‘Wicked’ Shifts Earlier In November, Dates Against ‘Gladiator II’: Is Another ‘Barbenheimer’ Box Office Weekend In Store?

deadline.com:

Universal‘s massive musical tentpole bet Wicked originally was dated to go head-to-head with Disney Animation’s five-quad movie Moana 2 on Wednesday, November 27, the day before Thanksgiving, but will now go five days earlier on Friday, Nov.

22. A very smart release date change. Both movies are aimed at females. But Wicked counts a fanbase of a reported 30M people from around the globe who’ve seen the Stephen Schwartz stage show.

Not to mention, it’s the first of two parts — this movie has to work. Uni isn’t plotting a Horizon scenario here. The new earlier date puts it up against Paramount’s Gladiator II, creating potentially a Barbenheimer moment: One highly anticipated big movie aimed at dudes, the other at females.

There’s a lot of box office upside with both movies ahead of the Thanksgiving break, and, as we saw over the Barbenheimer weekend, moviegoers will watch both.