“Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” which opened on Friday, drew moviegoers who attended a double feature that emulated the rage over “Barbenheimer” last year.
Swords clashing and blood curdling screams of gladiators emanate from one room. Across the hallway, witches belt out show tunes.
That’s the sound of “Glicked.”
Last year, moviegoers swarmed to see “Barbenheimer” — the combined name for “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — when the films opened on the same day. Now, there is a push from the casts and fans of “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” — which both opened across the country on Friday — to recreate that energy for another double feature with a blended name.
Isabelle Deveaux and Emma Rabuano skipped out of theater six at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn at 2:38 p.m. on Friday, after watching “Gladiator II.”
At 6:15 p.m., the pair, both 25, planned to return to the Alamo Drafthouse to see “Wicked.” The crossover, Ms. Deveaux said, “felt so specifically catered to our interests.”
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On the surface, the two films, which have a combined running time of over five hours, appear vastly different. One is a family friendly musical prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” while the other is an R-rated epic sequel about murder, war and the Roman Empire. But Ms. Deveaux and Ms. Rabuano see some common ground in the films.
“They actually have very similar themes in very different ways,” Ms. Rabuano said. Both movies are about standing up to oppressive regimes and fighting for a better future, she said.
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Some customers who filed into theaters throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn were fans of only one of the two franchises. Diego Gasca, 32, who saw “Wicked” with friends at the AMC Lincoln Square 13 theater in Manhattan said that “Gladiator didn’t really speak to us as a crew.”
A few young women who were covered in green face paint or decked out in witch costumes said they were completely unaware that “Wicked” shared an opening day with “Gladiator II.”
Yet many said they were there to see the two films on the same day, or saw one and had made plans to see the other. Some moviegoers even struck a compromise with the double feature.
Shanah Worley, 33, said she happily strode into “Wicked” at 8:30 a.m. in Manhattan with her husband, sister and brother-in-law after taking the day off work and dropping off her kids. Although she admitted that “the guys are the Gladiator fans” and said that she was seeing “Gladiator II” at 12:30 p.m. as “moral support,” she was excited to see how the story would play out.
Others were equally drawn to the two films, borne out of two critically acclaimed and massively popular productions from the same era. “Gladiator” hit theaters in 2000 while the stage musical version of “Wicked” opened on Broadway in 2003.
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It helps that both 2024 films are getting a good reception. The New York Times called “Gladiator II” a “pleasurably immersive spectacle,” and said “Wicked” was “consistently amusing.”
Some viewers who saw “Wicked” were moved to tears.
“It all made me well up at different moments,” Gaelen Gilliland, 50, a former cast member in an early Broadway production of “Wicked,” said of the movie.
Mya Rozier-Williams, 20, came out of “Wicked” and advised the next wave of viewers to stock up on tissues.
The star power in the two films is also enough to draw out legions of fans. Ms. Rozier-Williams, of Brooklyn, said that she would have to see “Gladiator II” in the next few weeks because her mother “has a huge crush on Denzel.”
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Yes, Denzel Washington, who plays a wealthy gladiator wrangler in “Gladiator II,” is worth the price of admission himself, some “Glicked” viewers said.
Despite the overlap between the fan bases, the viewing experiences were drastically different. A quiet theater crowd watched “blood gushing out at all angles” for two and a half hours at “Gladiator II,” according to Tia Abrams. Compare that to a morning viewing of “Wicked,” where audience members in Manhattan were belting out show tunes with a different vibe, Ms. Worley said.
“I’ll teach you the proper ploys when you talk to boys,” Galinda sings in “Popular,” one of the most popular songs “Wicked.” Later, she adds: “I’ll show you what shoes to wear, how to fix your hair.”
Ms. Deveaux and Ms. Rabuano didn’t participate in “Barbenheimer” — they were not interested in the “enheimer” portion. But to them, “Glicked” was different. “Glicked” was perfect.
“When we found out they were on the same day I think the excitement just grew even more,” Ms. Rabuano said. “We were just like, ‘Wow, what a full circle of all of our interests melding into one.’”
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