https://www.wsj.com/articles/wicked-movie-marketing-strategy-a89ef31d?mod=hp_lead_pos9

Inside Hollywood’s Big ‘Wicked’ Gamble

Universal’s strategy for launching a blockbuster franchise is about to be ‘just short of obnoxious.’ It’s the new industry playbook.

In the new movie-musical adaptation of the Broadway show “Wicked,” Glinda the Good ponders a question in the mythical land of Oz.

“Are people born wicked,” Glinda asks, “or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?”

In the case of the new film, it is the latter.

“Wicked” drinks at Starbucks. “Wicked” at the Summer Olympics and on “Saturday Night Live” and, soon, at the Thanksgiving Day Parade. “Wicked” on your Amazon box and at the Santaland at Bloomingdale’s. “Wicked” in Lego form and “Wicked” stars as singing dolls. “Wicked” nail polish (“Oz-Mazing”) at CVS and “Wicked” sweaters at Target.

In today’s Hollywood, it isn’t enough to debut a film in theaters. As seen with last year’s blockbuster “Barbie,” getting audiences to the theater in droves requires sucking up more pop-culture oxygen than ever—and turning a movie into an event, a movement and perhaps even a lifestyle.

“We’re going to be just short of obnoxious,” Universal Pictures’ chief marketing officer, Michael Moses, assured theater owners at a screening of the film in September.

The Broadway adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s novel has collected over $5 billion over 21 years by telling a version of “The Wizard of Oz” in which the Wicked Witch isn’t so bad—she’s a hero. The Witch, then known as the green-skinned Elphaba, and Glinda (not yet Glinda the Good) form an unexpected bond as they uncover a conspiracy involving the beloved Wizard. There is Broadway belting and an Act 1 closer, “Defying Gravity,” that ends with Elphaba aloft high above the stage.

After a rough start with rocky reviews and a ballooning budget, the stage show of “Wicked” has grown into an economy unto itself, one that has reaped major profits for Universal since it invested in the show more than 20 years ago. Now, the two-part, $320 million film adaptation has conscripted everyone at Comcast, from Jimmy Fallon to Jenna Bush Hager, into a campaign that combines the razzmatazz of Judy Garland’s MGM days with the global reach of the modern entertainment conglomerate.

“‘Wicked’ is the holy grail,” said Donna Langley, chief content officer and chairman of the NBCUniversal Studio Group. “When you have one, you grab hold of it. And you maximize it.”

Langley has staked more than just a hefty budget on the movie, which features pop star Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. The studio head lobbied the musical’s producers for years to find the right time and team. She convinced her bosses at Comcast, the parent of Universal and NBC, that it should be a companywide priority. And she is asking audiences to see the adaptation in two installments, the second of which will be released next November.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the moviegoer who saw four to five releases in theaters each year is now more likely to catch two or three. Universal wants “Wicked” to be one of those movies that must be seen in a theater, either because no TV screen will suffice, or because everyone else is seeing it.

Early signs are auspicious, since fans are treating “Wicked” as a social event. Purchases of three or more tickets account for 46% of orders so far, according to the sales site Fandango. That’s a significantly higher share than most movies, including “Barbie,” which had a 36% share of group tickets at the same point in its sales cycle.

“Wicked,” which opens on Nov. 22, is expected to have a debut weekend gross approaching $90 million, and Universal hopes the movie can fend off “Gladiator II” and Disney’s “Moana 2” to become the all-audiences option through the end of the year.

On one hand, the math seems simple. If a fraction of the 65 million people who have seen “Wicked” on stage see it in a theater, Universal has a hit.

But Hollywood has a graveyard full of misbegotten movie musicals—two of which, “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Cats,” were released by Universal in the past five years and played more as midnight-screening cult comedies than earnest adaptations.

Musicals overall struggle to sell themselves to audiences who profess to swear off the genre. If “Wicked” collects $1 billion at the worldwide box office, it would be the first movie based on a musical to ever do so. (The most successful Broadway show-to-screen adaptation is “Mamma Mia!” which made $610 million worldwide in 2008.)

