I mean, to be fair, the beginnings of most movies with sequels don’t actually start by being titled, say “Back to the Future Part 1.”
The Fellowship of the Ring, for example, wasn’t titled “Lord of the Rings 1: The Fellowship of the Ring” if it mentioned Lord of the Rings at all, it didn’t imply a number, it just stood on its own. People knew sequels were coming, they didn’t need numbers to know that.
So to be fair to Wicked, naming it something like Wicked Part One is dumb anyway. Especially if it flops and they shelve the sequel for a tax break.
One would reasonably expect the movie adaptation of a play that was less than 3 hours to be a single movie. In this case, I’d say hiding the fact it’s a part 1 of 2 is misleading.
I think that was probably added post-theater-release because BttF was actually planned as a standalone and got a sequel due to audience interest. Probably when it hit home video.
It wasn’t a secret that they were filming all 3 LOTR movies at once. The expectations were set for multiple films.
If they divided the story in order to make two movies - like Dune, then they need to say so. If people buy a ticket expecting to see the whole thing, only to have an end card pop up saying something like “look forward to seeing everyone again in 2026,” the studio is going to have more trouble than they already have.
I mean, to be fair, the beginnings of most movies with sequels don’t actually start by being titled, say “Back to the Future Part 1.”
The Fellowship of the Ring, for example, wasn’t titled “Lord of the Rings 1: The Fellowship of the Ring” if it mentioned Lord of the Rings at all, it didn’t imply a number, it just stood on its own. People knew sequels were coming, they didn’t need numbers to know that.
So to be fair to Wicked, naming it something like Wicked Part One is dumb anyway. Especially if it flops and they shelve the sequel for a tax break.
One would reasonably expect the movie adaptation of a play that was less than 3 hours to be a single movie. In this case, I’d say hiding the fact it’s a part 1 of 2 is misleading.
The title card in the actual movie does state Part 1. But none of the marketing did. So people buy tickets not knowing it’s only half the story.
That’s kind of annoying. Even misleading.
I think that was probably added post-theater-release because BttF was actually planned as a standalone and got a sequel due to audience interest. Probably when it hit home video.
It wasn’t a secret that they were filming all 3 LOTR movies at once. The expectations were set for multiple films.
If they divided the story in order to make two movies - like Dune, then they need to say so. If people buy a ticket expecting to see the whole thing, only to have an end card pop up saying something like “look forward to seeing everyone again in 2026,” the studio is going to have more trouble than they already have.