Please stop talking about ‘Glicked’. It’s bannoying

Please stop it. No more “Glicked” references.

In case you’ve missed it, “Glicked” is the clumsy, try-hard combination of Gladiator II and Wicked, two hotly anticipated, contrasting Hollywood blockbusters that have just opened in cinemas.

The ‘gl’ in ‘Glicked’: Paul Mescal as Lucius and Pedro Pascal as Marcus Acacius in Gladiator II.Credit: Aidan Monaghan

Last year, “Barbenheimer” was coined just before two other hotly anticipated, contrasting Hollywood blockbusters, Barbie and Oppenheimer, opened on the same day.

Margot Robbie, who produced and starred in Barbie, has said the simultaneous release came after she refused a suggestion from an Oppenheimer producer to move their date then realised “it’s a perfect double billing”.

It sparked debate about watching the two very different films as a double feature and which order was best.

Did you go with comedy entrée and heavyweight historical drama as main course? Or, was it better to get serious with the father of the atomic bomb first then unwind with the famous doll?

They came at a time when cinemas really needed a post-COVID shot of energy and Barbenheimer provided it, with Barbie deservedly taking a huge $86.5 million ($2.2 billion worldwide) and Oppenheimer $42.6 million ($1.5 billion worldwide).

At the Oscars, Oppenheimer won best picture, director and five other awards from 13 nominations, and Barbie claimed best song from eight nominations.

This year, the Glicked mash-up feels confected. Like Barbenheimer, it generated memes and fan art in the US where the two films opened on the same day.

Here, they opened a week apart so “Glicked” – shoot me – made no sense.

Ridley Scott’s long-time-coming sequel, Gladiator II, had already taken $9.6 million in its opening week before Jon M. Chu’s stage musical adaption, Wicked, opened with $10.3 million last weekend. (Gladiator II reached $13.8 million on its second weekend.)

For comparison, Barbie opened much hotter than Wicked with $19.6 million and Oppenheimer was just behind Gladiator II with $9.4 million on their opening weekends.

Cinemas need a boost again but, while strong films, the two latest have nowhere near the cultural impact of Barbie and Oppenheimer - both bold, risky originals.

“You can’t capture lightning in a bottle twice,” Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango, told NBC News.

“The thing’s never going to repeat itself the same way, but it certainly became part of the conversation to an extent … more studios can look at this as another successful blueprint for how to release two big counterprogramming movies at the same time.”

The ‘icked’ other half of the year’s worst portmanteau word: Cynthia Erivo (left) and Ariana Grande in Wicked. Credit: Universal

That’s debatable. If studios can get clear air for a big new movie, they will happily take the lack of competition.

So, let’s shut down any attempt at “Padderatu” when Paddington In Peru and Nosferatu open on New Year’s Day.

Or “Bridgemerica” - even worse, “CaptainJones” - when Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy and Captain America: Brave New World open simultaneously in February.

To quote Mean Girls, a film that was a hit two decades ago based just on its quality, “stop trying to make fetch happen”.

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