Welcome back to the next installment of The Oscar Code’s Case Study series. I hope you all enjoyed my article discussing The Substance from Saturday and learned a lot about that film’s Oscar campaign path. As mentioned before, this is a series that will go over the previous year’s nominees and why it ultimately won or lost the award that year using historical data. The order of the series will be in reverse chronological order of the odds of winning for last year’s Best Picture nominees from Ben Zausmer’s Oscar Betting Odds 2025 article. The next film that will be discussed is Wicked.

The Story During Awards Season: Wicked, an adaptation of the popular 2003 stage musical about the origins of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, was nominated for Best Picture after winning and being nominated from various voting bodies as well as becoming a huge box office success. The film was particularly acclaimed for its faithfulness to the musical and the performances of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. The film was the second most nominated film at the Oscars, tying with The Brutalist and behind Emilia Perez, with 10 nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, Best Original Score, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects. The film ultimately won Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. Due to its surprising wins for Best Picture and Best Director at other awards shows, there was a point early in the race where it was considered a sleeper candidate to win Best Picture sparking a “#WickedWillWin” movement on social media.

What Helped Its Nomination: Wicked was not only well received by critics, but it was beloved by fans of the musical and was a financial success grossing $756.4 million on a $150 million budget. Additionally, the film was nominated for and won at several voting groups throughout the race. It was nominated for Best Picture-Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes, and was nominated for Best Picture at the Producers Guild of America Awards and the Critics Choice Awards. Additionally, it was the most nominated film at the Screen Actors Guild Awards with 5 total nominations including Best Ensemble, but went home with nothing. It also made the American Film Institute’s Top Ten Films of the Year. The film unexpectedly won Best Director at the Critics Choice Awards, won the Golden Globe for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, and also won Best Director and Best Picture at the National Board of Review. The win at the National Board of Review was where its Oscar chances started becoming realistic and sparked many to claim it was the frontrunner due to that award so early in the race.

Why It Ended Up Losing Best Picture: Despite the love from critics, voting groups, and audiences, I truly do not believe Wicked was ever going to win Best Picture based on historical data of the awards it did win. The first award I will discuss is its Golden Globe win for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement. This was the sole win for Wicked in that ceremony, where it had four total nominations. This is the second film to have won the Globe for this category since it was established in 2023 and the previous film to have won the award, Barbie, also underperformed at the Oscars winning one award out of the eight it was nominated for. The second award I will discuss is the Best Picture win at the National Board of Review, where so many people believed that was the start of its Best Picture journey. Only 3 winners of the National Board of Review Best Picture award have gone on to win Best Picture at the Oscars in the past 20 years, or 15% of all the winners. However, 18 of the 20 winners (90%) of this award ended up being nominated for Best Picture. Wicked winning the National Board of Review helped secure its nomination, it winning Picture was never a guarantee. The final award that will be discussed is its Best Director win at the Critics Choice Awards. The win itself was unexpected given Jon M. Chu was not nominated for the award at the Directors Guild of America Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Oscars. Given he was not nominated for it ultimately in other voting bodies, there was no real situation for where this could become an Argo-like situation that so many people compared the possibility to. Another case in point why Wicked was nowhere close to the campaign story of Argo: it did not perform well at the Guilds. Wicked lost all 5 of its nominations at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, where it was expected to win Best Ensemble, and lost Best Picture at the Producers Guild of America Awards whereas Argo won Best Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild, won Best Picture at the Producers Guild of America, and won Best Director at the Directors Guild of America, making that a safe frontrunner despite Affleck being snubbed for Director at the Oscars. While Wicked did well overall campaign wise, it lost the awards it needed to win to create a real frontrunner path. Universal has done well before (Oppenheimer won Best Picture the previous year landing the similar Guild trifecta that helped Argo win), but I think they were always going to focus more efforts into Wicked: For Good‘s campaign later this year.

The Ultimate Takeaway: Wicked was a pop culture phenomenon last year, beloved by critics, audiences, and voting groups. Truthfully, I never viewed it as a serious candidate to win Best Picture and the historical data of the awards it won showed why. It did have a very successful campaign and ended up becoming the more popular blockbuster pick with Academy voters over Dune: Part Two, which is a victory in of itself. While Universal wants to put more efforts into Wicked: For Good this awards cycle, it might be in trouble due to other blockbusters being in contention this season including Avatar: Fire and Ash, Sinners, and One Battle After Another. It could be the next coming of Peter Jackson winning for his Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I see a more realistic outcome where it could have a similar fate as Dune: Part Two this season.

Hope you all enjoyed the latest installment of the Case Study series! The next installment will be out on Wednesday and will cover A Complete Unknown. Feel free to provide feedback and ask any questions about this series! I look forward to hearing from all of you.