Wicked’s new release date introduces a new Barbenheimer with Gladiator II

Universal has moved the release date of its lavish musical Bad a few days ahead, from November 27 (the day before Thanksgiving) to the preceding Friday, November 22.

The move is ostensibly and wisely intended to avoid a clash with Disney’s animated sequel Vaiana 2also scheduled for November 27. Universal may be motivated (read: scared) by the stunning box office performances of Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2that has just been incurred more than 1 billion dollars worldwide in just over two weeks, setting a new record for an animated film.

But the date change also creates another, potentially more exciting conflict: Badstarring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, will now hit theaters on the same day as Ridley Scott’s historical action film Gladiator 2starring Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal. Bad is the first part of a two-part adaptation of the successful stage musical, which predicts the 1939 classic The Wizard of Ozin which the background story of the witches is told. Gladiator 2 is a generation-later sequel to Scott’s Oscar-winning 2000 epic. (Vanity Fair recently reported surprisingly solid preview by Gladiator 2(which is packed with first looks, plot details, and great quotes from Scott and the cast; definitely worth checking out.)

The battle between these two films immediately brings to mind “Barbenheimer,” the 2023 box office hit that saw Greta Gerwig’s candy-colored comedy Barbie against Christopher Nolan’s bleak atomic bomb drama OppenheimerThe date clash created a firestorm of publicity and a sort of unofficial film festival that worked in favor of both films, which ended 2023 as the first and third biggest films of the year worldwide.

Theater owners, like no one else, will be hoping for something similar. Bad And Gladiator 2but the contrast is not so striking this time. It’s true that one is a colorful, imaginative musical starring female characters, while the other is a violent action film starring mostly male actors.

But they’re both big, old-fashioned spectacles with an old-Hollywood feel, and they don’t make as much of a contrast (or as funny) as a meta-comedy involving a toy brand and a three-hour biopic about physics and the nuclear holocaust. Bad And Gladiator 2 are also both a kind of franchise films, which rely on the brand awareness, while Barbie And Oppenheimer are both daring, original films from auteur directors.

It’s also hard to come up with a compound name for them that rolls off the tongue as smoothly as “Barbenheimer.” Gladicked? Surely not. The best I can do is Wickiator.

None of that is as important as what Bad And Gladiator 2 have in common with Barbie And Oppenheimeralthough: They are both exciting looking films that give very compelling reasons to see them on the big screen, they complement each other in nice ways and they will do very well with audiences. It’s going to be a fun November.