Will Wicked 2 Help Hollywood Defy Gravity?

0:00This episode is brought to you by our good friends at Sky. Every December we return to our favourite festive routine, revisiting beloved Christmas films as tradition demands. And with the Sky Glass TV, it almost feels like you've stepped into one. From love actually to the holiday and elf, it's the one time of year we all agree that re-watching feels like coming home. It's comfort cinema. Snow, sparkle and the annual reminder that Colin Firth once learned Portuguese for love. Sky Glass makes it feel spectacular. Christmas through a director's lens. Glossy, golden and impossibly perfect. Every frame alive in 4K, every glow adjusting in real time.

0:32Built-in Dolby Atmos turns the gentlest carol into surround sound spectacle. Every note filling the room like the season itself. Just say Christmas and Skyglass lines up your festive favourites in one place. The gift every living room deserves. Discover the Skyglass TV. Visit sky.com. Requires relevant Sky TV subscriptions. Content may vary. Broadband recommended minimum speed, 30 megabits per second. 18 +, UK, Channel Islands, and Isle of Man only.

1:25it's time to go shopping at Nordstrom. Black Friday savings are here at the Home Depot, which means it's time to add new cordless power to your collection. Right now, when you buy a select battery kit from one of our top brands like Ryobi or Milwaukee, you'll get a select tool from that same brand for free. Click into one of our best deals of the season and stock up on tools for all your upcoming projects. Get Black Friday savings happening now at the Home Depot. Limit one per transaction. Expusion supply full, eligible tool list in-store and online. Extra value meals are back. That means 10 tender juicy McNuggets and medium fries and a drink are just$8.

2:08Only at McDonald's. For limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California, and for delivery.

2:18Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osman. Good day to thee. Good day, listeners. Good day, Richard. Good day to you again. How are you? I'm all right. Ingrid is away filming something rather exciting, so it means I've been watching an awful lot of the UK snooker championship qualifiers, more than I would ordinarily in a normal week. I know you'd withhold it otherwise. You'd deny yourself, but it's so great to just be able to give in to it all. Exactly that. How has your week been, more importantly? It's been a busy one. It's somehow become Christmas and pre-Christmas.

2:55Not yet, because it's not my birthday yet. Yeah, okay, I'm aware of that. It's Christmas after my birthday. Why won't anyone else respect this calendar? So weird, isn't it? It is very weird. We will actually end up, during the course of the show, talking about Christmas ads. Very much against my will. Yeah, because it's before your birthday. I'm so sorry, Richard, but they have all been out for quite some time. We're going to talk about Rosalia, who is the Spanish pop star who's just released this album, Lux which everyone in the whole world seems to have gone absolutely crazy for so if you've had 1800 people tell you you have to listen to the Rosalia album we're going to tell you all about her she's very very interesting as a as a phenomena I think she might be the absolute archetypal 21st century cultural phenomena and we will also begin though by talking about Wicked for Good the second part of the Wicked movies which were originally filmed as one movie and then they cannily divided them into two that opened this weekend to 150 million dollars it's a huge smash it has lifted what feels like a curse on the box office that has been going on for quite some time now and we were going to we'll talk a lot about why it's been such a big hit the nature of having a big hit like that these days and what it actually means for hollywood you know whether it's all totally fine now this movie has come out um feels like it feels like there's at least five or six of these each year yeah during this this conversation we will end up using quite a lot of the kind of US box office metrics.

4:20And I'll say why we do that. It's because they are so good. They are amazing on the data. The way they break down audiences, the way they break down everything from whether people are attending individually or in groups. We sadly don't do this. There is a lot of read across to global audiences, slightly less on this property, which is quite interesting because it's such a North American thing. But the reason we use those things as kind of ways of talking about it in terms of data points is because they drill down into it so much and we simply don't do the same. Wicked for Good opened with$150 million at the box office.

