Wicked is defying fans not to buy its merch
Ahead of Wicked: Part One's November 27 premiere, Universal announced a ton of brand tie-ins
Aux News Wicked
Wicked is, among other things, the story of how a corrupt and capitalist society refused to heed the warnings of a whistleblower when she tried to reveal the utter emptiness at its core. So why not sell a bunch of meaningless crap to commemorate her journey in our corrupt and capitalist society! It’s not like Elphaba continually judges Galinda for her inclination towards excess and Galinda in turn spends the musical learning what’s really important or anything like that. That would be absurd.
Anyway, no good deed goes unpunished and now we’re going to have to deal with a truly staggering amount of Wicked merch on shelves and unskippable YouTube ads for the rest of the year. “[O]ur global merchandise program across retail and theme parks reflects the film’s empowering themes and bold iconography,” said Universal Products & Experiences president Vince Klaseus in a statement today (via License Global), neatly summing up all the ways he misinterpreted those very themes.
If not-so-magically turning your house green and pink sounds inspiring to you, here’s an exhaustive list of all the brands that can help you do it:
Beis, Bombas, Cambridge Satchel Company, Camilla, Daniela Villegas, Eugenia Kim, Lingua Franca, Naeem Khan, Pyrrha, Rebecca Minkoff, Swarovski, Sydney Evan, Voluspa, Accessory Innovations, Aykroyd TDP, Brand Alliance, Bioworld, Cakeworthy, Caprice, Crocs, Ground Up, High IntenCity, High Point Design, Hybrid, Kipling, Lola + the Boys, Loungefly, Mad Engine, Poetic Brands, Sahinler, Sunstache, Vera Bradley, Aekyoung, Beekman 1802, Blissy, Conair, Dreamtex, Franco, Hunter Price, Hygge & West, LUSH, Maxwell & Williams, Makeup Eraser, Manyo, Wet Brush, Zaks, Mattel, LEGO, Bitty Boomers, Build-A-Bear, Chasing Fireflies, Disguise, Fisher-Price, Funko, Hallmark, Harper Collins, Hasbro, Hunter Leisure, Insight Editions, JAKKS Pacific, Jazwares, Kid Designs, The Noble Collection, Theory 11, Random House, Ravensburger, RMS International, Rubber Road, Rubies II, Snapco, Spin Master, ALDO, Amazon, Bloomingdales, Box Lunch, Cotton On, El Corte Inglés, Forever21, Kohl’s, H&M, Her Universe, Hot Topic, JCPenney, Kiabi, Liverpool, Primark, Roots, Target, Walmart, and Universal theme parks.
…oh my.
It’s clear that Universal is trying to make this into the next Barbie, at least from a branding perspective. (You’d be forgiven for not noticing it in the mess above, but Mattel is listed as a partner so there are probably actual Wicked Barbies coming down the pike.) But despite the obvious merch tie-in opportunities for that film, part of the fun of the whole Barbenheimer phenomenon was how organically it sprang up—it was the two-blockbuster weekend, not the merchandise, that captured the zeitgeist. You’d need a real magic wand to recreate those conditions, but that clearly isn’t stopping Universal from trying. They’d better hope the movie actually flies with audiences come this fall.
33 Comments
so true. in this day and age it’s a herculean task to find sincere media unbeholden to concepts like profit or industry. which is why i turn to such fonts of organic sincerity such as the avclub and…the barbie™ movie.
Oh man. This is going to bomb, isn’t it?
I’m getting Cats vibes from that screenshot, so I’m hoping my misgivings for this film are unfounded. As long as no one shows their buttholes….
Bigtime. Everyone I’ve talked to about it that’s a fan of the musical couldn’t believe they were pulling a Hobbit and splitting it into two pieces to attempt to extract double the gross. No one wants to see half of a movie when it’s a plot that people are very used to seeing in one sitting, and it’s clear the marketers realize that and as a result they’ve just titled the movie “Wicked” instead of “Wicked Part One” and there’s no clues given in the trailers that it’s only the first half. On top of that the popularity of this musical probably peaked a decade ago, if not more, and it’s not like there’s been Wizard of Oz fever or anything else it could capitalize on – just look at that Oz movie from 2009 that bombed so hard.
