WICKED Has Been All Over The Olympics. Is It Making A Difference?

If you’ve been watching the Olympics, you likely saw Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande promoting Universal’s WICKED. Perhaps you saw commercials over and over. The movie has been nearly as, if not more, ubiquitous than Snoop Dogg and Simone Biles.

Donned in stunning pink and green outfits and never more than a foot apart, Erivo and Grande have popped up repeatedly over the past week. It’s as if Universal made the actors sign a promotional rider saying the two shall never be seen apart. It’s all a bit odd, and it doesn’t feel especially organic. But hey, we applaud Universal for putting muscle behind the film. If the movie doesn’t succeed, it won’t be for lack of trying.

Up until last month, WICKED was scheduled to open on Thanksgiving weekend. Early on, it was up against an untitled Disney film. In February, it was revealed that the untitled film was, in fact, MOANA 2. That put WICKED up against an established property targeting the same demographic.

As The Quorum reported in June, tracking showed that MOANA looked much stronger than WICKED. Fast-forward seven days, and it was announced that WICKED would be opening a week earlier, this time against GLADIATOR II.

This is by far a better date for the film. Not only is there little audience overlap between WICKED and GLADIATOR, but the weekend before Thanksgiving is one of the most lucrative frames of the year. A five-day holiday weekend right after opening helps mitigate the traditional week-two drop.

Consider the case of FROZEN II, which opened on November 22nd, 2019, to $130M and made another $125M over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend. After ten days of release, the film had $288M in the bank. Last year, THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES opened to $45M and made another $42M across the Thanksgiving holiday.

In fact, Lionsgate has slotted every HUNGER GAMES film aside from the original on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Half of the HARRY POTTER films and two FANTASTIC BEAST titles occupied this spot. And Marvel slotted JUSTICE LEAGUE on the weekend before Thanksgiving in 2017.

So, it’s a terrific weekend for WICKED. It makes so much sense that it’s hard to understand why Universal thought going up against a Disney animated film on Thanksgiving made any sense in the first place.

With that in mind, how is WICKED tracking? Has the Olympics blitz worked? The answer is yes, but the gains have not been as dramatic as Universal might have liked. The Quorum has surveyed the film twice since the games began, and as you can see below, awareness has climbed from 44% to 45%. That’s not an enormous gain, though the repetition of the campaign might be working. We can see greater acceleration in the most recent fielding, which suggests awareness could continue to rise in the near future.

We are seeing more impressive gains on the interest side. WICKED has climbed from 48% to 51%, indicating that the material is connecting even if it’s not majorly increasing awareness. This suggests conversion is beginning, meaning those who knew about the film before the Olympics are now expressing heightened interest. That’s a good sign.

So, what kind of opening might we expect for WICKED? Here’s the box office universe for WICKED (and GLADIATOR II). These are all the films that opened in at least 3,000 theaters on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Three HUNGER GAMES films opened above $100M. Same for FROZEN II. As noted above, SONGBIRDS made $45M last year, which aligns with the median of $44M and below the average of $59M.

Returning to awareness, here’s how WICKED (dark yellow) stacks up against GLADIATOR (brown) and SONGBIRDS (light yellow). Awareness for the two upcoming films is significantly higher than SONGBIRDS at the same distance from release.

On the interest side, the three films are not that far apart. WICKED (dark blue) at 51% has a noticeable advantage above GLADIATOR (black) and SONGBIRDS (light blue)

Currently, tracking suggests that WICKED (and GLADIATOR) should be able to top the $45M opening for SONGBIRDS. That’s encouraging. But how much higher can WICKED go? First, let’s note that WICKED belongs to the tentpole group. This group includes films like BARBIE, DUNE: PART TWO, and FURIOSA. The median opening for films in this group is $59M.

The chart below shows how WICKED compares to the average for all tentpoles at the same distance from release. For example, at 45%, WICKED’s awareness is above the group average of 42%. WICKED is ahead of the group average in each key metric.

Not only does it look like WICKED can top the $45M opening for SONGBIRDS, it also looks like WICKED has a chance of topping the median opening of $59M for tentpoles.

As you may know, WICKED has been split into two parts. As we saw this summer with HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA, a disappointing performance for the first film can significantly endanger the prospects for the second film. Hopefully, WICKED performs well enough that the decision to split the movie into two turns out to be a good one.