4:52The first one was$112 million. Slight caveat in that they did a couple of previews of days on Wednesdays and Mondays last week. But it is the biggest ever second episode of a fantasy series. So bigger than Harry Potter, Chamber of Secrets, bigger than Lord of the Rings, Two Towers. That's amazing. Yeah. And to put it in a different context, Barbie was, which everyone knows was an amazing phenomenon, was$162 million. Lilo and Stitch earlier this year, 146 million. So it's sort of between those. Yeah. One thing I do want to do, I can't remember whether it was at the very end of last year or the start of this year, where I did box office predictions of what was going to be a hit.

5:29Did you predict that Wicked 2 was going to be a hit? Yeah, this was one of the easiest ones because we knew that the first one had already been a hit. And also, they're only releasing a year apart because obviously they filmed them together. Anyone who didn't see that in theatres, A lot of people, by the way, paid for it over Christmas because it came out at the same time last year. This is their big sort of, this is a holiday movie, essentially. It comes out just before Thanksgiving. A lot of people will have watched that in the pay window over Christmas where you can actually pay to watch it.

5:57And then if they haven't watched it then, they will have caught up in streaming over the year. So it's open bigger and that is not a surprise, I think. Other things that it has going for it. At the moment, IMAX really matters in terms of box office receipts and how... When did that happen? because IMAX to me would always be like a very niche thing. So niche. Every time you see any box office records now, IMAX is a huge deal. You know, in London we would talk about the IMAX and it was near Waterloo. There are many more IMAX cinemas now. Those screens really matter. They're much more, people will pay more money.

6:29And if you get a clear run at the IMAX screens, as this movie had, next week we'll have to share some of that with Zootopia, which I'll end up talking about Zootopia 2. If you can get a clear run, there are lots of movies that haven't really had a clear run with it and therefore it doesn't form such a big part of receipts but it's a big deal if it's only you um and we'll talk about the absolute desert that has been this quarter the last quarter of the box office in a bit but a reminder it's like the most successful thing that universal have ever made and it comes from a stage show that was used off their original property so it's very very very solid ip the two stars ariana grande and cynthia rivo who promoted it remorsesely last year i mean But that became a cultural moment.

7:10It was a crossover thing. So that's something you need in the modern era. It became a sort of crossover moment. They promoted it so much. Let me ask you this question because it's been absolutely ubiquitous and the two of them have a very charming relationship and they're on everything. Is that just a question of throwing an awful lot more money at this than other bits of IP? Because it's not like 5 ,000 different editors of different TV programs and podcasts and magazines are all saying at the same time, this is the thing I want, presumably. There is a campaign behind this which has an awful lot of money behind it.

7:45Because no one was crying out. 400 media partners. Wow. They're like the Olympics or something. Genuinely, that's the sort of comparison I'm making. It's like the World Cup, you know, they've got the headline sponsors. We were standing at a bus stop the other day and my daughter said, oh my God, you can even get wicked electric toothbrushes. You know, there's a pink one and a green one. I would say wicked toothbrush, defying cavity. Oh my God, so good. Thanks. Why wasn't that the ad? Was it not? No. Oh my God, they'll be kicking themselves. You would love to go into a studio and just record 400 partner lines.

8:12I would, yeah. Yeah, I know you would. Genuinely, that would be an afternoon well spent. Okay, well, sadly, they didn't go with that one, but it is brilliant. Well done. I love that. No, but they got stars who promoted it relentlessly. They went on and on and on about it last time round. In a way, they didn't need to do it quite so much. Probably like you and the second Thursday Murder Club book. Once it's a thing, it's a thing. And they couldn't really repeat that kind of mad emotional press tour where they cried in every interview last time. But it was pretty great when Cynthia Erivo had to kind of throw herself across a red carpet to protect Ariana Grande from some kind of annoying TikToker or whatever.

