, I've never seen it like that.

I recorded on my iPhone, it was insane.

And it was just, so I saw his power in that

and he kept me in.

So I became a character in his world

for a moment in time as he was traveling.

And I just saw the power of that getting to know,

talking to his fans on Tiny Chat,

learning about, telling them when we are flying a helicopter

over Madison Square Garden, say,

Hey, give me your cross as you're going,

everybody wear purple to the concert,

tell me your cross streets,

I'm gonna fly, I'm gonna do flybys.

And then we get up there

and we're doing flybys from fans who've tweeted,

and this is 2000, what is this, 2012

where their location is.

I mean, that kind- or saying,

Hey, you're going to the movie this weekend,

bring glow sticks.

Oh, and tell the guy in the sound side

of your whatever theater you're at,

turn it to a seven

because they always turn it to a four.

And they got theaters complained to us

because all these kids were going to the

projectionist being Turn it to a seven.

And, [host laughs]

that was enormously powerful.

[Host] Right. And I think now, it's

you know, it's matured in different ways.

It's now just a part of the business.

But I, but Wicked is no different than that.

Wicked, they have, you have The Wizard of Oz fans,

where, which is of a different generation,

you have are the- the Wicked book fans,

which are of a different group sort of than

the Wicked musical fans.

And those are hardcore theater kid fans,

which I'm a part of.

And then you have movie people,

and then you have musical people just in general.

And then they're all giving you input of who you hire,

how you're doing this movie.

And then, and so I tried to keep them in the loop

of how we were doing.

And then by now, it's, it's okay, we're coming out,

let me present you to what we've done,

and here are these girls and what they've done.

And that's been actually really fun

and hard all at once, I guess.

Well, I mean, and I am curious about sort

of the viral moments from the

[Jon] Wicked press tour. Yeah.

Because obviously Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo's

friendship has like sparked a lot of conversation.

They've been emotional in certain interviews together.

This has even spawned like parodies on TikTok.

One thing I'm wondering is, okay, what the hell did you do

to them in this movie? No, I'm kidding.

But like, is there something about this movie like

that really like bonded you all?

Like where, where do you think that emotion's coming from

and what do you make of sort of like,

the fixation on that and like, the virality of like,

those moments, that scrutiny?

Yeah, imagine little me getting the call,

Hey, you get to do 'Wicked'.

Oh my gosh, okay.

And they announced me and everyone's like,

that guy who did Step up 2: The Streets? Fuck you.

[audience chuckles]

That's the energy coming at you.

My mom's like, Don't listen to them, honey.

I'm like, I can't stop listening to them.

So imagine that, then you're like, Hey, we're gonna,

I'm looking at the material, I'm like,

you can't do one movie.

You have to do two movies because if you do one movie,

you strip out all the things, that's not Wicked anymore,

and I'm a Wicked fan.

I want this to be the definitive Wicked

and otherwise it's not Wicked.

So you split the movie in two

and studio's like Jon, you announce it to the world.

So then I tweeted like, fuck you, Jon, two movies,

you money grabber.

So you're getting that kind of energy on you.

And then everyone wants to Elphaba and Glinda,

everyone's sending you their videos

of why they should Elphaba and Glinda.

Everyone's sending you their favorite celebrities

of why they should Elphaba and Glinda,

and you're just to like, make a great movie.

And that takes focus and clarity.

And then you start doing auditions,

and then you start choosing who it's gonna be.

And then you choose Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande,

which seems obvious now,

but at the time everyone's like, Cynthia Erivo,

what, how, I mean, she could sing the song,

but how could she be this, oh, Ariana Grande,

that's a money grab the blah, blah, blah.

I know the truth because I was there in the audition room.

I saw how amazing that, when you see Ariana Grande do these,

to do this role, you would be shocked

because she's opening up a new chapter to her life.

I knew that.

And I'm seeing Cynthia Erivo doing things,

even though she's known around the world,

we were gonna make her a global superstar

because we were gonna expose her to more people.

And the way she sings Elphaba's songs,

even though we've heard it a hundred times,

when she says something has changed within me,

something's not the same.

That felt so resonant to me.

This is during COVID lockdown, when I,

when we were doing auditions, I was like,

that's where we are in culture right now.

And so I had to choose that.

And now everyone's attacking me, attacking me.

And then we get into, and all The Wizard of Oz,

people are like, you can't do Wicked.

How, what are you gonna do with Dorothy? Blah, blah, blah.

And then you're in London and you're together,

and you're like, people aren't gonna see this movie

for three, maybe plus years.

So we have to make the best movie we can.

And all our careers are on the line and knives are out.

And theater kids are tough.

