Wicked, Universal’s box office hit from last year, has been putting up impressive numbers on its streaming service, Peacock. The Broadway musical adaptation racked up 882 million minutes watched in its first three days of streaming alone. This does not even count the over $100 million it made from PVOD sales before hitting streaming. While this is impressive, it should not be too surprising that the millions of Wicked fans would show up to watch the film as soon as it hit streaming. What is impressive is the fact the special features for Wicked have hit 82.4 million minutes of viewership.
In what seems like a relic of older DVD releases which included hours of bonus content and behind the scenes for each individual movie, Wicked includes a plethora of bonus content in both its physical and streaming release. In addition to the film, they included a sing-along version, deleted scenes, two making-of featurettes and loads of behind the scenes footage. Universal seems to be interested in bringing bonus features back, as they also included an hour-long making-of featurette for the physical release of Oppenheimer as well. And with the popularity of Wicked and its bonus content, it is entirely possible that other distributors will take note and begin adding special features again. Now that streaming has become the most popular way to watch movies, physical releases of films have become less common, and the addition of behind the scenes or director commentary may be alluring enough to bring some people back.
The sequel and second part to Wicked, Wicked: For Good is set to release on November 21 of this year. Once again starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, the film will cover the second act of the famous musical. It will also reportedly feature an original song not found in the original musical. Expect Wicked: For Good to make a massive splash at the box office this winter. And with a big success, we may once again see bonus features and behind the scenes when that film hits physical.
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