8:48And they did like, you know, Dancing with the Stars special and they had a Strictly special. So they can, and those things are sort of unpaid things as well. So when something is that massive, you've got all your paid media, which last year there was a lot of. and this year actually because it was so huge everyone is throwing media at you everyone is throwing promo at you and you're not having that stuff is all free they did something really old-fashioned in the u.s which is that they had something that's so like from a different decades like pre-millennial and they did like it's called like a wicked and evening with the stars or something they did like a tv special and it made that was huge dancing with the stars is absolutely massive though and as you said previously bizarrely that is now a brilliant deliverer of the 18 to 34 year old audience so it's done very well for that and also the other thing about it which i think is kind of necessary is that they were in the awards conversation last year people thought you know best supporting and best actress they nominated for 10 oscars wasn't it had nominated for a lot of oscars so it's basically the full spectrum property it's got all of it right let's talk about the context of the year because the biggest movie of the year is a minecraft movie yeah um rightly so then wicked for good then the lilo and stitch remake how this year has happened in hollywood remember they have to get to nine billion in box office or else it just they can't really survive in their current lifestyle um as a town otherwise their pumpkin remains a pumpkin yeah does not turn into a golden coach quite right you had a terrible first quarter and then it was that was that sort of curse was lifted by a minecraft movie and you had a kind of you know okay good summer and then an absolutely terrible third quarter and the curse is lifted by this but that can't really well this curse has been lifted by fewer and fewer bigger and bigger movies and that is unsustainable it's also not fun for our culture it's not fun for moviegoers it's not fun for cinemas you know if you're relying to get to that nine billion you're relying on four or five big movies to give you you know 50 60 percent of that then that's not fun for filmmakers that's not fun for film goers i think you just it's like there's nothing to see yeah i find it extraordinary i mean i know we're all like you know monday morning experts but really this is why i want to go back and look at that and audit myself as to what i said last year is what what would be hits and i will audit yourself yeah you have to and And I'll look ahead to next year's and say whether...

11:12Yes, because I definitely missed like a Minecraft movie and that was stupid of me because I knew that that was big IP and that people would like it. But there have been no blockbusters for absolutely months, okay? And it's extraordinary. And if you look at the individual studios, I want to say September the 23rd, near the end of September, but not the very end, Warner's released, one battle after another. That is their last movie for the year, okay? What is wrong with you? Why have you not got some sort of children's related holiday play out? Why have you not got something there? You know kids run movie theatres.

11:46You know that the family genre is the thing that most consistently has got people turning out. Why is there nothing? Why do you not even have a movie? But is that not because they're saving because we now have such juggernauts like Wicked that everyone just tries to avoid it? And they think, you know what, we'll come out in January. There's been nothing to watch. There's been nothing to watch if you have children since like July. That's obviously ridiculous. Because now you're going to have Wicked One Weekend, then Zootopia 2, you know, Avatar, whatever. There's a fine run in whatever. But it's obviously ridiculous to say, well, am I going to go and see Gabby's Doll's House?

12:19OK, this is just like a Netflix show that is a nothing movie. And other than that, there has been nothing since the summer at all. That's obviously ridiculous. You're sort of failing as a town if you're not putting out, you know, movies that people will see. There's nothing to go to. And the movies that have come out, you know, I really sort of despair of. Yeah, but I do. Like, sorry, there's a movie where Sidney Sweeney is not hot. I've already seen it in Not Hot. Christy, which is a sort of boxing and domestic violence movie. Oh, my God. Yes, please. Sorry, she's put on£30 and she's in a boxing and domestic violence movie.

12:54Great. You know, I'm sure that her agent thought, let's get her now in awards conversation. So she has to get messed up and ugly looking and all of this sort of stuff. Yeah, this is way too early in her career for that. Okay, maybe this happened with Charlize Theron or whatever in Monster, but that's more than 20 years ago. I don't know the exact date of the film, but it's really the start of the 2000s. This is not what in any way Sidney Sweeney should be doing. What a surprise that literally no one wants to see the Sidney Sweeney boxing and domestic violence movie, okay? Also, do you want to see The Rock in a 50 million...

