According to the Wall Street Journal, "Wicked" Parts One and Two cost $320 million ($160 million per film). Both parts were shot back-to-back.

Article (paywalled)

42 points · 12 comments · view on lemmy.world

12 Comments

MrVilliam@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 1y (4 replies)

It really grinds my gears that they took a movie-length two act play and padded it out to chop it up into two movies. And they'll be rewarded for it. Together, they'll gross over $1.5 billion, maybe over 2.

NOT_RICK@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 1y (2 replies)

You really think this is going to do gang busters? I’m not even convinced it will make the money back

xkbx@startrek.website · 11 pts · 1y

Making films isn’t free, they have to have expenses. What do you want them to do, reduce the spending on the money laundering?

MrVilliam@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y

I really do. I think it will be more Lion King remake than Cats adaptation. But I'm ready to admit that I was wrong if people don't line up in droves for it. I think the first will do much better than the second, because a ton of people will say "the ending sucked. It just stopped without any resolution. And there wasn't even half the songs from Wizard of Oz."

Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1y

What's worse is that it was in no way made public that this was a part 1.

ramble81@lemm.ee · 8 pts · 1y (5 replies)

And me, I’m still pissed at how much the play isn’t like the book. I would have loved to seen them adapt that.

Kelly@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y (4 replies)

The musical is a based on a book? TIL.

I wasn't interest in the stage performance or the movie but I liked the Baum books as a kid, I'll have to give it a look.

ramble81@lemm.ee · 12 pts · 1y (2 replies)

Yeah the book is much darker and more in depth. It gets into topics around class divides and suicide. Which is why when I went to see the play it was so jarring to me.

Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y

I used to work at a book store at the time it released, it was very popular. You expect a stage play to be more upbeat I guess, but basing the movie on the play based on the book, sounds like a complete miss

eightpix@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

Anticipating Book > Film (musical?) > Play/Musical

Hopefully, what they padded the movie with is the contents — the politics — of the book. As u/MrVilliam said above:

they took a movie-length two act play and padded it out to chop it up into two movies. And they'll be rewarded for it. Together, they'll gross over $1.5 billion, maybe over 2.

bramkaandorp@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

It's not written by Baum, though.

sunzu2@thebrainbin.org · 6 pts · 1y
[ removed ]
Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y

It's crazy that a movie like this can cost more than the price of the entire Lord of the rings trilogy