The summer of 2023 was all about “Barbenheimer” — when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” opened the same day, capturing the public imagination and bringing crowds back to movie theaters that had struggled since the pandemic.
This fall, some fans are hoping to recapture a little of that excitement with a buzzy new movie face-off with its own catchy portmanteau: “Glicked.” (Sorry, “Wickiator.”)
“Wicked,” the first installment of the onscreen adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical, and “Gladiator II,” a swords-and-sandals epic directed by Ridley Scott that picks up more than two decades after the first installment, will both be widely released in theaters on Friday. Seeing the potential for another odd pairing at multiplexes, select corners of the internet have dubbed it “Glicked Day” (pronounced glick-id).
Can they make “Glicked” happen? Will Elphaba green replace Barbie pink? Here are four questions to get you up to speed.
Are the stars of ‘Wicked’ and ‘Gladiator II’ rooting for ‘Glicked’?
Yes. Two movies that open on the same day are typically viewed as competitors, but some hope that, like “Barbenheimer,” this unlikely pairing will pique the interest of moviegoers, which could help both succeed at the box office.
“If it has a similar effect to what it did for ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer,’ it would be amazing,” Paul Mescal, who stars as Lucius in “Gladiator II,” told Entertainment Tonight. He added that “the films couldn’t be more polar opposite, and it worked in that context previously, so fingers crossed people come out.”
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, who co-star as Elphaba and Glinda in “Wicked,” both signed off on the idea. So did Jeff Goldblum, another “Wicked” star, who told Deadline that there was no competition between the films. “It’s an abundance mentality world, where there’s enough to go around,” he said.
‘Barbenheimer’ was huge. How will ‘Glicked’ measure up?
“Barbenheimer” proved to be more than a cheeky meme: During their opening weekend last summer, “Barbie” took in $162 million and “Oppenheimer” $82.4 million, helping make it the biggest box office weekend in North American since 2019.
It’s unlikely that “Glicked” will cast the same spell on moviegoers, but current estimates are strong. Predictions from Boxoffice Pro, a site dedicated to the movie theater business, estimates that “Wicked” will earn the top spot at the box office with at least $100 million in its opening weekend and that “Gladiator II” may earn as much as $80 million.
Are there memes and fan art this time around?
Of course, but there are far fewer than the days of “Barbenheimer.”
One circulating meme places Lucius and Glinda in the same pose as Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Other fan art places Lucius next to Elphaba as they head toward Oz, or depicts Glinda whispering to him in the style of the “Wicked” poster.
David Taylor, 29, a law clerk and content creator in Emeryville, Calif., plans to see both films at an early showing on Thursday night, and posted a video on TikTok that showed him running from one theater to another, changing out of a witch’s hat and dress and into a gladiator’s costume.
“I love these sort of double feature events,” he said, adding that he thinks “Glicked” will follow in the footsteps of “Barbenheimer.”
Randy Bruce Ziegelman, 26, of Fishers, Ind., is gathering a handful of friends and family to see both films on Thursday night.
“‘Wicked’ is something that I’m super excited for,” said Ziegelman, an actor. “‘Gladiator’ is kind of a second fiddle, but I’m like, if they’re showing both movies on the same day, I might as well go and see them.”
What are film experts saying about ‘Glicked’?
Tom Nunan, the co-head of the Producers Program at the Graduate School of Theater, Film and TV at University of California, Los Angeles, said that both “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” appeared to be aimed more exclusively at their particular audience bases, making it unlikely that either film would connect across the board in the way that “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” did.
“Both ‘Wicked’ and ‘Gladiator II’ look strong, and even if their combined box office is less than what ‘Barbie’ alone accomplished in one weekend, we shouldn’t see that as a failure,” Nunan said in an email. “‘Glicked’ may not be ‘Barbenheimer,’ but as Thanksgiving approaches, their combined strength is certainly something for which we can all be grateful — a good, old-fashioned, holiday weekend cinema extravaganza.”
Richard Gelfond, the chief executive of IMAX, told Bloomberg on Friday that since the “Glicked” films are each aimed at different audiences, they are unlikely to hurt each other at the box office.
“If they were overlapping demographics, I think it would be more challenging and there would be more competitive,” he said.
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