Wicked & Gladiator II Win the Box Office! Glicked is Real!

Wicked & Gladiator II Win the Box Office! Glicked is Real! 

This past weekend was a huge win at the box office with the release of Wicked and Gladiator II, which means Glicked happened this past weekend and there was some interesting stuff that I wanted to talk about. Let’s get started!

What is Glicked?: If you remember last summer we had Barbenheimer come up, where Barbie and Oppenheimer came out on the same day. The internet found it hilarious that these two movies released on the same day, two movies that are like the polar opposite of one another released on the same day. It became this cultural event that you did the Barbenheimer double feature so much so that both movies doubled in their opening weekends compared to what prejections were thinking they were going to do. Obviously, both movies went on to make bonkers amounts of money. After that happened, people were wondering if studios were going to create another Barbenheimer type event. The release dates for both Wicked and Gladiator II lined up to release on the same day and this was 2024’s double feature event. Paul Mescal, the star of Gladiator II tweeted something out that started the name “Glicked”. That’s what Glicked is, in case you were wondering. Now let’s look at each movie’s individual box office numbers. 

• WICKED: This was a movie that right around the start of the month people figured was going to be a big hit. The word of mouth surrounding the movie has been fantastic, both fans of the Broadway show and non-fans are loving this movie. Different people were projecting this movie to open, the lowest I saw was about $65 million with the highest I saw about $150 million. Obviously, a lot of room there but it was extremely likely that this movie would open to over $100 million just in the United States. The numbers are in and the final number for Wicked’s opening weekend is $112 million just in the United States with a global opening of $162 million, only made $50 million overseas. Comparison, Barbie opened to $162 million in its opening weekend in the US. Honestly, $162 million global opening was lower than I was thinking. I was thinking this movie would open globally around $300 million. This is about half of what I thought it would open. I was looking in what regions it still has to open in, there’s still some major countries that it has to open in. The big ones are Germany, Russia, China, and New Zealand. If the movie had opened in those countries the same time when the US opened, I think this movie easily would have made around $300 million in its global opening, but $162 million against a $150 million budget is a great number. Keep in mind, a movie needs to make 2.5 to 3 times its budget to be profitable. This movie needs to make between $375 million to $450 million to be profitable. This movie will easily cross that milestone, I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of this coming weekend it crosses over $450 million, maybe even $500 million. One thing that’s cool to talk about with Wicked, it’s opening while maybe opening lower than expected by some actually broke a lot of records. These aren’t all of the records broken, some of them aren’t interesting some of them are so I’m only going to be listing the movie interesting ones. 
• Biggest Global and Domestic Opening for a Movie Based on A Broadway Show: Les Miserables (2012): $103 million global opening and Into the Woods: $31 million domestic opening 
• Biggest Domestic Opening for a Pop Star: Beating Lady Gaga’s A Star is Born (2018) with $42.5 million. 
• Biggest Global Opening for A Non-Sequel for 2024: Beating It Ends With Us with $80 million. 
• 2nd Biggest Domestic Opening Weekend for A November Musical: Behind Frozen II, $130 million 
• 5th Biggest Domestic Opening for a Musical: Behind The Lion King ($192 million), Beauty and the Beast ($175 million), Barbie ($162 million), and Frozen II ($130 million)
• 10th Biggest November Domestic Opening Weekend
• 3rd Biggest Domestic Opening Weekend of 2024: Deadpool & Wolverine ($211.4 million) & Inside Out 2 ($154.2 million). 

• As you can see, Wicked had a pretty fantastic opening weekend with a lot of records broken. I think this shows that there’s an audience for Wicked and Broadway shows being turned into movies. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get more broadway shows that are being turned into movies in the coming years. I do have a few more things I wanted to discuss in relation to Wicked, but before that let’s talk about Gladiator II. 

• GLADIATOR II: Obviously, this is the Oppenheimer side of the Glicked event. This one opened significantly less than what Oppenheimer did. I don’t think Glicked is anywhere close to what Barbenheimer was, because Gladiator II isn’t Oppenheimer. This movie still opened to pretty solid numbers in the US. The movie opened to $55 million in the United States, which is a bit lower than what projections were. But projections were about $60-$65 million, it opened lower but not by a whole lot. $55 million for a sequel to a 24 year old R-rated movie, that’s a pretty solid number. Once again, let’s look at records broken. Gladiator II didn’t have as many, but there’s some interesting things to talk about. 
• Ridley Scott’s 2nd Biggest Opening: Behind Hannibal ($58 million) 
• Ridley Scott’s Biggest Opening Since The Martian
• Denzel Washington’s Biggest Opening Weekend: Beating American Gangster ($44 million)
• Biggest Opening Weekend For a November R-Rated Movie