Yeah. And,

[everyone laughs]

the fans are tough.

And by the way, everyone says cinema is dead.

And by the way, they think music, movie,

movie musicals are dead.

Let's start.

Oh, and let's spend so much money on two movies

that if the first one doesn't work,

you're literally screwed.

That's, and then, so we look at each other

and we're like, we only have each other.

We only have each other.

I think I have some solutions,

but we're gonna have to find this together.

You become very, very bonded. They're my sisters.

And if people think that's cringey,

then they've never made something with love.

And they've never made, you know, you know how hard

late nights, all night long,

drawing pictures trying to figure it out.

Having that fear just outside your door

and continuing through that, that is hard stuff.

And when you have a group that you're like,

okay, block it all out.

Let's walk this yellow brick road together.

And you're creating, you're doing things

and you're taking risks and you're playing

and I'm trying to, I'm gonna protect them

because if I mess, I could kill their career too.

And they edit in the mix.

And so we're doing this with so much passion

and then people haven't even seen, and we,

and we do two movies at the same time, we shoot both.

So we've seen the fun part of the story

and the dark side of the story.

We've seen them bond together, be together.

And then we've seen their death and their

rebirth as they leave each other.

So we've lived a lifetime with these people

before anyone even knows when this movie is coming out.

And then we drop the movie and we're doing press tours

and we are so close together

because we've been in this huddle and we're talking about,

and they're only seeing the first movie,

which is fun and all the, and you know, it's, it's heroic

and it's all these things, but we lived their death already.

So we're, we're expressing those things.

And it's hard, I think for people to fully understand that,

the intensity of that.

But I think because you know, how intense it is

to create anything of substantial effort that

that's, that is what it requires.

And so, and we're living in a time of so much cynicism

and everyone having a microphone to cut and blame.

And, and so it's, it's an interesting role as a director,

as a storyteller, what does the audience want from me?

Do they just want the pro, the project out there

or they, are they begging

and itching at all the behind the scenes stuff?

And it's an interesting balance.

I'm still trying to find, you know, Chris Nolan does,

just does his movie and does his thing

and whether that can sustain itself

or James Cameron's getting out there

and doing podcasts now too.

Quentin Tarantino's getting on that microphone.

So how much do we want to hear from the filmmaker

or do I love the work speaking for itself?

But there is a, there is a, there is a piece of me

that also there needs to speak about the work itself

so people understand what's been going into this.

And so I think that that's, that's the

dance that we're doing. And-

That was a good answer. We're trying to, sorry,

that's a long thing. [host laughs]

That's better than what I thought you were gonna tell me.

But that's, that's the what I struggle with every day.

You know, I am a person of the internet.

I, Yeah.

I get information. I feed off of it.

I love knowing that it's my meta universe over here,

but now I have kids and I have my also real universe here.

And so that separation as you, when you have kids,

at least that I'm finding, I have five kids now.

It's yeah, yeah. [audience laughing]

[host laughing]

The best though. It's the best.

I have an 8-year-old, 6-year-old, 4-year-old, 2-year-old,

and 1-year-old.

And some say, wow, that's so exhausting.

But it actually like spurs creativity.

If you have, you have kids, especially young kids,

you know, it like, makes you alive.

And I, and so I struggle with how much to engage.

I want to engage with that world

because I feel like it is, it exists

and you have to engage with it if you want

to help guide it in some way.

And you want to be the defender of

[Host] Well.

good and kindness. So-

Yeah. One thing I,

one thing I'm wondering about, 'cause you grew up

in Silicon Valley, so obviously like not scared of tech.

[Jon] There's a lot of Yeah.

sort of contention overusing AI in the creative process.

You know, Guillermo del Toro said he would rather die

before he uses it.

You know, how, to what extent do you think

it could be useful for your filmmaking process?

Well, I mean, I think that AI is of such a general term.

Like, it's really, it's hard to have arguments about AI

because you're like, what are you talking about AI,

are you talking about generative AI?

Are you talking about AI the technology of that

that does, you know, I mean, is auto correct a type of AI?

[Host] Yeah, that's fair.

Is the algorithm AI?

Yeah, I mean it all to me, I just don't,

the marketing term of AI is just so confusing

when I have a conversation about it.

If we're talking about AI as a technology

of information and organization

and even visual organization or understanding,

to me that's so fascinating.

[Host] Right.

And I love that.

And I, and we, and Wicked was sort of pre AI

'cause we were already way down the road.

So, but I like to play with AI

because I wanna understand it.

I'm not scared of technology, like you said.

I think humans choose what we value

and we're gonna choose the thing that,

that is not the easiest thing ultimately.

