Inside episode 204: How has Wicked 2 performed box office magic in such a difficult year for Hollywood’s blockbusters? Who won the war for the greatest Christmas ad on British telly? Has Rosalía just penned the best pop album of the decade?
Download ‘Will Wicked 2 Help Hollywood Defy Gravity?’ as an MP3
Inside This Episode
Wicked: For Good Box Office Success
- Wicked: For Good opened with $150 million at the US box office, outperforming the first film’s $112 million opening and becoming “the biggest ever second episode of a fantasy series” – surpassing both Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The film benefited from an IMAX-friendly release window with minimal competition, and its stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo undertook an extensive promotional campaign that became “a sort of cultural moment.” The hosts note that Wicked represents a “multi-platform assault on art” rather than traditional cinema, with ubiquitous brand partnerships extending to everything from electric toothbrushes to TV specials.
Hollywood’s Box Office Struggles
- The episode explores how Hollywood has experienced a difficult year, with the biggest films being A Minecraft Movie, Wicked: For Good, and the Lilo & Stitch remake. The hosts express frustration that there has been essentially no family-friendly content released since July, describing Hollywood as “failing as a town” for leaving such a significant gap in the release calendar. Warner Bros is singled out for releasing their last film of the year (One Battle After Another) in late September, with no holiday releases planned.
The Changing Economics of Movie Stardom
- A substantial discussion examines whether traditional movie stars still exist, noting that neither Ariana Grande nor Cynthia Erivo had significant box office track records before Wicked. The hosts argue that actors now benefit more from appearing in films than studios benefit from casting them, as film promotion provides “six months worth of free publicity” that stars can monetise through endorsement deals, fragrance lines, and fashion campaigns. Richard Osman provocatively suggests that “actors should pay to play” because appearing in major films provides career visibility that actors can leverage for personal brand revenue far exceeding their film salaries.
Christmas Advertising Analysis
- UK brands are spending £12 billion on Christmas advertising this year, up from £10.5 billion last year – a figure comparable to the entire value of the defence industry to the UK economy. The John Lewis “Rave Dad” advertisement received 1.1 million video views on its first morning, a 176% increase from the previous year. Rosie Hanley from John Lewis explained that extensive customer research revealed that people feel they “can’t talk in the way they want to, to people they love,” which informed the advertisement’s creative direction.
AI in Advertising
- The Coca-Cola Christmas advertisement, created using AI for the second consecutive year, achieved the highest possible scores for audience satisfaction and brand recognition according to research company System One. The hosts express concern that audiences appear unbothered by AI-generated content, with Marina Hyde describing this as “quite dystopian.” The discussion notes that viewers experience their highest satisfaction “when they see the red trucks” – a Pavlovian response to years of brand conditioning that overrides any technical concerns about AI production.
Rosalía’s Album Lux
- Spanish artist Rosalía is described as potentially “the absolute archetypal 21st century cultural phenomena” for her ability to combine avant-garde music with mainstream commercial success. Her new album Lux, which explores stories of female Christian saints, has received praise from the Vatican’s culture department – a marked shift from the institution’s historical tendency to condemn rather than praise popular artists. The hosts highlight her unusual ability to “wax lyrical about Almodóvar and Tarkovsky and then also be a Skims brand ambassador,” suggesting she represents a new model for artists navigating both artistic credibility and commercial partnerships.
Recommendations
- Marina Hyde recommends Anatomy of a Cancellation, a seven-part BBC Sounds series by Katie Razzle examining the “cancellation” of author Kate Clanchy, describing it as “a 360-degree look” at the controversy that is “really gripping about our age.” Richard Osman recommends Ian McEwan’s novel What We Can Know, set 100 years in the future with a literature professor investigating a lost poem, calling it “an absolute banger” despite acknowledging the title is virtually impossible to remember.
