Wicked movie merchandising turned into a nightmare for Mattel over the weekend as news broke that a web address listed on the packaging for character dolls took consumers to an adult pornographic site.
The toy company apologized later on Sunday. “Mattel was made aware of a misprint on the packaging of the Mattel Wicked collection dolls, primarily sold in the U.S., which intended to direct consumers to the official WickedMovie.com landing page,” read a statement. “We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this. Parents are advised that the misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children. Consumers who already have the product are advised to discard the product packaging or obscure the link and may contact Mattel Customer Service for further information.”
By Sunday afternoon, the entire Mattel-manufactured doll collection — which includes fashion dolls, singing figurines and deluxe collectible models — was no longer available for sale at Target, one of the leading retail partners on the Universal movie. The Mattel-produced line with the incorrect website address is in the process of being pulled from shelves at Walmart, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Best Buy, DSW, Amazon.com and other retailers.
Wicked opens in theaters Nov. 22 and is tracking to do big business. Filmmaker Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the popular Broadway musical boasts a high-profile cast led by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
The character dolls being sold with the erroneous address include Grande’s Glinda and Erivo’s Elphaba. The products with misprinted websites have already popped up on eBay for $100 to $800. (The dolls retail for $24.99 to $39.99.)
The web address listed on the boxed dolls is wicked.com, instead of wickedmovie.com. When clicking on the first link, a page comes up requiring users to be 18 and older. Those who click “enter” land on a porn site promoting an upcoming porn move titled Kenzie Loves Girls 2 that’s from a venture calling itself Wicked Pictures. The wicked.com domain name has been registered to its owner since 1994.
This story was originally published at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 10.
