‘Wicked': Fans Can't Stop Filming Scenes on Their Phones

The experience of watching a movie these days theatrically isn’t always rosy, with audiences chatting, texting and just being inconsiderate of others during the show. It’s one thing for a movie ticket to be the priciest it’s ever been, but it doesn’t help that, after dishing out cash for your tickets, popcorn and parking, and watching 20 minutes of trailers, you then run the risk of encountering loud and obnoxious people on their cell phones during the projection.

Nothing irks me more than to witness people using their phones during a screening. This ingratiating phenomenon has gotten even worse with the release of “Wicked” as audiences are now filming segments of the actual film and posting the footage on their social media.

For example, the full four-minute conclusion to “Wicked” is currently available on social platforms like X and TikTok. Fans can’t seem to stop taking photos and recording full, minutes-long clips of “Wicked.” This is piracy, and Universal isn’t doing anything about it — viral clips have not been removed from social media platforms.

Here’s Variety describing some of the pirated footage that’s currently available online:

There is grainy footage of a moviegoer trying to belt the same notes as [Cynthia] Erivo during her big number. There are hundreds of posts of Grande’s performance of “Popular” […] There are also countless videos of a surprise cameo made by Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth […] These videos and photos have been live and garnering millions of views, and the film has only been in theaters for five full days.

“Show your ‘Wicked’ part 1 photos,” one X user wrote on Nov. 23, photographing the film’s title card. The comments to this post adhere to the request as fans post images they snapped up during their own screenings of the film.

It’s not just “Wicked” either. Some other viral TikTok posts include pirated footage of “Queer” and “Gladiator II.”

“Something has happened post-pandemic where movie theater behavior has really changed,” said one top film executive to Variety. “They have a different relationship with the material, it’s all just content to them,”

The executive refers to younger audiences who have “become more emboldened to share this lengthy material from the sanctity of the cineplex, where phones are supposed to be banned.”

The report goes on to state that this worrying trend started with “Deadpool & Wolverine” director Shawn Levy sharing pirated content from his own movie over the summer. Levy hasn’t commented on his behavior, but the clips remain available to be seen on all social media platforms.

A recent Wall Street Journal article pondered the lack of etiquette these days in movie theaters. The industry is already struggling to sell movie tickets, and the last thing it needs is for people to be turned off by the experience, but that’s what’s happening.

Many attendees are forgetting the cardinal rule: Never take out a phone during the film. Instead, people are picking out selfies to post, scrolling during dull moments, even taking pictures of the screen—with the flash on. The cinephiles sitting next to them have to decide whether to keep quiet or make an even bigger scene.

The WSJ piece calls the behavior the “concert-ification of movies.” I like that. Nowadays, entering a movie theatre is a bit like playing Russian roulette: you don’t really know what to expect and who will be sitting next to you.

There is no doubt that audience behavior is getting worse. The ease of streaming and smartphones has zapped people's attention spans. There seems to be a need and desire for people to “reset" themselves halfway through a movie by scrolling on their phones. Brains have become too dependent on devices.

I'd love for theaters to have a zero tolerance policy, like the Alamo Drafthouse, but regular theaters? They just don’t enforce those kinds of rules, and I don’t see a change coming anytime soon.