Dear Gossips,
The most extra press tour, a press tour for and by theatre kids, has resulted in a major box office win. Wicked opened in North America with $114 million at the box office (to Gladiator II’s $55.5 million) and now holds the record for the biggest Broadway musical adaptation of all time. Here’s a list of all the box office records that Wicked broke this weekend and that’s before the American Thanksgiving five-day stretch, although Moana 2 is coming. But between all three movies this week, it’s going to be busy AF at the cineplex.
Back to Wicked, though, and the prolonged promotional campaign that generated even more reaction online – most recently with the “holding space” chaos - while it may not have unfolded exactly the way they imagined, this was intentional, this is what they were hoping for. So the fact that so many people went to see the movie, and might see it over and over again the way it was with the stage production, it might be the green light to continue. Not just in support of the second movie that comes out next year but even sooner than that…
Like for the Oscar campaign.
Wicked is a hit, both critically and commercially. Which means it is now an Oscar contender. A Best Picture nomination is a possibility, in addition to consideration in several technical categories. And Cynthia Erivo has joined the highly competitive Best Actress category – several experts out there have updated their lists to include her among the final five. Ariana Grande too has just surged up the rankings.
So my point is…
All that emoting and hand holding and crying and theatre kid behaviour? This will continue, and I’m not mad at it. Like, sorry, I would rather see an award season that’s more Wicked and less your dad’s favourite movie. Because every year we wring our hands and angst about Oscar relevancy and movies that more people, and not just old people, care about. And here comes Wicked with its two stars going viral every day for the latest insane thing they did on a carpet and during an interview and whyyyyyy are we bitching about it? I’m not. There will always be room for the dad movies and how the dad movies run their campaigns. The Oppenheimers can reliably be counted on to win the day. Now for the second year in a row there’s a big budget fully sequined horse in the race. What’s there to complain about?
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
