Universal‘s huge musical tentpole wager Wicked initially was dated to go head-to-head with Disney Animation’s five-quad movie Moana 2 on Wednesday, November 27, the day earlier than Thanksgiving, however will now go 5 days earlier on Friday, Nov. 22. A really good launch date change.
Both movies are aimed toward females. But Wicked counts a fanbase of a reported 30M folks from across the globe who’ve seen the Stephen Schwartz stage present. Not to say, it’s the primary of two components — this movie has to work. Uni isn’t plotting a Horizon situation right here.
The new earlier date places it up in opposition to Paramount’s Gladiator II, creating doubtlessly a Barbenheimer second: One extremely anticipated large movie aimed toward dudes, the opposite at females. There’s loads of box office upside with each movies forward of the Thanksgiving break, and, as we noticed over the Barbenheimer weekend, moviegoers will watch each. Uni has been on this situation earlier than final July with the man movie Oppenheimer opening to $82.4M in opposition to Barbie‘s $162M.
During its 21-year lifetime, the Wicked stage musical has grossed $2.5 billion all over the world.
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Wicked is certainly one of Uni’s cornerstone occasion movies for this 12 months, within the Jurassic World: Dominion sense of the phrase. The teaser trailer that dropped during the Super Bowl already has clocked 230M views on-line, with Trailer No. 1 amassing 216M. If that doesn’t scream want-to-see, I don’t know what does. The studio made it an enormous a part of its CinemaCon classes, not just this year with a tulip visible spectacle, plus Ariana Grande (Glinda) and Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba) in attendance, however final 12 months as nicely with an early behind-the-scenes look.
This is arguably the primary time {that a} musical has been divided into two parts, with the second half of Wicked opening on November 26, 2025. Crazy Rich Asians filmmaker Jon M. Chu directed, with the musical’s unique producers Marc Platt and David Stone additionally producing the movie model. EPs are David Nicksay, Schwartz and Jared LeBoff.
Also opening on November 22 is Angel Studios’ Bonhoeffer.
Meanwhile, Moana 2 now stands alone as the only vast launch on November 27. If anybody has any counterprogramming, i.e. a low-budget motion or horror movie — there’s a emptiness on that date.
Content Source: deadline.com