Before “Wicked” landed on the big screen a year ago, Universal told cinema owners of its simple goal for promoting the movie musical. It planned to be, per chief marketing officer Michael Moses, “just short of obnoxious.”
Sure enough, the studio behind the pink-and-green publicity machine delivered an epic onslaught of all things Oz. A $7 million Super Bowl spot. Starbucks themed drinks and partnerships with 400 other corporate brands. A splashy stop at the Paris Summer Olympics. Scores of magazine covers. And a press junket for the ages (almost 12 months later, we’re still “holding space” for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity”).
“They needed to hit people over the head,” says one executive at a rival studio.
That’s because Universal was establishing “Wicked,” based on the Broadway smash, not as a fizzy musical for moms and daughters, but as a four-quadrant extravaganza on the scale of “Barbie.” The efforts paid off: “Wicked” launched with $112 million and set a box office record for stage-to-screen adaptations with $756 million globally. The film became a juggernaut on digital platforms and scored 10 Oscar nominations. Cultural ubiquity achieved.
With “Wicked: For Good,” which drops into theaters on Nov. 21, Universal is aiming for a slightly subtler approach. It’s relative, of course: Still everywhere. Less “obnoxious.” Though marketing efforts never really faded — Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande performed at the Academy Awards in March — the studio waited until summer to officially ignite the second movie’s promotional blitz. (“You can’t miss us if we never go away,” Moses told Variety last November.) In comparison, the first film began its rollout at the Super Bowl, eight months prior to release.
“One of the words to describe the marketing of the new release would be ‘restraint.’ The studio has pulled back,” says Jason Squire, professor emeritus at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. “We’re not inundated like we were on the first movie.”
Universal has good reason to make the adjustments. After all, “Wicked” is a known entity this time around. And there’s a risk of consumer fatigue in trying to keep it in the zeitgeist for two years. With that in mind, Universal did extensive exit polling to assess the audience’s tolerance for all the pink-and-green goodness. Research found that fans didn’t mind the deluge because the inescapable campaign made “Wicked” feel like a leave-the-home-worthy event.
Cynthia Erivo performs during the two-hour NBC special “Wicked: One Wonderful Night”
©NBC/Courtesy Everett Collectio
Though a commercial gamble, there were cost-saving advantages to scheduling a yearlong intermission. Marketing executives usually need to spend big bucks to reintroduce a property after lengthy gaps. That wasn’t necessary here since “Wicked” never left the public consciousness. The studio shelled out roughly $90 million on global promotional efforts compared with the initial film’s nearly $150 million marketing budget.
“By having the movies one year apart, you can leverage the residual goodwill and profound marketing expenses from the first film to the second,” Squire says.
Centerpieces of the “For Good” campaign include the two-hour NBC musical special “Wicked: One Wonderful Night,” a “Dancing With the Stars” episode takeover and a behind-the-scenes podcast hosted by Vanity Fair’s Chris Murphy. And, of course, there are brand partnerships galore: Dunkin’ is offering “Wicked” green matcha, pink refresher and Munchkins (duh), American Girl has Glinda and Elphaba dolls, while Procter & Gamble created a head-spinning array of household products with Swiffer, Secret deodorant and Cascade. All told, Universal partnered with 400 brands, only 165 of which were repeated from the original campaign.
Like the first film, “For Good” is backed by NBCUniversal’s Symphony marketing push, in which various divisions of the sprawling media company work together to promote a project. Those outsize efforts, including a “Wicked Week” takeover on “Today” and “The Tonight Show,” as well as custom promo on NBC and Peacock series like “The Traitors” and “Real Housewives,” are separate from the film’s marketing budget.
Universal is eschewing a press junket and making the A-list ensemble — including Grande, Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Bowen Yang and director Jon M. Chu — available for fewer interviews. Instead, the stars are gathering for fan-centric events in cities like São Paulo, Paris and London before the North American premiere in New York City.
It’s too soon to rejoicify, but “Wicked: For Good” is tracking a bigger opening than its predecessor. A question is whether this entry will enjoy the same kind of staying power as the initial film. There’s commercial concern because the second half of “Wicked” is much darker than the stage show’s fizzy first act.
However, box office analysts predict the fantasy musical will endure in theaters because there’s not much else geared toward females (that’s the demographic likely to drive the repeat viewings) for the rest of the year. And it isn’t a sequel, meaning its existence wasn’t simply a cash grab to capitalize on the original’s success. Audiences are returning to find out how the story ends — and how Elphaba and Glinda’s journey down the Yellow Brick Road ties into “The Wizard of Oz.”
“The first movie was about priming the pump,” says an executive at another rival studio. “Now they don’t want to let air out of the tire.”