It may be great to see at first, you know,

when DSLRs came out

and you're like, wow, that looks like a real,

a sort of a real camera.

And suddenly everyone's a photographer

and then you see all these pictures

and they all look the same and you're like, oh, that's the,

what it looks like isn't actually

what a real photographer is.

What it, what it does it mean, what are you trying to say?

And so our values shift.

And so when it comes to generative AI,

I think there was an original sin that it's hard for people

to get over this mining of images

and stories that we never agreed on.

And the rights holders never stepped

that legal game up to defend it.

And so it feels like everyone's like, hey, we're past

that point, guys, we're sorry about that.

We know you had those terms that you,

everybody clicked on and we mine those and sorry,

but this technology is more important than that.

So I think that as an artist,

that's a hard thing to get over.

But I think we, I don't, I can't say we have

to get over it, but I will say

that things are moving forward.

And so I think that's part, one part of an argument.

And then the other part of the argument is this,

that generative AI will can be helpful too, can be a,

a tool in the same way that a pencil, you know,

anything from our head to get, become physicalized.

That process, as we know, technology, anything

that can bridge that process is beautiful

if, and I, so I think we're trying to figure out how

to work this pencil, how to ride this beast a little bit.

And we're in that zone.

And so we get, I know, I find it fascinating.

I think that the audience,

however, when it's human made, we built these sets.

We have improv moments.

I know what it's like, I know, you know what it's like

when you're in a committee coming up with the plan,

you're writing the script, even doing the storyboards

and you're making the thing, if it turns out like that,

it's not good enough.

Like, the movie comes alive when we've done all that work.

And then we get on that set and you have a hundred people

and it's suddenly raining

and you're like, alright, we gotta make this work.

How does this work?

And you're then you're using your human instincts to say,

okay, it is raining and she's getting wet

and she's crying, and so the camera has to be closer

'cause we don't have big enough umbrellas,

so we're gonna get closer to her.

And suddenly it feels like you're there and then,

and it's unexplainable.

And we could, if I wrote that down in the script,

everyone says, you can't do it, you can't afford it

and it's crazy, but it's happening now

and then it becomes iconic.

And I've had that plenty of times in

making a movie, even when Elphaba is getting her cape on

in movie one, and she winks that.

If I wrote that in the script, people would've

laughed at it.

She would've said, hell no, I'm not winking.

[host laughs]

But she did that in the moment.

And now it becomes an image that lasts forever.

And I think that's what makes cinema beautiful.

I think that that's what makes art beautiful,

and I think we value that.

[Host] So, okay. So, Yeah.

it sounds like you're potentially like, open,

you're not closing the door on working with AI, basically.

I, I don't know.

Okay. That's all, that's all right.

I do wanna talk a little bit about,

I do wanna talk a little bit about Crazy Rich Asians,

because I love that movie.

[Jon] Yeah. But also,

I sort of wonder, you know,

did you have concerns about like being typecast

for like, doing like, Asian projects like that?

That movie meant so much for representation.

Did you also feel a lot of like responsibility when you,

when you undertook that project?

Yeah, I mean, there's a reason why I did it

because I was so scared

of talking about being an Asian American,

because one, as soon as you sort of label yourself, oh,

you're the Asian American director, then I feel like, oh,

they're just gonna like, just send him

all the Asian scripts.

And, and I was scared of that.

I just wanted to be seen as a director.

And also I don't have all the answers about

my cultural identity crisis.

And so, at that moment, in whatever year it was,

I was doing Now You See Me 2,

I'd had a decade of making movies

and I was working with these big actors, Morgan Freeman,

Michael Kane, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson,

and I realized like I didn't need to, I was like, oh,

I can hang with these people.

Oh, I think I deserve to be here now

after a decade of doing it.

And I, and I, then I looked around, I was like, oh,

anyone can make this movie.

And I had to go to back to my like, student self of like,

well, what's the thing that scare, what do I wanna say

with this thing that I now know how to utilize?

And it was about my cultural identity crisis,

something that I, being in the Chef Chu's,

at the restaurant, I thought about a lot, my parents,

when I would see people come in and, you know,

they treat servers however you wanna treat them,

but they would treat my parents poorly.

Sometimes, not all the customers, but just sometimes

I'd see it and I'd get really angry at my dad, like,

kick 'em out, [fist smacking]

dude, what are you doing?

And my parents sat me down and they said, listen,

we're, we are ambassadors here.

We are the first Chinese family

maybe this family has ever seen.

And so they think we're a certain way

and they treat us a certain way,

but one, we're taking their money.

[everyone laughs]

That's so Asian, [host laughs]

as a fellow Asian, I can say that.

[host laughs]

And two, we're not just filling their bellies,

we're filling their hearts.

