Column: ‘Wicked’ box office proves Hollywood needs to take family films seriously again
Everyone is wondering if “Glicked,” the potentially record-breaking, industry-lifting pre-Thanksgiving combination of “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” will be this year’s “Barbenheimer,” the record-breaking, industry-lifting summertime combination of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”
Could be. Hope so. But it’s hard not to think that everyone is missing the point.
Because Hollywood’s future doesn’t depend on who’s going to see both films on the same day. It depends on who’s going to see “Wicked” in the same row. Sharing Twizzlers and a tub of popcorn.
Families.
Double-feature combos are certainly a novel and fun way to engage audiences and goose the box office, and I would never disrespect the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer,” which did amazingly well with audiences given its serious biopic genre. For its part, “Gladiator II” certainly looks like a gas.
But it was “Barbie,” and now “Wicked,” that put a serious number of butts in seats: Universal Pictures’ musical adaptation earned $114 million at the domestic box office this weekend, leading the $55.5-million take of Paramount’s swords-and-sandals epic. And it will be “Moana 2” that continues to do so over Thanksgiving weekend, if its predicted $125-million opening comes to fruition. Not the R-rated, demographically targeted projects but the big, festive movies that the whole family can enjoy.
“Something the whole family can enjoy” used to be a selling point. Now, in a time of targeted demographics, when Hollywood has decided that an R rating is all but required for a film to be considered “important,” it’s become a joke. Calling something that is not made by Pixar/Disney “family friendly” makes it immediately uncool and definitely unsexy. For all that they love to tout the elusive “four-quadrant” productions, most studios are not going out of their way to make family-friendly films these days. At least not those that exist outside the MCU.
Why is ‘Wicked’ two parts? What’s the meaning of the Emerald City scene that features ‘Defying Gravity’? The creative team behind Universal’s blockbuster musical breaks it all down.
And yet “Wicked,” like “Barbie” and this summer’s big hit, “Inside Out 2,” has played to enormous audiences across all kinds of demographics, not to mention generations, and no doubt included loads of families. (Who, if early accounts are an indication, were prepared to sing along with many of the songs, to the consternation of those who were not.)
If Hollywood really wants to make a comeback, it needs to take this lesson to heart: If you want to sell a bunch of tickets and popcorn, families are the ultimate consumer group. For good reason.
Streaming may have taken over the world, but believe me when I say parents want to take their children, of all ages, to the movies. If your kids are small, it offers the rare opportunity to do something they will enjoy while you get to sit down, without argument or constant demands, for two hours. Bliss! If you like the movie, even better.
If your kids are teens or young adults, movies offer the increasingly rare opportunity to share an experience in which everyone is fully engaged — unlike with home movie nights, dining out or virtually any group activity, cellphone usage is prohibited in movie theaters. Although complaints about bad behavior in cinemas may be on the rise, it’s still likelier here than anywhere that you can experience the joy of movie viewing without feeling compelled to ask, after noting the illuminated phone and bowed head of your child, “Are you even watching this?” They are, because that is the only thing they can do. And then, at least for the drive home, you all have something to talk about that does not require you to explain how people used to navigate entire cities without the benefit of an app or them to show you what they mean by playing something on TikTok.
Once again you have, if only temporarily, a shared language. Amazing!
And more than any other patrons, families — by which I mean any group that includes at least two generations, the elder of whom is paying — see the moviegoing experience as an outing, which means snacks are a given.
Sharks? Maybe not. But sea battles, semi-aquatic creatures and plenty of other eye-popping spectacles were part of the real-life games at the ancient Roman Colosseum.
Once you’ve gone to the trouble of finding the time everyone is free, arguing over seats, buying the tickets and getting everyone to the theater on time, a parent (or grandparent or aunt or older brother) is not going to draw the line at getting this one a hot dog and that one a slushy. Nope, this is now officially a mini-holiday, so pretzel bites and Skittles all around. (And with “Wicked,” purchasers can console themselves with how much cheaper even the most concession-heavy film experience is when compared with seeing the stage version.)
So why, in an industry struggling to sustain its bricks-and-mortar business model in a digital world, are there so few films the whole family can enjoy?
Once upon a time, there were four-quadrant films in virtually every genre. Oh, for the golden years of the “Harry Potter” franchise, which, in its first three years, overlapped with “The Lord of the Rings.” Long will I remember the wonders of 2005, which included family-friendly hits like “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Batman Begins,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” “Madagascar,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The Corpse Bride,” “King Kong,” “Nanny McPhee,” “Robots,” “Sky High,” “Zathura: A Space Adventure,” “Hoodwinked!” “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and, of course, the enduring classic “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.”
Our family practically lived in the cinema that year.
This is not an argument against sex, violence, mature themes or whatever bags the R rating for a given movie. That same year gave us “Brokeback Mountain,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “The Constant Gardener,” “Cinderella Man,” “A History of Violence,” “The 40 Year-Old Virgin,” “Wedding Crashers,” “Pride and Prejudice” and plenty of other fine, sophisticated, adult movies.
But with the notable exception of superhero movies, Hollywood seems increasingly willing to throw the baby, or at least the 8-year-old, out with the bathwater.
So while it’s clever to marry, and cross-promote, films as different as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” or “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” let’s not lose sight of which films draw the bigger audiences. To paraphrase another movie that drew multiple generations to the multiplex: If you build it, they will come. Especially if they can bring the kids.
Only good movies
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