‘There’s a desire for people to re-experience it’: Will ‘Glicked’ be the Barbenheimer of 2024?

The highly-anticipated Wicked opens in cinemas across the country today, while 326,000 Australians flooded cinemas last weekend to help Gladiator II take $7.6 million at the box office. These may seem like two unrelated facts – but the cinema industry is hoping this blockbuster duo will repeat the success of last year’s unlikely double act, Barbie and Oppenheimer.

“Obviously Barbenheimer was huge for us last year,” Damian Keogh, CEO of Hoyts Group, tells Mumbrella.

He is among those hoping box office lightning will strike twice, and the combination of Wicked and Gladiator II will ignite imaginations much as Barbie and Oppenheimer did in 2023.