So that next time they go see another Asian family,

maybe they'll double think what that initial instinct is.

And it's like, that's what you represent

when you go out into that world.

And so I think that has carried with me

and Crazy Rich Asians was an Asian, it's,

even though it's a romantic comedy,

it's an Asian American woman going

to Asia for the first time.

And for me, I was like, I know what that feels like going

to Taiwan for the first time to Hong Kong for the first time

and feeling like, oh, this feels like different than

where I was from, but is this my, is this, this is

what going to a homeland feels like.

And then they call you Gweilo, which you know,

is like foreign devil essentially.

[host chuckles]

And you're like, oh, I'm not a part of this either.

So if I'm not a part of this and I'm not a part of that,

I know that's like a tired argument,

but it's true in the identity,

then I don't know where I fit.

And so this movie helped me find how I fit

and to find Asian, Asian actors from all around the world,

not just Asian American, that were funny,

that were beautiful, that were, that were elegant,

that were dramatic, that were messy, that were raw and rude,

like all the things.

And for us to make fun of our own families in our own way

and make it aspirational that the studios had

to spend a hundred million do- or whatever, it wasn't

a hundred million dollars, but what,

tens of millions of dollars to say, go see this movie,

go pay money and sit in the dark and just listen to them

because they're beautiful and aspirational

and funny, the way they treat any movie star.

To me, that was very empowering.

And then when it, I, but I thought no one would

go see the movie, but I was like,

that's how what we have to do.

And when we did it, and then people showed up,

and it wasn't just Asian people,

it was people bringing their cousin

and their grandparents and their neighbor.

To me, I was, I saw the power of cinema.

That to me was like, oh,

this is a sa- this is a very sacred space

we need to protect.

You just signed a three-year deal with Paramount Skydance,

their CEO David Ellison has sort of committed

to doing away with DEI initiatives.

And that's been a trend in Hollywood, you know,

kind of that we've seen over the year.

Does that, does that worry you at all in terms of like,

the type of films that you'll be able to make?

And, and where do you think we're at

with like representation in light of kind of this

DEI crackdown?

Yeah, I mean I've, of course, I feel like my job

as a storyteller is to get in there and make things facts.

And maybe that's not my job to go debate the thing

and go tweet the thing.

I'm on the ground and I have to get a project made

and I have to get it into theater so people can pay money,

sit in the dark and see the world

through a new person's perspective.

I have to be so laser focused on that.

I can read all the stuff, I can feel all the things,

but I have to be really la-

because that's where I'm most effective.

And so if I'm making Wicked, I'm gonna cast Cynthia Erivo,

a woman of color playing Elphaba,

but for the first time playing a green girl,

which is crazy.

[host chuckles]

And when she says those words, it means things different.

And she's bringing her own wounds to it.

I'm gonna prove that,

I don't have to debate anybody about that.

I'm gonna put Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible.

I don't have to prove that.

I'm gonna put our, the first wheelchair user as Nessa Rose.

The first one. I'm not gonna debate that, tweet it.

I'm just gonna do it.

I'm gonna put a whole cast of Latino amazing actors,

singers, dancers in the streets of Washington Heights,

and I'm gonna show that bodega,

just like my Chinese restaurant, has bigger dreams and has,

and is as wonderful and beautiful and delightful

as any Hollywood classic musical has ever shown.

They can walk on the walls when you're dreaming

in your apartment.

That's to me, let's just, we are just gonna do it.

And in Crazy Rich Asians, we're gonna show that

it's not about a list of like, checking off people

of what you have to have on a list.

Those arguments are for other people,

but my job is to just do it

and say, Hey, look how much money you guys made,

should you make more of these?

Great, let's do that.

There's, [audience clapping]

I think I can get caught up in those arguments all day long.

I know David, we grew up in, you know, this is our hometown.

We went to film school together.

My job is to just show and prove.

And the thing about the box office,

which I love about movie theaters,

is that reviewers can say whatever they want.

People in a conference room can say whatever they want.

Business affairs can say whatever the fuck they want.

But when you put it in a movie theater, if it makes money,

if it creates a cultural phenomenon, it becomes a fact.

Then there's nothing you can say about it.

There's no more argument.

And I just think that that's my role.

And wherever that is, whatever resource I get

to make things facts that I know are true, let's go.

That is the perfect way to end this conversation.

Jon, thank you so much. [audience cheering]

You killed it.

And next up, we're gonna have Steven Levy,

Wired's editor at large.

And Daniela Amodei, the Co-founder

and President of Anthropic.

Thank you guys so much.

[Jon] All right, thank you.

Jon. [audience clapping]

[upbeat music]

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