Media Mentions
Films
- Wicked / Wicked: For Good
- A Minecraft Movie
- Lilo & Stitch (2025 film)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
- Barbie (film)
- Zootopia 2
- Christy (Sydney Sweeney boxing/domestic violence film)
- The Smashing Machine (The Rock MMA film)
- One Battle After Another (Leonardo DiCaprio/Paul Thomas Anderson)
- The Running Man (2025 film)
- The Running Man (1987 film) (original)
- The Terminator
- Marty Supreme
- Monster (2003 film)
- Avatar (franchise)
- The Last Temptation of Christ (film)
Television Shows
- UK Snooker Championship
- Dancing with the Stars
- Strictly Come Dancing
- The X Factor (British TV series)
- Taskmaster (TV series)
- The Traitors (British TV series) (Celebrity Traitors)
- Gabby’s Dollhouse
- LadBaby (Christmas Number One campaigns)
Music
- Lux (Rosalía album)
- Motomami (Rosalía’s previous album)
- “Where Love Lives” – Alison Limerick (John Lewis advertisement)
- “Last Christmas” – Wham!
- “Killing in the Name” – Rage Against the Machine
- “Genteel” – Rosalía (from Motomami)
Books
- What We Can Know – Ian McEwan
- Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me – Kate Clanchy
Hot Takes
- On Wicked as a cultural phenomenon: “Wicked is almost not cinema. It’s a phenomena. It’s a cultural thing that exists across lots and lots of mediums… It’s a multi-platform assault on art.”
- On Hollywood’s current state: “No, no, no, it’s not fine. Nothing is fine here.”
- On the lack of family films: “You’re sort of failing as a town” if you’re not releasing movies people want to see, and “there has not been a family movie, the one genre that you can actually bank on to keep the lights on.”
- On Sydney Sweeney’s Christy: “Sorry, there’s a movie where Sydney Sweeney is not hot… she’s put on 30 pounds and she’s in a boxing and domestic violence movie… this is way too early in her career for that.”
- On The Smashing Machine: “I couldn’t care less about him being in a drama about an MMA’s battle with prescription medication.”
- On The Running Man IP: “Explain to me why The Running Man is a great piece of IP… It’s not The Terminator. It’s like a real second tier, maybe even third tier Schwarzenegger movie.”
- On Glen Powell: “Glen Powell is like a mid-level star. He works really, really hard and he does lots of things. Is he a movie star? He wants to be a movie star desperately. I think he’s coming at the end of something.”
- On actors paying for roles: “It feels to me now that actors should pay to play… Glenn Powell’s manager should say, I’ll give you a million dollars to put him in Running Man because it keeps him in the conversation.”
- On Glen Powell benefiting from Running Man: “Glen Powell has not failed in Running Man. Glen Powell, his face has been everywhere… and the person who’s making money from that is Glen Powell and Glen Powell’s manager and Glen Powell’s hot sauce.”
- On movie stars generally: “No one is going to go and see a Cynthia Erivo movie, an Ariana Grande movie, a Sydney Sweeney movie, a Glen Powell movie.”
- On whether movie stardom is necessary: “Do I need to see two hours of Sydney Sweeney? Do I? You know, maybe I’m just happy with clips.”
- On Warner Bros’ release strategy: “It’s like the BBC just going, oh, no, we don’t… we didn’t do anything for Christmas.”
- On taking children to the cinema: “The greatest thing about the cinema is it’s two hours’ peace. You can kind of shut your eyes. It’s one of the few places you can have just a little nap during the day.”
- On Pixar films: “I don’t know what happens in most of the middles of the Pixar movies.”
- On Christmas advertising spend compared to defence: The fact that UK brands spend £12 billion on Christmas ads – equivalent to the defence industry’s value to the UK economy – is described as “fascinating.”
- On the Waitrose advert: “Can I just say, having spoken earlier before the break about what’s supposed to be the most sophisticated storytelling in the world, that no one actually wants to go out and see films… the Waitrose one” has more “clarity of story” than some films.
- On Joe Wilkinson and Keira Knightley: “Joe Wilkinson must think it’s Christmas… what an amazing thing for him to be in the advert with Keira Knightley and because of Celebrity Traitors, for there to be an absolute equivalence between the two of them.”
- On the Coca-Cola AI advert: “I don’t think people know anything about that… they just don’t care” that it’s AI-generated, which is “quite dystopian.”
- On audience responses to AI: “The downfall of AI is” not “going to be that it is not going to be technically proficient enough for people… most people don’t care about technical proficiency.”
