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Would 2021 be the year “the movie musical took its last bow?” Like many others, The Guardian posited exactly such doom and gloom after Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights flopped (as did the Dear Evan Hansen movie, but that one was less surprising…). Meanwhile Ridley Scott himself lamented the movie diets of Millennials when he complained in the same year that younger filmgoers didn’t show up for The Last Duel.
Had movie tastes permanently changed for the worse after the pandemic? We’ll admit that even we entertained some of this, as did The Last Duel star and writer, Ben Affleck.
All of which might be a long way to say that nobody knows nothing still. Indeed, this weekend was a reminder that throwbacks—if tailored to modern sensibilities—can still do big business, complete with a his/hers opening weekend double act in the States. Three years after both filmmakers experienced genre setbacks, Jon M. Chu returned with a lush adaptation of the Wicked musical and Scott with a sequel he’s been chasing for a quarter-century: Gladiator II. And both broke box office records.
As of press time, it is estimated that Wicked has opened to $114 million in North America while Gladiator II has earned a virile $55.5 million in its first three days in the U.S. For Wicked that marks the fourth best opening weekend for a musical ever—and the biggest for a musical that is not a remake of Disney animated movie like 2019’s The Lion King ($190 million debut) and Beauty and the Beast ($175 million). Meanwhile Gladiator II just outperformed every other R-rated movie to launch in November.
Admittedly, these numbers don’t quite match the Barbenheimer phenomenon which this weekend’s “Glicked” double-header has been compared to. Barbenheimer made $245 million between its eye-catching bit of counter-programming while Glicked pulled $205 million between its headliners in North America. We might also point out that there is some signs, at least in Gladiator II’s case, that the audience reaction is more mixed than either half of Barbenheimer, with the Ridley Scott sequel earning a “B” CinemaScore. The grade suggests grumblings from audiences about the movie’s thin plotting and overly familiar storytelling is more than social media chatter (which might also explain why the movie slightly underperformed expectations for a $60 million+ opening).
But these quibbles risk obscuring the fact that the movies are performing phenomenally well for genres which prognosticators once mused were dead, and are also both providing movie theaters with their best pre-Thanksgiving weekend since 2013. Gladiator II has furthermore grossed an additional $165 million overseas (it opened one week ahead of the U.S. in many markets). And Roman historical epics that hit have a tendency to do better abroad than musicals. As of press time, the sword and sandals epic has totaled $221 million worldwide while Wicked has enjoyed a cume of $164.2 million in just three days.
This is pre-pandemic business, and it would seem more moviegoers are satisfied with Gladiator II than not while the reception for Wicked verges on euphoric with its “A” CinemaScore and its over-performance n the musical genre. And it is a reminder, once again, that sweeping proclamations about the health and vitality of a genre or style of moviemaking being at risk because of a handful of flops can be greatly exaggerated.
Still, it’s worth noting these successes are credited in large part to playing in the realm of intellectual property. Wicked is likely the most popular Broadway musical of the 21st century with a generational appeal to theatergoers and musical lovers between the ages of four and likely 47. The stage show opened 21 years ago where it instantly became a coming-of-age staple for theater kids who are now old enough to have their own kids going to movies. Conversely, Gladiator remains the most successful sword and sandals epic of this century, winning Best Picture at the Oscars in addition to $465 million in 2000 (which is roughly $852 million in 2024 dollars).
So there was a lot of nostalgia at play when these “brands” did as well as they did. But if brand-awareness is the price of doing business in the 2020s, let Glicked prove you can still channel that into launching event weekends in classic genres, even the ones supposedly past their prime.
The post Glicked Box Office Reminds Us That Nobody Knows Nothing appeared first on Den of Geek.