We’re gonna make you popular

The “Wicked” rollout mirrors last year’s “Barbie,” which amassed a global box-office haul of $1.4 billion on the strength of ecstatic reviews, countless pink-hued products and cultural ubiquity. “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Oppenheimer” rode similar cultural waves.

“Wicked” has even borrowed the “Barbie” red-carpet strategy of having its stars, Erivo and Grande, dress in various shades of green and pink to reflect their characters’ wardrobes—just as “Barbie” star Margot Robbie wore 50 shades of pink during her promotional tour.

To flood the zone with “Wicked,” Comcast has given the movie its so-called “Symphony” treatment, an internal elevation that promotes it across every feasible channel of the empire.

That includes the upcoming Thanksgiving Day Parade that NBC broadcasts, and explains the frequent reminders during NBC’s broadcast of the Summer Olympics of gymnast Simone Biles’s ability to “defy gravity.” An NBC Sports package on Biles, narrated by Erivo and Grande, drew a parallel between Elphaba’s ascent atop a broom to the gymnast’s comeback after an aborted performance at the 2020 Olympics.

“Flying is not for the faint of heart,” Erivo says, and the clip ends with her “Defying Gravity” riff from the film played over an image of Biles and the women’s team staring into the camera with their arms crossed.

The Universal theme parks have erected “Wicked” stores that will stay open through the release of part two next year. Grande recently hosted “Saturday Night Live,” while NBC is broadcasting a behind-the-scenes special. The “Today” Show is celebrating “Wicked Week” with cast interviews and, on Wednesday, a look at the movie’s costumes hosted by Hoda Kotb (in pink) and Bush Hager (in green, and wearing a witch’s hat).

Universal invited hundreds of would-be promotional partners to the set near London while it was still in production, showing off the life-size Oz buildings and a field of nine million tulips planted for the film. A licensing bonanza followed their “Wicked Fair,” with brands ranging from Lexus to Conair to Gap joining the campaign.

The movie’s premiere, held this month in downtown Los Angeles, was a spectacle even by Hollywood standards, with bedazzled Lexus SUVs, life-size Lego statues, drag queens decked out as Elphaba and a dress code that had throngs of audience members in varying shades of pink and green.

Soon it will be impossible for anyone to escape. Amazon is programming its Alexa devices to answer queries in the voice of Elphaba or Glinda. The film’s costume designer created a line of cardigans, skirts and other apparel for Target, which has already seen increased foot traffic in stores since some merchandise hit shelves. The Green Elixir, a combination of cold brew, peppermint syrup, matcha cream cold foam and candy sprinkles, is one of two new Starbucks drinks themed to the movie’s release—a first for the chain.

At the flagship Bloomingdale’s on 59th Street in Manhattan, the Christmas window display will be themed to “Wicked,” and Santa Claus will preside over an “Oz-ified” enchanted forest in an emerald—and not red—suit.

“Kids might have some questions for their parents,” joked David O’Connor, Universal’s president of franchise management and brand strategy. The studio estimates the global campaign will reach some two billion consumers, or a quarter of the world’s population.

Having so many eyes on the rollout also led to a well-publicized gaffe. Earlier this month, fans noticed that the website URL listed on packaging for “Wicked” toys produced by Mattel sent visitors not to the movie’s home page, but to a site for a pornographic studio called Wicked Pictures, best known for films directed by Stormy Daniels and award-winning features like “Octomom Home Alone.” Mattel has since apologized and said it would remedy the error.

The chance to fly

“Wicked,” published in 1995, was initially envisioned as a movie to be produced by Demi Moore’s production company. Plans for the film languished, though, until composer Stephen Schwartz (“Pippin,” “Godspell”) suggested the book might make a good musical.

Schwartz worked on the show with producer Marc Platt, who secured the rights to adapt the book to the stage, and Winnie Holzman, the creator of the 1990s teen drama “My So-Called Life” and a reliable expert on adolescent angst. Universal was the musical’s primary investor, at around $10 million.

When it opened on Broadway in October 2003, “Wicked” had a big budget and mixed reviews. The cost had gone up to $14 million, and critics didn’t see much depth beyond the expensive pyrotechnics (“shows more than a few symptoms of multiple personality disorder,” said one reviewer).