13:26Sorry, I'm watching a$50 million MMA movie. I don't want to see him in that. I'm sorry, I know he wants an award badly and he's still hoping he's going to get that last, maybe best actor spot. At the other end of the scale, you've got something like One Battle After Another, which, you know, I understand what that film is doing for Warners. It's a big prestige play. It's got the most prestige, maybe, actor. It's got Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Thomas Anderson, of course. And they have actually had a good year, Warners as well. So they're allowed one of those. This makes up, you know, and I understand that that film does something different and it's going to be massively nominated.

13:58You know, it's one of those library things and it's a prestige thing and it will sit there for it and it will make eventually its money back. It certainly doesn't make its money back in the movie theatre, believe me. And it's sort of extraordinary that you've got all these prestige plays that even when you're thinking about The Rock for that movie, that should never have cost$50 million. People don't want to see these films. They may not even get them nominated for awards and they don't want to see them. Can I say something about Sidney Sweeney and The Rock and Glenn Powell in Running Man, which also didn't do big numbers at the box office.

14:30I'll come to that. And 10 years ago, that's a shoe-in, by the way. It's a remake of a cult piece of IP that was also a mainstream piece of IP, starring the hottest young actor in the business. I disagree with both those things, but anyway, we'll come to that. We'll come to that. Wicked stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. Take me through their big box office successes before that movie. There are none. And don't need to. They've both done brilliant things in their areas, but neither of them is a movie star. No one, by the way, is also next year kind of going, I want to see what Cynthia Erivo's next movie is.

14:59if she's in an amazing movie everyone will go and see it but no one is going to go and see a Cynthia Erivo movie an Ariella Grande movie a Sidney Sweeney movie a Glenn Powell movie and that we've talked about a while but it's really that really has crept up on us a little bit that the IP is absolutely the king and yet movies you know Smashing Machine is costing 50 million presumably because The Rock is taking quite a lot of money there so quite a lot yeah They unfortunately filmed in masses of locations. I mean, someone should have just said, no, no, no, you don't need to take this movie to all these different places.

15:33But yes, they made it much more expensive than they should have done. It feels like some sort of adjustment of the star system is completely necessary. And we've talked about this before. Something like The Running Man, which I have to say, as I keep saying, Glenn Powell is like a mid-level star. He works really, really hard and he does lots of things. Is he a movie star? He wants to be a movie star desperately. I think he's come in at the end of something. But can you be a movie star? Can you be a movie star? Well, wait, I'm going to talk about that in just a second. But I will say about that property.

16:01Explain to me why The Running Man is a great piece of IP, OK? It's not The Terminator. It's like a real second tier, maybe even third tier Schwarzenegger movie. And it's not one of the big ones. And if it was The Terminator, then that would be a whole different thing. And I don't think Glenn Powell would be in it, by the way. Sorry, that's the reality. And I don't think... But who would be in it? If they were to be made Terminator now, who would be Terminator? Someone older, probably. Statham. They should put The Rock in it. The Rock is the Terminator. The Rock is a multiplex star, and The Rock will get people to go and watch it.

16:31If they did Terminator with The Rock, that's what he should be in. I couldn't care less about him being in a drama about an MMA's battle with prescription medication. No. The thing you're saying about movie stars, something that I do think is the case is there's no particular reason why public service broadcasting needs to be delivered in one-hour shows or 30-minute shows, as we were talking when we talked with Kate Phillips last week. that feeling of movie stardom that we love stars and we want to see them is there any particular reason it has to be delivered via the means of a major motion picture because people might like to see them on an interview show they see lots and lots of clips they have kind of direct parasocial relationships with them via their instagrams do i need to see two hours of sydney sweeney do i you know maybe i'm just happy with clips i understand for family things and that's a completely different thing and again that genre and the family genre is very very strong when it gets when they get it right all of these movies that are going to be nominated for great performances for awards i mean the biggest one's going to be one one battle after another otherwise they're very very small things hollywood likes to do this when it has like just in the same way that everyone's like oh everyone is back now don't worry because wicked it's fine it's like that it's no no no it's not fine nothing nothing is fine here and i mean wicked is almost not cinema it's a phenomenon it's a it's a cultural thing that exists across lots and lots of mediums it's not the fact that that's opened in movie theatres that's made it so big it's a it's a it's a multi-platform assault on our yeah and that press tour like you said was a sort of cultural moment and maybe at least people saw last week timothy chalamet who's got marty supreme the safty brother movie that you do want to see not the smashing machine and that's coming out on i think on christmas day or something but what movie is that marty supreme about a what a ping pong star a ping pong star yeah okay why do we want to see that doesn't feel like i think it's quite fun people want to see timothy chalamet i think people it It won't have cost a complete fortune and people want to see it.