You might be underestimating the locked-in psychological hold this particular musical has on women of a certain age who are now old enough to want to drag their own kids to see it. I don’t mind splitting it up either. I love the music, but the story of the musical cuts so much necessary material from the McGuire book that it falls flat for me. As long as they make the safe, obvious, and correct choice of ending the first movie right after Defying Gravity it’ll work.
OTOH, if you end the movie after Defying Gravity (which I agree is the only choice, really), is there any musical highlights to bring people back for part 2? I admit it’s been a while since I’ve seen the stage show, but I remember being struck that Wicked is really the prime example of stage musicals that burn through all the best songs in the first act.
That’s straining my recollection! IMO Wonderful, No Good Deed, and For Good are solid, but I couldn’t speak to general popularity. We sang For Good at my middle school graduation to illustrate how ubiquitous that musical was in the 2000s.
I feel like this movie has been in production since I was in college a long while ago now
It might have peaked a decade ago, but Wicked was the fourth highest grossing show on Broadway last week bringing in $1.7 million. The fact that it’s still pulling in those numbers after 20 years and keeping the Gershwin, the largest theater on Broadway, at near capacity on a weekly basis shows it’s still pretty popular!That being said I completely agree with your first point that literally no one, even major musical theater nerds like myself, have any interest in this being split in to two films. I don’t think the first one will bomb like Cats, but if they really do end up moving forward like with two parts* then selling the second one is going to a major uphill battle.*I’m convinced the reason there is already this intense marketing for a film that won’t be out for another six months is because they want to gauge interest and, if needed, recut it in to a single film.
Hell, the trailers barely give away that it’s a musical, let alone only half of one. Is there a single shot of people singing in there at all?
This kind of shit makes me hope it does.
Yep
Yes. If for no other reason than the early word of mouth. Unless the movie is absolutely amazing, everyone not expecting the film to end halfway through the story is going to be seriously irritated when “To Be Continued” comes up after Defying Gravity.
>“we’re going to have to deal with a truly staggering amount of Wicked merch on shelves and unskippable YouTube ads for the rest of the year.”I mean, you might. I won’t, because I don’t have a job that forces me to care about merchandising and I installed ad-blockers 20 years ago.
It’s kind of a big stretch to say that Wicked is anti-capitalist.
Merchandise!It’s all about merchandise!We’ll crank out some plastic toysSold to girls and boysProduct tie-ins by the ounceOoh!We’ll sell branded games and dice!At a marked up price!Everything can have brand synergyThe real money from the movieIs made from all the merchandise!
half of these brands aren’t real.Dreamtex? Aykroyd TDP? Lola + the Boys?
::rummages::“Lola and The Boys is a trendy kids and women’s clothing boutique located in Chicago, Illinois.”
KILL IT WITH FIRE.
‘happy to announce our brand partnership with one clothing store in chicago’
I’m disappointed in the absence of Acme products.
Probably already working on Wicked 3 since the musical show (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER) and then there’s possibility mining “Son of a Witch” for yet another show or film
Broadway has a disastrous history with musical sequels, so I wouldn’t count on Son of a Witch making it to the stage any time soon.
What, they couldn’t get Dunkin’ to partner with them and do a pre-licked donut promotion?
AG will always be The Donut Licker to me – I can only imagine how many spit in her food after that
I still don’t fucking understand it. Grande not only licked multiple donuts and then put them back, she then turned to whoever was with her and said, “I hate Americans. I hate America.” That would be enough to sink lots of people’s careers right there, but her “apology” ignored the incident itself and itstead the pivoting to her declaring that she actually loves America, but she’s upset about childhood obesity rates. What the fuck? And people bought it.
I’m glad the apology was absolute nonsense bc she didn’t have shit to apologize for
She licked the food and put it back for other people to buy. She didn’t throw it out or take it with her or pay for it. The business lost money for the product they had to throw out because of her. It’s basic food safety violation amongst exposing people to your spit, not to mention putting the business in danger of being sued/shut down if someone got sick from her stunt.She didn’t have anything to apologize for??
Seek therapy.
For a film I’m kinda worried about, that’s fucking confident!
Also to clarify, Barbie was already merchandise. It was literally already there.
A summer tentpole movie has a massive marketing campaign…this is so utterly shocking and newsworthy
Universal, which owns NBC, which is broadcasting the Summer Olympics, so I’m guessing endless Wicked ads during the entire Olympic games with commentary like ‘wow, she was really ‘defying gravity’ with that pole vault.’ with an animated Wicked banner at the bottom of the screen.