But by February, word-of-mouth had made “Wicked” the show to see. Nominated for 10 Tony Awards, it won three—and notably lost best musical to “Avenue Q.”

“Wicked” lost that Tony, but won the war. By December 2004, a little more than a year after its opening, the show recouped its investment and set a house record at the Gershwin.

When “Wicked” went on tour and traveled to St. Louis, more than $1.5 million worth of tickets were purchased in the first two days. The run at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center sold out in seven hours. High school choirs across the country performed Act II’s ode to friendship, “For Good.” Musical theater fans quoted lyrics to each other in yearbooks.

To date, the show’s gross of more than $5 billion—from stints in 100 cities in 16 countries—makes it one of Universal’s sneakiest moneymakers.

“Extremely profitable—when it works, it becomes this annuity,” said Jimmy Horowitz, the NBCUniversal chairman of business affairs and operations who oversees the studio’s growing theater division.

“I read the book before she was born,” said Christy Nann, motioning to her daughter Dakota, at a recent matinee of the Broadway show. Tickets were a birthday present for the 14-year-old, who wore a green skirt for the occasion.

The months of film publicity have reverberated back to the “Wicked” stage show, which is currently having its most lucrative year yet and is routinely the highest-grossing show on Broadway.

A celebration throughout Oz

The ardent fandom made any film adaptation a high-stakes undertaking.

“I’ve been at the company for 23 years, and as long as I have been here, we have been thinking about ‘Wicked,’” said Langley. Actresses lobbied Universal executives to play Elphaba or Glinda on screen, worried that they would soon age out of the roles.

Langley knew producers wouldn’t want to undermine the robust sales on stage. A few years ago, a script passed muster with the musical team. “Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu signed on to direct.

Casting was particularly sensitive since fans have dissected many takes on Elphaba and Glinda over the years. YouTube overflows with bootleg recordings of the rotating stage casts and montages that delineate the notes hit in each “Defying Gravity” (Eb5…C#5…F5!) The filmmaking team wanted actors who could sing—Erivo, who won a Tony Award for “The Color Purple,” and Grande, who trills like an opera diva, hit the notes.

Fans acquainted themselves with the lore of the project months before its release: Grande had called Glinda a dream role in 2013. When the stage show had an out-of-town tryout run in San Francisco in early 2003 before opening on Broadway, Chu caught a performance while he was home on a break from college.

Early test audiences said the movie, with its doses of magic and boarding-school setting, reminded them of another cultural landmark: “Harry Potter.”

Universal executives hope other elements feel preordained. By waiting 21 years to adapt the musical, they expect enough time has passed for multiple generations to show up, as “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) and “Twisters” (2024) appealed to fans of the original films (1986 and 1996) and drew in younger moviegoers coming to the material for the first time.

They have also noted how other recent hit movies have been fresh takes on well-known properties (“Dune,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”) and capitalize on the spending power of the female moviegoer (“It Ends With Us,” “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour”).

“I need Cynthia’s ‘Defying Gravity’ right now,” said Alexa Pascucci, a 24-year-old from New York who attended a Broadway “Wicked” matinee in September with her friend Bridget Walsh, a 19-year-old who grew up singing the Elphaba-Glinda fiery duet “What Is This Feeling?” with her older sister.

The two were ready for a winter full of “Wicked.” Pascucci had been browsing “Wicked” sweatsuits sold at Aerie stores on her phone as she walked toward the theater.

Walsh gasped when she learned of the “Wicked” Starbucks drinks.

“That’s going to ruin my bank account,” she said.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5635157&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310893#48344586)

they've never been able to get narnia off the ground and it's 100x cooler on the silver screen. oz is so fucking GAY.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5635157&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310893#48344657)

Oz was all about focusing on your goals and overcoming your own shortcomings. it's a pretty appealing narrative for a kids series

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5635157&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310893#48344750)

It'll be a couple of years before we see the fruits of any kind of backlash

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5635157&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310893#48344695)

We’ll see what unfolds. How would you define “fail miserably”?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5635157&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310893#48344780)