18:20Now, he did a sort of thing where he was talking about doing his press tour and he did a video, like a sort of jokey video, where he was coming up with really stupid ideas for how he could promote the movie, which A24 then immediately sort of uploaded because they wanted to show that he's an ironist. He is good at a form of press tour that is not quite like everybody else's, but other people are saying, oh, what do I actually really... You know, now I've seen all these press tours. Now I've seen... Can I say something controversial? Yeah. Which is, I always, for years and years on panel shows, I always said, why are we paying comedians?

18:51Because literally, they're just selling tour tickets off the back of this panel show. This comedian is getting more from being on this show than we're getting from the comedian being on it. It seems to me now that actors are getting more from being in movies than the movie companies are getting from the actors being in their films. So Glenn Powell gets more from being in Running Man than the movie company gets from Glenn Powell being in it. because he suddenly has three months worth of publicity everywhere he wants to go, being interviewed by everyone he wants to, doing every single podcast. And we all know that you can monetize your own personal brand far more than you used to be able to do.

19:24It feels to me now that actors should pay to play. It feels like whoever you are, unless, you know, maybe you're Chalamet, Glenn Powell's manager should say, I'll give you a million dollars to put him in Running Man because it keeps him in the conversation. It keeps him in the public eye for another three months, four months in a way that something he just does himself wouldn't do. It's saying this guy has a significance. This guy has a role to play in our culture. And then he just monetizes that money. You make your money from endorsements or whatever else it is. Yeah, because Glenn Powell has not failed in Running Man.

19:53Glenn Powell, his face has been everywhere on huge billboards, on being incredibly charming. Unbelievably. On everything he wants to. And the person who's making money from that is Glenn Powell and Glenn Powell's manager and Glenn Powell's hot sauce. What do you think about that? I definitely think that stars are becoming, we've talked about how they're so diversified and they've got fragrance lines and fashion campaigns. And those are the things that in some ways make really big bucks. And those personal brands are incredibly monetizable. And actually fashion houses, as I say, and fragrance houses can make money out of it.

20:28But you've got to be in movies in order to keep your face out there. But the movie itself is a sort of loss leader to some extent. Yeah, certainly I think it will eventually become problematic that he just can't make that leap into the kind of megawatt territory. And I think that eventually people will think, well, I could just put someone else in. So you'll always have to remain competitively priced if you're him. This is definitely something that people are saying, which is that the movies is just kind of a small thing and it's a form of job visibility. But actually the big money comes from all of these subsidiary businesses that they have.

21:00I think that is obviously a really big problem for Hollywood. But if you don't make any movies and you don't give things a try, I think that it just all needs such a big rethink. I do think it's just genuinely extraordinary that, like, Warners has nothing for the last quarter of the year. There has not been a family movie. The one genre that you can actually bank on to keep the lights on, they haven't bothered, no one has bothered putting one out, really, since July. But thought experiment, if I'm a movie executive in Hollywood, that must be a hard job. Well, not hard, but you know what I mean?

