Two summers ago, the world was infatuated with Barbenheimer, which was a combination of Barbie and Oppenheimer, two blockbuster movies that were released on the same day in July 2023. Fans of the trend flocked to the movie theater in pink and black outfits to represent both movies and often saw the two films back to back. Barbie grossed 1.45 billion dollars and Oppenheimer grossed slightly under a billion at 957 million dollars. Arguments can be had on which film benefited the other more, but regardless both films benefitted from the unexpected pairing of the two films.

Just as Mattel is now looking to recreate the cultural phenomenon that Barbie was with their other IPs, the film industry tried to recreate Barbenheimer, but now with two other blockbuster movies, Wicked Part I and Gladiator II. Both movies had significant hype, but there was little to no buzz on pairing the two films together. On paper, there is no reason why Wicked and Gladiator II shouldn’t have had a Barbenheimer moment: they were two completely different films with big-name actors that would draw in two completely different target audiences, just as Barbie and Oppenheimer did in the previous year.

I don’t believe there is a specific reason why Glicked (pronounced Glick-ed) didn’t stick. You can argue branding reasons, or time of year, or marketing, but I fully believe it is simply because it is near impossible to capture lighting in a bottle twice… or at least not right now. Similar to how various record labels try to create look-alikes for a breakout pop star, trying to have a second Barbenheimer (or a second blockbuster Mattel movie to rival Barbie but that’s a blog post on its own) will not work if it doesn’t bring something new to the table. Nostalgia could cause another Barbenheimer moment in about 10 years, but only if studios play their cards right.

Regardless, both films have been incredibly successful, with Wicked being the highest-grossing movie in November at over 240 million dollars and Gladiator II being the third highest-grossing movie for the month at over 104 million dollars, only beaten out by Moana II, which will likely out-gross Wicked very soon. I have seen both and although I do have a favorite, which is Wicked, both films are absolutely fantastic and I highly recommend having your own Glicked moment in theaters as soon as possible.

Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/learning/glicked.html