“Wicked: For Good” is nearly here, and that means emerald green and bubblegum pink collaborations are taking over the internet once again ahead of the highly anticipated film. Universal Pictures is expanding their “For Good Line” with the first-ever Elphaba and Glinda American Girl Dolls. The lineup will also include a collector Elphaba doll in the purple pajamas she dons during the famous “Popular” sequence.
The new editions will be available to shop on the Mattel website, and their Amazon storefront starting Sept. 22.
The second wind of “Wicked” collaborations follows a marketing blitz that Universal strategized ahead of “Wicked: Part One” last winter. Universal partnered with more than 400 corporate brands to create scores of products and tie-ins to launch the big-screen musical extravaganza. Now, American Girl is added to the list.
“We live in an environment where monoculture doesn’t happen in the way it used to,” Universal chief marketing officer Michael Moses, told Variety last year. “So, you have to be everywhere.”
These extensive global marketing efforts don’t come cheap but they’ve already paid off. “Wicked: Part One” opened to a record-setting $114 million debut and ultimately brought in nearly $760 million at the global box office.
“Wicked: For Good,”, which chronicles the second act of the beloved Broadway show, will open in theaters on Nov. 21. Jon M. Chu directed the two-part “Wicked” extravaganza, which stars Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh and Jonathan Bailey. Set before, during and after “The Wizard of Oz,” the story tells the origins of Grande’s Glinda (later known as Glinda the Good) and Erivo’s Elphaba (eventually dubbed the Wicked Witch of the West) before Dorothy landed in Oz and sauntered down the Yellow Brick Road.