In less than 10 days, the Broadway musical adaptation of “Wicked” became the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation ever at the domestic box office.
As of Dec. 3, the movie had earned $214.3 million in the United States alone and $360.3 million globally. Additionally, the movie’s soundtrack surpassed “Barbie: The Album” for the biggest sales week for a movie soundtrack in the U.S. in the past decade. Undoubtedly, it was a successful release.
The marketing budget for the movie was estimated at $350 million, the most ever for a Hollywood theatrical release. The incredibly high budget placed a plethora of expectations and high stakes on the film’s profit margin to outgross its budget.
Though the movie wasn’t released until Nov. 22, marketing campaigns began on Jan. 23 with the launch of the Wicked YouTube channel. Some viewers felt the ads didn’t align well with the movie. “There have been a ton of promotions for the movie and some that I felt were fitting to the movie and did represent the movie itself very well…others not so much. Some commercials didn’t make any sense for the movie,” said senior Sydeny James.
Promotions and partnerships for the movie include Stanley, Vera Bradley, Aerie, Starbucks and Monopoly. The limited-edition nature of these products has caused a craze to collect them all, with some of the Stanley items reselling for up to $200 on sites like eBay and Mercari.
The marketing for the release was clearly successful, as proven by the domestic box office numbers, but it leaves some viewers with questions about what is left to be promoted for the second part two of the movie. “I think that the huge media uproar with the first part of the movie, no matter what they do I think it’s possible some people might feel underwhelmed by the second part. I can’t imagine that the second part will have the same or greater reaction from society as the first part did, ” said senior Erin McMahon.
What the marketing campaign failed to include, was the fact that the movie was in fact split into two parts. All of the ads and promotions were just promoting “Wicked” without including the essential information that the movie viewers were paying to see what was in fact only the first half.
The failure to include information about the sequel resulted in lots of disappointment for viewers. The inaccurate advertisement led viewers to believe they were seeing all of the Broadway musical version of Wicked. “I dug into the movie beforehand to get information and watch the trailer because I was a little skeptical. It was absolutely not clear that the movie had two parts until I saw it on the screen at the beginning of the movie and the end when it stated ‘to be continued,’” said James.
While the release for the first part of the Wicked movie series has experienced an incredible amount of success, the marketing campaign left viewers confused. The incredible amount of success created by the first movie has created an expectation level for the second movie as well as some frustration due to the lack of information in the marketing campaign that there is in fact a second part.
