First in Line! We Found the Earliest Wicked Screenings in Idaho’s Largest Cities

Over the past 15 years, what movies do you remember bringing out huge crowds the night that they premiered in Idaho? There’s a few franchises that we remember hosting big premiere night parties for! 

In 2010, Harry Potter fanatics packed the Edwards in Boise for premiere night of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

All of the Twilight movies drew late night crowds to watch the love story of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan come full circle. 

The Hunger Games was another franchise that people couldn’t wait to see come to life on the big screen. 

Same goes for the three Fifty Shades of Grey movies, but it was a much older audience that showed up for those. 

Back when those movies debuted, most theaters didn’t show the movie for the first time until midnight the Friday of its release. At some point, we started telling ourselves “we’re too old for this.” While we’d like to think the major studios agreed, we think the truth is that they saw an opportunity for some of the most highly anticipated movies to have more impressive opening weekend numbers by moving the earliest screenings up. They slowly crept up from midnight to 10 p.m. the Thursday before the official release date. 

READ MORE:  Did You Know These 15 Movies Were Shot in the State of Idaho? 

Flash forward to the premier of Avengers: Endgame in 2019 and screenings started just as people were wrapping up their workday the Thursday before the release date. The movie was such a cinematic Marvel (pun intended) that some theaters planned to play it around the clock 24 hours a day throughout its opening weekend. 

 Honestly, we don’t think there’s been a movie since Endgame that’s drawn so much interest. Barbie and Oppenheimer came close, but if they hadn’t premiered the same weekend would either of them done as well without the “Barbenheimer” buzz? Probably not! 

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For some reason, we feel like Wicked: Part 1 is the first movie since Endgame that will be a can’t miss event on opening weekend. The story of what happened in the Land of Oz before Dorothy dropped in has dazzled audiences since its first Broadway shows in 2003. Boise had the pleasure of experiencing it in person at The Morrison Center in 2011, 2014 and 2019. 

No doubt, the people who saw it and loved it at The Morrison Center are itching to be some of the first people to see the movie version with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in theaters. Others who may not have seen Wicked yet may be curious to see the movie before deciding if they want to buy tickets for the Broadway in Boise production when it returns to the Treasure Valley in April 2025. 

No matter which bucket you fall in, if you’re beyond excited for the movie, we dug up the earliest screening at each of the theaters in Idaho’s most populated areas and many of them are showing the movie TWO full days before its official premiere date! Here’s a look at those screenings.