dramamama611 said: "Once grosses drop consistently below 5 or 6 hundred k a week, THEN you can worry. It grossed 1.8 MILLION bucks last week - it's fine, and will be for quite some time."
I know Wicked has been running for nearly 16 years at this point, but I thinks its running costs have to be at least $750K a week. Its a big musical, an even if the producers have their running costs down to a science in terms of efficiency, after such a long run, it still has had to deal with some inflation in costs. It has crazy ornate costumes that constantly have to be maintained, numerous wigs and make up prosthetics, add to that I am going to assume the unions have mandated raises in the past 16 years. Looking back and doing some math though based on its initial capitalization cost of $14 Million and taking 64 weeks to recoup that investment, its initial running costs can be calculated to be around $874K a week. It should be noted that using this number would mean that Wicked was bleeding money for the first 7 weeks of its run despite playing to an average capacity of 96% and an average 76% of potential gross. Therefore I would theorize this number is likely inflated and its probably closer to $800K. Add to that it should be noted that Menzel, Chenoweth, and Grey were likely being significantly more then any of the current cast is today. I would speculate that Menzel's post Tony salary was likely the equivalent to what the current witches and wizard make now combined. If I had to guess based on being able to trim costs over time, and calculating its initial running costs, its current running costs are probably in the range of $750K-$800K.
In terms of how crazy profitable Wicked is though, in its 834 weeks on the Boards, its only not been a member of the million dollar club for 14 weeks. Only 8 of those weeks being weeks where Wicked played a full 8 week schedule. The last time Wicked didn't make $1 million for a full week of performances was in March of 2004. The show is a work horse, an yes it seems to be transitioning truly transitioning out of being a SRO production, it has many years ahead of it. The fact that the show is able to make over $1.3M despite only playing to 82% capacity is truly mind boggling.
