By 
About half a year ago, I had a disagreement with a colleague about the prospects for Wicked. Admittedly, I am the more agreeable when it comes to musicals, but even as someone who never loved the Wicked stage show, I got a shiver of excitement when I heard the first teaser end with Cynthia Erivo’s voice warming up a “Defying Gravity” crescendo. It was like a vocalized mic drop. Even so, my musically-allergic friend seemed less impressed about Wicked’s box office future. After all, didn’t the In the Heights movie, which like Wicked was directed by Jon M. Chu, and West Side Story flop in 2021?
Yes, they surely and unfortunately did. But while I might prefer those films and their songbooks, those musicals are not Wicked, the most popular Broadway spectacle of this century and a coming-of-age touchstone to generations of theatergoers. And the well-worn conventional wisdom which suggests all musicals must fail because a handful of other movies in the same genre did three years ago, or that the ancient period piece epic is dead because even Ridley Scott couldn’t make The Last Duel a hit, is about to be tested to the extreme this coming weekend. In less than 48 hours, Wicked will finally unleash its popularity on the big screen, and Gladiator II will make landfall in the U.S. after a robust international debut overseas.
The growing anticipation has even caused more than a few prognosticators to wonder… are we on the precipice of Barbenheimer 2.0?
Yes and no.
Some of the dynamics that led into the simultaneous releases of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in July 2023 are nearly impossible to duplicate. Potential audience members on social media organically made those films a double-feature event, and long before their studios saw a benefit in sharing the release date (in fact, Oppenheimer producer Charles Roven apparently begged Margot Robbie to move Barbie). Additionally, the marketing campaign for Barbie is the kind of perfect storm of confluences that even Wicked cannot repplicate with its appeal to now multiple generations of women who grew up on the Stephen Schwartz musical. Wicked might be sacrosanct to Millennials through Gen Alpha, but Barbie goes back to the earliest Boomers. Meanwhile Oppenheimer and Gladiator II each target an adult and theoretically male-skewing audience with their R-ratings and subject matter, but their sensibilities are still about as similar as watching PBS or WWE Raw.
Nevertheless, for all the differences between that 2023 double-header and the one arriving in time for Thanksgiving, there’s a reason some on the internet have taken to referring to this weekend as Glicked. Once again we have two movies that are allegedly targeting different demographics based on perceptions of gender and age set to overperform with a wider swath of audience than accountants might’ve expected. Or, read: folks want to see both!
As of press time, early tracking estimates that Wicked should bow somewhere between $125 million and $150 million in North America, and as much as $200 million globally. Personally, we suspect those North American estimates are on the conservative side. Meanwhile Gladiator II is seeing a forecast of $60+ million in the U.S., which would break the record for R-rated movies opening in November. It would also add nicely to the film’s gross of more than $90 million after its first five days in various international markets—an arena where Roman history has the advantage.
Whatever the final numbers, both movies are set-up to enjoy a healthy and leggy run this holiday season, if for no other reason than both deliver exactly what audiences expect. I might personally have reservations or critiques about each film, but for target audiences who loved the first Gladiator for its epic spectacle of Ancient Rome’s bread and circuses, or adored the Wicked stage musical for its grand emotions and tuneful songs, the films deliver exactly what’s promised on the tin.
And like Barbenheimer, Glicked is poised to recall another forgotten truism from Hollywood days of yore: two movies of contrasting sensibilities can succeed. Whether 20 or 90 years ago, “counter-programming” used to be considered a healthy business strategy that could see the likes of The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! open on the same day, or Superman Returns and The Devil Wears Prada. If anything’s changed, it’s that some audiences seem more open to embrace two such films as a joint-event if there’s enough online irony to mine from the double feature.
So with that in mind, if you really would like to make Glicked part of your weekend plans, might I suggest watching Gladiator II first? Last year, the bubbliness of Barbie proved the far more satisfying first course before getting stuffed on doom and gloom in Oppenheimer. However, the reverse is truer in the year of Glicked. Gladiator II has a lot of “adult” blood and mayhem, but it is also exceedingly popcorn-friendly. Conversely, the emotional high note that Wicked ends on (even when it’s only half the story…) will leave you far less eager to immediately roll back up to the box office counter for round two.
Whichever direction you choose though, you’re likely to have some happy moviegoing. As will the studios.
The post Wicked and Gladiator 2: Are We Getting Barbenheimer 2.0? appeared first on Den of Geek.
