Over the past year, few movies have cast as powerful a spell as Wicked. The adaptation of the hit Broadway musical debuted in November to a 95% audience score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and won two Oscars. Its stars, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, even belted out a medley of songs from the movie to close out the opening ceremony of this year’s Academy Awards. However, there was one area where Wicked failed to work its magic.
Filings released this month by Universal Pictures reveal that “the budget has been exceeded” for Wicked as its costs soared to $455.8 million (£364.4 million) by February 26 last year. There is good reason for this.
Wicked tells the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West from 1939 classic, The Wizard Of Oz and the two share similarities in terms of spirit as well as content. In the grand tradition of Hollywood musicals, Wicked relied heavily on practical sets and effects unlike many other modern-day big-budget blockbusters.
The film sees Erivo’s Wicked Witch of the West studying at university in the land of Oz alongside Grande’s good witch Glinda. Together they travel to the Emerald City to meet the wizard, played by Jeff Goldblum. They get there on an art deco-inspired train (colored emerald green of course) and instead of using film-making tricks to recreate it, Universal built a full-size 48-ton locomotive. Not content with that, the studio also created a dedicated stretch of track which the train traveled on at up to 15 miles per hour.
Universal spared no expense on the sets at the train’s destination either. The famous yellow brick road was actually paved and surrounded by real mud. Likewise, nine million colorful tulips were planted on location around the Munchkinland set whilst exterior backdrops rose up to 50 feet in height. Interiors were no less lavish with one incorporating a rotating library that was 19 feet high.
Wicked’s director Jon Chu told Vanity Fair that he was inspired by Steven Spielberg’s 1991 film Hook which was famous for its sweeping sets featuring full-size sailing ships. “I was like, ‘I want to do it the way I dreamed about it as a kid when I watched Hook,'” he said. “Behind the scenes, Steven Spielberg was on a dock with a giant pirate ship. I’m like, ‘If this is my one opportunity to do this, I want to do that.'”
In an interview with Offscreen Central, Wicked’s visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman explained that “the mandate was to create a beautiful universe.” It came at quite a price.
The budgets of movies made in the United States are usually a closely-guarded secret as studios combine the cost of all of their productions in their overall expenses and don’t itemize how much was spent on each one. Movies made in the United Kingdom are exceptions to this and Wicked was one of them.
Universal didn’t provide any comment for this report and it didn’t need to as the details come directly from its filings for Wicked. The movie and its sequel, Wicked: For Good, were filmed concurrently at Sky Studios Elstree just outside London. This shines a spotlight on the cost of the production and much more.
Studios filming in the U.K. get a cash reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the money they spend in the country though it comes with quite a catch. In order to get the money, studios must meet a number of conditions, chief of which is that at least 10% of the total cost of the production has to be spent in the U.K. To demonstrate this to the authorities, studios set up separate production companies there for each picture they make. Costs can’t be hidden offshore or in other U.K. companies as the terms of the reimbursement state that each picture can only have one production company.
Like all U.K. companies, it has a legal obligation to file financial statements which reveal everything from the headcount and salaries to the total costs and the level of reimbursement. It takes a bit of detective work to get the information.
The companies usually have code names so they don’t raise attention with fans when filing permits to film on location. Tallying the company names with the productions they are responsible for requires deep industry knowledge which my colleague and I have built up over nearly 15 years reporting on the movie industry. We are the only reporters worldwide who specialize in covering the financial statements of U.K. film production companies for national media and we have reported on them for more than 10 leading titles including The Times of London, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the London Evening Standard.
The financial statements have a public interest in the U.K. media as the reimbursement to the studios comes from taxpayers’ money. Outside the U.K. the interest is in the bigger picture matter of the production costs.
The Universal subsidiary behind Wicked is called Western Sky in a nod to the wicked witch’s home. As with all U.K. companies, its financial statements are filed long after the period they relate to which explains why the latest set are for the two years to February 26, 2024. This covered the entire period of principal photography which began in December 2022 but only finished in January last year due to a lengthy delay as a result of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
The latest financial statements reveal that the production was over budget whereas the previous set, which were filed before filming began, don’t give any insight into this. There is no doubt that once Universal had waved its wand (and its wallet) to build the lavish sets, the production had blown its budget. It still had a trick up its sleeve to minimize its risk.
The financial statements show that Universal received an $85.1 million (£68.5 million) reimbursement bringing its net spending on the production down to $370.7 million. Wicked’s many brand partnerships were a major money-spinner and generated valuable publicity as this report revealed. However, the studio’s greatest returns come from its share of the theater takings which hit a total of $744.2 million for Wicked according to industry analyst Box Office Mojo.
The amount that theaters pay to studios is known in the trade as a rental fee and an indication of the typical level comes from film industry consultant Stephen Follows who interviewed 1,235 film professionals in 2014 and concluded that, according to studios, theaters keep 49% of the takings on average. However, it wouldn’t be correct to divide the total box office in half and deduct the net spending from it as that applies to the filming of both movies whereas the takings are only from one.
Wicked: For Good is due to debut in November this year which is around the time that the next set of Western Sky’s financial statements are due. They will cover the year to February 26, 2025 so they should also show the majority of the post-production costs for the first movie as well as some for the sequel. Despite having an emphasis on practical sets, Wicked was no slouch with its VFX so there could be considerable post-production spend on the movie.
“Pretty much every shot is a visual effect shot in the movies,” revealed Helman. “We had about 2,200 visual effects shots, which is pretty much a whole movie.”
Of course, the more the production company spends in the U.K., the more money it is reimbursed. That’s not all as the greater the spending, the greater the benefit to the U.K. Its economy benefits from movie studios spending on services such as equipment hire, travel and visual effects firms. It all keeps local workers in jobs and it is understood that there were more than 3,500 staff across the entire production of Wicked. If it wasn’t for the fiscal incentives they might be out of work so whatever happens at the end of the sequel, the U.K. will still get its happy ending.
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