Wicked's Dropping Grosses — Page 2

Plannietink08 said: "I’m a huge fan of the show and would bereallyinterested in seeing it close. Given some of the non-replica productions we’ve seen I’d love to see what regional theatres would do to the show.


Famously, it’s in very bad shape in London. So above all I do think it’s worth closing there."



Bad shape in London? Please elaborate!

AEA AGMA SM said: "Mr. Wormwood said: "As I said in other threads, I'm very much in the camp of it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

That being said, I'm curious how close they are to releasing amateur rights now that the movie has come and gone. Phantom hadamateur rights available for years before it closed while Les Mis was right before it closed IIRC.

While it might seem counter intuitive because "everyone will be doing Wicked" (and yes, we'll get a lot of bad HS versions) but perhaps it would renew interest in the OG version especially from people performing it around the country and world.

I doubt amateur rights getting releaeed happens very soon but feels like it could within the next five years?"

Though it's of note that the amateur rights released forPhantom, at least here in the US, were and still are restricted to high schools and youth groups. It's notavailable to any old community theatre, and norto any theatre under an Equity contract."

Good point.. I wouldn't be surprised to see Wicked go that way at first too.

I may be forgetting some show, but I can't help thinking that Wicked was probably the first real hit that the Uris / Gershwin ever had. There were some critical hits, e.g., Sweeney Toodd, or revivals (one of the TKAI revivals), but I doubt that anything ever made money. It was regularly referred to as a white elephant and a sterile barn before Wicked. I imagine the theatre owners will give wide rein if it goes through some lean times.

Also, while its grosses have clearly gone down, the last few weeks have not exactly been normal, as many have stated. I would wait a few more weeks before hanging crepe. They will finally go on TKTS and, as I have previously said, run another 10 years.

Everyone is quick to blame the admittedly not great second film, but it still made half a billion dollars, its critical reception was more down the middle than outright negative (a 58 on Metacritic, 66% on Rotten Tomatoes), and the audience reception was still fairly positive (an “A” from the less discerning Cinemascore, 6.7 on IMDb, 3.4 out of 5 on Letterboxd).


I’m not sure how much blockbuster business a 23 year old show is expected to do. Like others have said, I’m sure it can have a nice run for a bit longer coasting in the mid-range of grosses.

Mr. Wormwood said: "As I said in other threads, I'm very much in the camp of it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

That being said, I'm curious how close they are to releasing amateur rights now that the movie has come and gone. Phantom hadamateur rights available for years before it closed while Les Mis was right before it closed IIRC.

While it might seem counter intuitive because "everyone will be doing Wicked" (and yes, we'll get a lot of bad HS versions) but perhaps it would renew interest in the OG version especially from people performing it around the country and world.

I doubt amateur rights getting releaeed happens very soon but feels like it could within the next five years?"

They were available in Australia for a while and there were some incredible productions, and also some not very good ones. I saw the amateur premier in Melbourne and the Glinda was my favourite out of all the ones I've seen, she should have been doing it professionally. I've always been surprised they never released the rights again after revoking them a few years later, especially now the movie had renewed interest in the show.

Interestingly, we also got these odd amateur/professional mashups where professional performers were taking part in amateur versions of the show. Samantha Dodemaide, recently Nini in Moulin Rouge on Broadway, played Elphaba in an amateur production in between professional gigs.

I think what’s interesting about how the mid Phantom of the Opera movie didn’t dim the brand and the show kept thriving was partially cause the movie kinda came and went. There wasn’t a mono culture/social media exhaustion that came with the existence of the movie. People all agreed the live show was still worth buying a ticket for.

Wicked movies were a two year press tour constantly in the news and it all built to a finale that across the board underwhelmed. And people are bored of Wicked just being around.

So the “why” of seeing it live is a lot trickier now.