'Wicked' Marketing Has Felt Eternal. It Also Raises Uncomfortable Questions.

Like with “Barbie,” Hollywood has spent heaps of money for endless promotions that serve its bottom line — and prioritize a certain consumer and film.

By the time you finish reading this sentence, there’s a good chance that you, too, have received yet another email about the new “Wicked”-themed cocktails, or the “Wicked” line of kids’ clothing or the “Wicked” high-top sneakers. Or, lest we forget, the “Wicked” Mattel dolls that were pulled from stores due to a misprint on the packaging that directed consumers to a porn site.

Even the movie’s marketing mishaps catapult to the top of its Google search page.

Each of Universal Pictures’ efforts to guarantee an audience for the movie before it hits theaters Friday have unquestionably worked in its favor. It’s predicted to make at least $120 million at the box office in its first weekend, and you can’t really step outside, especially now during holiday season, without seeing a “Wicked”-themed something or other in a store window.

Obviously many built-in fans of the same-titled, second-highest-grossing Broadway show ever, and of Gregory Maguire’s book that inspired it, have been devouring every morsel of the movie’s promotions. But there’s also an entire subset of people who are exhausted by all of it and its seemingly yearlong takeover.

On X, journalist Sophie Vershbow posted, “me to the Wicked marketing team” with a meme with the word “ENOUGH.” Another user on Bluesky sarcastically wrote, “I think just another dozen or so exposures to ‘Wicked’ marketing and I’ll be aware of it.”