21:30depressing and i've got a big movie coming out i just i get actors managers to come in and pitch me some sums of money as to how much their talent would like to be in this film i say look this is what we're spending on marketing we've got a 100 million dollar marketing budget so you know we'll be on this thing we'll be on that thing we'll be teaming up with coke there'll be billboards everywhere what is that worth to your actor how much would you like to pay and people will pitch in you know two million three million four million dollars and suddenly you know you're being paid 10 million dollars to get your cast because they're aware they're getting six months worth of free publicity and they're going to get a gucci campaign and they're going to get a gucci campaign out of it i love this idea this is a brilliant yeah i think that is a that is a good idea because it's very difficult to see how otherwise they can continue explaining to stars that they can't have theatrical release they can't have these huge salaries because it's them who's benefiting i I mean, listen, you get paid to be on Taskmaster.

22:25But if you're a comedian, it is the one thing that will move the dial in terms of absolutely knocking you up to the next level in terms of ticket sales and in terms of notoriety. Feels like if I was a big agent, that'd be worth some money to me. And Hollywood is like 10 times that. Imagine if you were someone else's agent who wasn't Cynthia Erivo and you managed to get your talent in Wicked. If you think of the money that Cynthia Erivo has made out of Wicked, and quite rightly because she's brilliant in it and she's sort of an extraordinary star that we haven't seen before. But if someone else had done it and was able to monetize that to 30, 40, 50 million over the next five years, then it's worth paying$5 million up front.

23:03I think you're right. I think the press tours in general are becoming just this huge saturation thing. And unless people think of different ways of doing them, then they're all kind of the same. and a lot of people, I've seen a lot of people, right, given that it's been such a terrible quarter in Hollywood, a lot of people say the only people who have benefited from these is just like the stars for exposure, but certainly the movies haven't made any money. Yeah, but the stars have. The stars have, yeah. And they've laid down potential future income streams as well. Exactly. And so, listen, just very basic economics tells you that something could change there.

23:37I'm not saying it will, because it definitely won't, but it could do. I love this take. But how can they be that bad that there isn't anything to see for families? Yeah, it's like the BBC just going, oh no, we didn't do anything for Christmas. Yeah, it's really, it's six months of the year. It's so late November when Zootopia comes out. That's so ridiculous that there are basically a dropped five months. Do you know what? Genuinely, I'm so sorry you have to spend time with your kids. Because we all know that the greatest thing about cinema is it's two hours a piece. you can kind of shut your eyes.

24:13It's one of the few places that you can have just a little nap during the day. The amount of movies I saw with my kids when they were growing up, Pixar and all sorts of things, where I saw the first 20 minutes and probably the last 20 minutes, and I must have had a snooze in the middle, but they were so happy. I don't know what happens in most of the middles of the Pixar movies. Shall we do some inverts? Let's.

24:43This episode is brought to you by Sky Cinema, the go-to destination for film lovers this Christmas. And this year, there's a new Sky original to unwrap Tinseltown, arriving on the 5th of December. Now, it follows Brad, a Hollywood action hero, who ends up in an English village panto. Somewhere between the fairy lights and the footlights, he starts to rediscover what really matters, with help from the locals and a fair share of glitter. Kiefer Sutherland and Rebel Wilson lead the cast with Danny Dyer, Catherine Ryan, Lucian Lavascout and Derek Jacoby, a line-up that feels like Christmas lunch at the BAFTAs.

25:15Sky Cinema is also bringing big-screen blockbusters home with Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning, a Minecraft movie and festive favourites like Elf, Love Actually and The Polar Express. Plus, you get two View Cinema tickets every month and Paramount Plus included at no extra cost, perfect for those nights where the sofa becomes a cinema and the carpet pretends to be a red one. Upgrade to Sky Cinema this Christmas to enjoy festive favourites, more of the latest blockbusters and the new Sky Original Christmas film, Tinseltown. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast?

25:49Smart move. Being financially savvy? Smart move. Another smart move? Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Kraft Mac and Cheese is the best thing ever. It's even better than pop music. You look just as natural enjoying us at age 13 as you do 55. Kraft Mac and Cheese.