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If ‘Wicked’ and ‘Gladiator 2’ Is the Next ‘Barbenheimer,’ It Needs a Better Portmanteau Than ‘Wickiator’
'Wicked' and 'Gladiator 2' are set to arrive on the same day this November, prompting possible 'Barbenheimer' comparisons — but we're skeptical.
It’s still slated to drop around the Thanksgiving holiday, but in bumping the release date from Nov. 27 to Nov. 22, executives at Universal may or may not have been hedging on people doing exactly what we’re doing right now — pointing out that Nov. 22 is also when Ridley Scott’s highly-anticipated Gladiator 2 will hit theaters, giving us the first potential successor to Barbenheimer, the box office bonanza brought by the joint arrivals of Barbie and Oppenheimer. They’ll both certainly do in a pinch, but the consonants are hard and sharp, lacking the soft, goofy buoyancy of “Barbenheimer.” Other possibilities include “Gladiated” (which is just stupid and doesn’t effectively hint at Wicked ’s involvement) and “Wadiator” (which sounds like a toddler saying “radiator”). That said, Wickiator (if we must) fits the Barbenheimer mold in that they’re two distinctly different types of blockbusters — a grisly historical epic and a lush musical fairytale — with all-star casts, celebrated directors and a whole lot of hype around them.
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