- On the Christmas Number One: “Christmas Number One is dead now… that lovely race for Christmas Number One we used to have is, you know, 13 years ago.”
- On Rosalía: “She might be the absolute archetypal 21st century cultural phenomena… someone who’s happy to do it all, to take it all and to understand where we are as a century.”
- On Rosalía’s range: “Someone who will wax lyrical about Almodóvar and Tarkovsky and then also be a Skims brand ambassador. That feels like what the 21st century was really, really looking for.”
- On Ian McEwan’s book title: What We Can Know “is the worst title of any book ever because… I literally, I’m having to drag ‘What We Can Know’ out of somewhere because it’s almost impossible to remember.”
- On What We Can Know: “I thought it was an absolute banger. If you can call an Ian McEwan novel a banger.”
Who’s Who
- Ariana Grande – Singer and actress, stars as Glinda in Wicked
- Cynthia Erivo – Actress and singer, stars as Elphaba in Wicked
- Sydney Sweeney – Actress, mentioned for her boxing film Christy
- Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) – Actor, starring in The Smashing Machine
- Glen Powell – Actor, starring in The Running Man remake
- Leonardo DiCaprio – Actor, starring in One Battle After Another
- Paul Thomas Anderson – Director of One Battle After Another
- Charlize Theron – Actress, referenced for Monster transformation
- Timothée Chalamet – Actor, starring in Marty Supreme
- Safdie brothers – Directors of Marty Supreme
- Jason Statham – Actor, mentioned as potential Terminator
- Arnold Schwarzenegger – Actor, original star of The Running Man and The Terminator
- Kate Phillips (actress) – Actress, previously interviewed on the podcast
- Rosie Hanley – John Lewis advertising executive
- Joe Wilkinson – Comedian, starring in Waitrose Christmas advert
- Keira Knightley – Actress, starring in Waitrose Christmas advert
- Alison Limerick – Singer, “Where Love Lives” used in John Lewis ad
- Rosalía – Spanish singer, released album Lux
- Björk – Musician, featured on Lux
- Madonna – Singer, referenced regarding Vatican condemnation
- John Lennon – Musician, referenced regarding Vatican condemnation
- Elizabeth Taylor – Actress, referenced regarding Vatican condemnation
- Pedro Almodóvar – Spanish film director
- Andrei Tarkovsky – Russian film director
- Katie Razzall – BBC journalist, presenter of Anatomy of a Cancellation
- Kate Clanchy – Author, subject of Anatomy of a Cancellation
- Ian McEwan – Author of What We Can Know
- Ingrid Oliver – Richard Osman’s wife, mentioned as away filming
Notable Numbers
- $150 million – Wicked: For Good opening weekend box office (US)
- $112 million – Original Wicked film opening weekend
- $162 million – Barbie opening weekend (for comparison)
- $146 million – Lilo & Stitch opening weekend (for comparison)
- $9 billion – Annual target for Hollywood box office to remain viable
- 10 Oscar nominations – Number of nominations for the first Wicked film
- $50 million – Budget of The Smashing Machine
- $100 million – Hypothetical marketing budget discussed in actors pay-to-play scenario
- $30-50 million – Potential earnings from monetising Wicked-level fame over five years
- 23 September – Date Warner Bros released their last film of the year (One Battle After Another)
- £10.5 billion – UK Christmas advertising spend last year
- £12 billion – UK Christmas advertising spend this year (equal to defence industry value to UK economy)
- 1.1 million – Video views for John Lewis advert on first morning of release
- 176% – Increase in first-morning views compared to previous year’s John Lewis advert
- 13 number ones – Rosalía’s chart-topping singles in Spain
- 7 episodes – Length of Anatomy of a Cancellation podcast series
- 100 years – How far in the future Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know is set
- 13th century – Period of Occitan novel that inspired Rosalía’s early work
- 13 years ago – Last time there was an interesting Christmas Number One race (“Killing in the Name”)
- 360 degrees – Description of the comprehensive approach in Anatomy of a Cancellation
- 30 pounds – Weight Sydney Sweeney reportedly gained for Christy
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