MW Think 'Wicked' the movie is doing well? The Broadway show version has made $6 billion.

By Charles Passy

Thanks to the film release, the Broadway show is a top seller once again - and it may spawn cinematic adaptations of other popular theatrical productions

"Wicked" may be generating plenty of buzz among moviegoers, having taken in $378 million worldwide since its release a couple of weeks ago.

But the "Wicked" success story goes well beyond Hollywood. The movie, a Universal Pictures release, is based on the Broadway musical, of course.

And that show, which opened in 2003 to much fanfare, has become Broadway's hottest ticket once again.

The numbers tell the tale: For the seven-day period ending Dec. 2 - which was Thanksgiving week, typically one of Broadway's busiest - "Wicked" was the best-selling production, grossing $2.93 million. That put it ahead of such theatrical juggernauts as "The Lion King" ($2.88 million) and "Hamilton" ($2.58 million). It also put it ahead of a host of newer buzzworthy shows, including last season's Tony Award-winner for best musical, "The Outsiders" ($1.84 million).

And "Wicked," the show, has become far more than a New York phenomenon: Since its inception, the theatrical event has grossed $6 billion worldwide, including global productions, according to NBCUniversal, the parent company of Universal. (NBCUniversal itself is owned by Comcast $(CMCSA)$.) The share from the Broadway production is about $1.7 billion - around a quarter of that total.

Theater-industry professionals say the effect of the movie is impossible to ignore - and will have a lasting impact on the musical.

"It gave the show so much free advertising," said Alan Seales, co-founder of the Broadway Podcast Network, a platform that features more than 150 theater-related programs.

Not that "Wicked," a creative take on the Oz story based on the Gregory Maguire novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," has ever been a poor performer on Broadway. Just the opposite: It dominated the scene in its early years, though it admittedly lost some ground to other shows - "Hamilton" in particular" - as time went by.

Now it's on top again.

Interestingly, Marc Platt, a former Universal executive who served as one of the producers of the show and now of the movie, originally conceived of "Wicked" as a cinematic project, not a theatrical one, and optioned the Maguire novel with that in mind. But he couldn't get the project past the screenplay stage.

That is, until composer Stephen Schwartz approached him with the idea of "Wicked" as a Broadway musical.

"And the lightbulb went off in my head," Platt said in a recent interview posted on the NBCUniversal site. "I thought, 'That's what's been missing from these screenplays. I don't feel the magic because it's a story that wants to sing.'"

MarketWatch reached out to publicity representatives for the "Wicked" show and at Universal, but they declined to comment for this story.

A top industry source says 'Phantom of the Opera,' Andrew Lloyd Webber's blockbuster musical, is being seriously considered for another cinematic remake.

Some theater-industry experts say interest in the stage version of "Wicked" was growing again even before the recent movie promotion - which began months ago, with commercials for the film airing as far back as this year's Super Bowl.

Kevin Bianchi, co-host of "Sentimental Men," a podcast devoted to all things "Wicked," points to the fact that the show was among the first to reopen on Broadway after the 18-month pandemic shutdown, which gave it a natural sales lift. And last year the show celebrated its 20th anniversary, an event that brought media attention.

But Quincy Brown, the other co-host of the "Sentimental Men" podcast, says it's still the long buildup for the "Wicked" film - the project was talked about for years before finally being set in motion - that has gotten people most interested in the show.

"They've teased this movie as long as I'm alive," he said.

Craig Laurie, chief creative officer at RWS Global, a worldwide theatrical and event-production company, says it's also worth noting that the "Wicked" Broadway team has kept the show in good stead in terms of its performance quality. That's not always a given with long-running productions, which is what can lead to their eventual demise.

"It still packs the punch of a brand-new show," Laurie said.

The success of the "Wicked" film will inevitably have Hollywood looking to adapt more Broadway musicals for the big screen, some are predicting.

Examples of shows that could be prime candidates, according to theater-industry professionals, range from current hits like "Six," a pop-inflected musical about the wives of King Henry VIII, to longer-running shows like "Legally Blonde," the 2007 musical based on the 2001 movie.

'When a Broadway show gets it right, nothing is bigger. It dwarfs even what films can do.'Tony Award-winning producer Ken Davenport

One top industry source also told MarketWatch that "Phantom of the Opera," Andrew Lloyd Webber's blockbuster musical that was made into a film in 2004, is being seriously considered for another cinematic remake.

Movie musicals based on Broadway shows are not guaranteed to become box-office winners, however. For every success story like "Wicked" or "Chicago" - the 2002 film that won the Oscar for best picture - there are cinematic flops like "Dear Even Hansen" or "Rent."

But even if a movie makes it, Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Ken Davenport says there's nothing in the entertainment industry that quite matches the financial potential of the Broadway show itself.

That's because even though a show has considerable ongoing operating expenses, the cost of a movie ticket is a fraction of that for a show - the average ticket price for "Wicked" on Broadway last week was $190.18. And the shelf life of a movie, at least in theaters, is fairly short, whereas "Wicked" on stage is a two-decade success story.

"When a Broadway show gets it right, nothing is bigger. It dwarfs even what films can do," Davenport said.

How long can "Wicked" the show play off "Wicked" the movie? While the shelf life of a film can indeed be measured in just weeks, this "Wicked" cinematic adaptation has a wicked twist: It's only part one of the story, with the second film due in theaters in November 2025. That means the Broadway show is guaranteed another movie-related boost.

Ironically, it wasn't so long ago that producers worried that any cinematic adaptation would spell death for the live version of a show. The theory was that audiences wouldn't pay to see the same story twice - and that they would opt for the more affordable, easily accessible version playing at their local movie theater.

But that theory has been proven wrong time and time again, says Seales of the Broadway Podcast Network. He points to what he calls the "Taylor Swift effect," referring to how that artist's mega-selling Eras Tour was not affected by the release of a tour film. If anything, it made her fans all the more eager to buy tickets for the actual concerts.

Whether it's Swift or "Wicked," the effect of a movie is the same: It generates buzz for the live event, Seales said.

"When you watch the movie, you want to see the show," he said.

-Charles Passy

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December 06, 2024 09:39 ET (14:39 GMT)

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