Wicked Doesn’t Need to Reach 1 Billion to be a Hit
With glowing reviews and huge buzz, Wicked is coming to the theaters. But does this movie really need to gross 1 billion dollars in order to succeed?
With rave reviews from both critics and audience alike, the long-awaited adaptation (well, first half) of Wicked is finally coming to the theaters this weekend. With huge buzz, intense marketing campaign and very strong pre-sales, the movie should be a mega hit. But people need to remember that the movie doesn’t need to be a mega hit in order to be a huge success.
There’s tons of chatter online that makes people believe that this movie will definitely hit 1 billion at the worldwide box office. I do think it’s a possibility, especially thanks to the very strong word-of-mouth, and the fact that this movie is a fantastic crowd-pleaser (it’s one of my top 10 movies of 2024). But just in case it won’t reach the billion-dollar mark, I don’t want people to start calling this movie a flop.
The budget is around 150 million dollars not including the marketing. With that kind of number, I believe that even the final gross of around 500 million will be pretty solid. Anything above 600 million dollars will be fantastic, but even if this movie grosses 800-900 dollars worldwide (which will be phenomenal), people online will call it underperformance.
I remember how when Moana was released in December of 2016, people online were convinced that this movie would reach the billion mark with no problem. At the end of the day, the movie went on to gross more than 680 million dollars, a fantastic result for an original animated movie, but people immediately started to call it “a flop” or “an underperformance”. People just expected way too much. Since then, the movie has become a global phenomenon, and it’s one of the most beloved animation franchises in the world.
People need to remember that even if Wicked we’ll gross lots of money instead of tons of money, it will still be a massive success. More importantly, even if it won’t cross the billion, the amount of goodwill from this movie will surely help the second movie cross the billion.
But, I’m really hoping it will cross the billion, because this movie deserves it.