The movie theater isn’t a place of mystery. When you walk in, you’re greeted by the familiar scent of popcorn, the chatter of other people deciding which overpriced candy to buy and it feels comfortingly familiar. But then you walk into a movie with an original screenplay and have no idea what to expect.
Original screenplays have taken the box offices by storm. Hits like “Obsession” (2026), “Sinners” (2025) and particularly “Wicker” (2026) have brought the theater to life again.
In the most recent addition to original screenplay fame, “Wicker” embraces the weird and asks the question, “How hot can a man made of wicker actually be?”
The Beginning of Wick
When the “Wicker” trailer dropped this August, it seemed like the internet had exploded. A romance movie about an older woman and a man made out of wood. It was intriguing and wild and forced people to pay attention to a movie that would’ve otherwise been overlooked.
The Marketing
A big factor in the success of “Wicker” was its out-of-the-box marketing. Instead of leaning into the emotional poignancy of the movie, they focused on the wild sexual side. I mean, sex does sell. The marketing is a masterclass in embracing the weird, yet staying vague about the plot. In the trailer, there are only bits and pieces of any plot itself, so when the viewer sits down to watch this movie, all they think they’re getting is a “50 Shades of Hay.”
They also had many big brands jump onto Wicker for real-time marketing, for example, IKEA posted wicker chairs with the caption ‘husband material.’ Other brands like Scrub Daddy and Sephora also joined in with playful comment section banter, showing the movie to be comedy of a sort, maybe even a funny way to play into women’s weird fantasies.
A third big point of marketing for “Wicker” was its 4DX showings, referred to popularly as ‘getting wicked down’ on TikTok. The popularity of these screenings expanded from one-night-only events to extended 4DX runs of the movie. I guess everyone wants to feel Olivia Coleman’s bed break.
The Response
“Wicker” grossed $7,362,900 worldwide within its first five days in theaters. Audiences were surprised to say the least. It was not the sexy, silly, borderline pornographic movie they thought they were going to see.
As expressed in a video by creator @leorclark, “In all the marketing, they sold it to us as a sex movie, and you get in there and it’s a social commentary between men and women and marriage in general,” Leor said. “And how if you create a man from scratch and you teach him how to love and you do everything for your wife, your marriage will be happy, your wife will be happy, and everyone around you will be happy.”
This movie was, in fact, not about women’s weird sexual fantasies or their ‘inane’ hate for human men. Still, a movie that has started an online discourse about the patriarchy, with some commenters saying “Wicker” tells women not to settle. Others say it perpetuates the much darker idea that the only way a woman can protect herself is not with wood, but with thorns.
Final thoughts
Wicker was marketed as ‘a sexy movie to see with your girls,’ but in reality it made women think about their lives. How they see marriage, how men are conditioned to act and the social expectations marriage holds. It forces women to look past the sizzling hot romance and look inward and reflect on their own lives, making us all ask ourselves: ‘Am I allowing men to do the bare minimum?’ and ‘Would a man who is unmarked by the patriarchy be a better man?’