• Not as big records broken by Gladiator II compared to Wicked, but $55 million is a very solid number. One thing that is very interesting, Gladiator II had a bigger global opening than Wicked did. Wicked’s global opening was $162 million. Gladiator II had a global opening of $220 million. Granted, this movie did open in foreign markets a week earlier. This movie already made over $100 million globally when it was released in the United States. Now I don't think that means that Gladiator II will outgross Wicked, I think Wicked will have much better legs. I’m guessing Gladiator II will end its theatrical run around $600-$650 million, that’s my guess and that’ll be a great number for this type of movie. But one thing to talk about with Gladiator II, the film’s budget is massive. We’ve known the film’s bloated budget for a while now and a lot of people were thinking this movie is going to lose Paramount a lot of money. The film’s original budget was about $165 million, which for a movie of this scale is a good number. But they had to stop production because of the strikes last year, so this caused the budget to skyrocket. The exact budget for the movie isn’t reported yet, it’s looking like it’s somewhere between $210 and $310 million, so the median of that is $260 million. I’m guessing it’s somewhere around there. This movie needs to make around $700 million to be profitable. I don’t think this movie will bomb, it will lose money. But by the end of the week, this movie is going to make back its (roughly) $260 million budget. Like I said, I’m guessing this movie will end up making roughly $600 million, $650 million. If this movie actually did cost $165 million, making $600 million is a fantastic number. But at $250 million+, this movie needs to make more money then I think it was ever going to. I think this movie will have solid legs, because the audience for this movie aren’t necessarily people that rush out to the theater. This movie will have good legs, it probably will make back 2x its budget, but not 2.5 or 3 times its budget. That’s one thing to keep in mind here, these numbers for Gladiator II aren’t dreadful, but they aren’t great. 

Moana 2 Competition: I think this is something that we do need to talk about, because this will affect next week’s box office. Safe to say, Moana 2 is going to win next weekend. Moana 2 is going to open over $100 million, it does open on a Wednesday so there is that to help it out because it’s essentially going to have a 5-day opening weekend, not a three day opening weekend. Right now, Moana 2 is looking to open at about $140 million for its five day weekend (Wednesday to Sunday). Globally, it’ll probably open around $300 million, which is a very solid number. Disney normally releases a movie around Thanksgiving. Right now the movie is looking to have the second biggest November Disney animated opening weekend behind Frozen II. And it’ll have the biggest debut for a Disney animated movie opening the day before Thanksgiving since the original Frozen. This movie is going to open huge, it will also have fantastic legs. Moana 2 could easily make over $1 billion. I’m saying all of this, to talk about what Wicked and Gladiator II will do in its second weekend. To keep things in mind when talking about box office, it is what is a good hold for movies like these. Typically, comic book movies are very front loaded. People flock to theaters opening weekend so they can be a part of the conversation on Monday, they don't want anything spoiled for them. Marvel movies typically open huge then have a 60%-65% drop off, that’s pretty typical. Anything from 50%-59% for a blockbuster is great. Any drop under 50% is fantastic. I wouldn’t be surprised if Wicked drops under 40% which would be phenomenal. For its second weekend, numbers I’m seeing are about $65-$75 million for Wicked’s second weekend, if that’s the case then wow. Wicked’s second weekend could be roughly what Gladiator II did in its opening weekend, that’s pretty crazy. Gladiator II, I’m guessing around $25 million, probably has a 55% drop off. Which isn’t bad, that’s a solid number that will once again show that there’s legs and hope for this movie. 

Will Wicked Make $1 Billion?: The simple answer for this question, yes. I think Wicked will make over $1 billion. I think it’ll reach $1 billion faster than Moana 2 makes $1 billion. It’ll be the third 2024 movie to make $1 billion behind Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. This is probably too early to say, but depending on the legs it has there’s a chance it beats Deadpool & Wolverine which already made $1.3 billion. I think Inside Out 2 will remain the biggest movie of the year, the fact it made $1.6 billion is insane. Wicked has a chance to beat Deadpool & Wolverine, no chance to beat Inside Out 2. We could probably have this debate in a few weeks and once the movie makes $1 billion (it will). I’m curious if having two family musical releases around the same time will be a good idea. And will people flock to go see Wicked or Moana 2 over and over again. I don’t know, I think both movies will make $1 billion. I’m guessing Wicked will make $1 billion by the end of the year, Moana 2 has a very good chance, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it crosses that milestone in January 2025. I could be completely wrong though, that’s just my guess.