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Well, Wicked is here, and it is going to be a “thing”. The box office tracking for the opening weekend is huge. The adaption of the famous stage show, which makes women feel like singing and makes men wonder why the characters behave seemingly without reason or demonstrate any accountability for their actions, makes the leap to the big screen.
Already, there are signs that some of the audience may not be able to control themselves.
Defy gravity all you want, but shut the fuck up about it.
It is going to be a long winter season, isn’t it? And an expensive one, at least up front for Universal. They need this to go huge as the price tag has been revealed. Puck News reports that Universal has laid out $350 million on the two movies and this represents the studio’s largest-ever outlay on a project. So a nervous weekend awaits executives over there. This will be more acute when you take into account the vast marketing effort.
Projections point to a $165-200 million worldwide opening. If that happens, and Wicked doesn’t destruct in week two, then the studio will be very comfortable, especially with the second part ready to open in a years time.
The first movie has received very strong reviews, even from people you wouldn’t expect to like it such as Mark Kermode. In a sign of things to come, and confirming the strange mystique in which the stage show has a hold over certain people, one reviewer said she simply didn’t care that all the students at Shiz University in the movie seemingly don’t learn a single thing while at the school, she still “loved it”.
Wicked has also overcome a member of the cast attacking hardcore fans of the show for daring to alter the poster to be closer to the original, and an unfortunate toy packaging faux pas.
I am going down into the basement to dig out my old Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal DVDs. See you on the other side boys.
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