'Wicker' Opens at $5.75 Million as Colman and Skarsgård Defend the Wicker Husband

Black Bear's "Wicker" took fifth place at the box office with $5.75 million from 1,471 locations — a strong start, according to Variety's Rebecca Rubin, for a film the studio acquired for just $2.5 million after its Sundance run earlier this year.

The film, directed by married filmmakers Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer, stars Olivia Colman as an ostracized fisherwoman whose fantastical husband is handcrafted by the local basket weaver, played by Peter Dinklage. Alexander Skarsgård plays the wicker man, in prosthetic makeup built by Weta Workshop. When the woven husband proves a better partner than the village's married men, jealousy erupts.

Elizabeth Debicki's first day on set set the tone. "I turned the corner, and I was like, 'Hi, Alex!' and I went bright red because my brain couldn't compute what it was seeing," she told Variety, recalling Skarsgård wading through water, full-frontal, "stark naked as wicker."

Did the prosthetics actually work?

Nearly not. The prototype was sculpted from Skarsgård's features, but test fittings in New Zealand on another actor fell short. "If it doesn't quite work, it looks like a horror film because it looks like you cut someone's face off and glued it onto your own," Skarsgård said.

Colman, the first to see the finished suit after 18 months of concept images, dispelled the nerves. "It was amazing because we'd all been looking at images for 18 months or so, and then to see it in the flesh, it was amazing," she said. "That feeling of, 'Oh my god, it's going to work!'"

Skarsgård called the reveal "an incredible day that I'll never forget." Once glued on, he said, the prosthetic "actually moved with my movements. It's even better than we imagined."

What is the film actually about?

A steamy three-minute trailer of sexual innuendo and hard-as-wood jokes spawned playful merch — hand-woven nipple pasties, a wicker-torso popcorn bucket, splinter removal kits, and, per Colman, the pun "50 Shades of Hay."

But Skarsgård insists on more: "It's not just a slapstick or sex comedy. They did an amazing job with this, and I hope and think and believe that people will go on this journey, be excited with all the twists and turns."

Colman credited the directors' script for the tonal balance. "It can be hard to go from very silly to really heartbreaking, but because it was all done with realism, it worked better," she said. "In my saddest moments in my life, I've definitely found myself laughing hysterically as well, which is a very human thing."

Debicki read the film politically. "A lot of this film is looking at what patriarchy does to women, the messaging of women needing to compete," she said, citing "a kind of scarcity complex" that Colman's character rethinks. "We're in a very difficult time for women... this movie is refreshing because it's looking at these issues in a way that's really accessible and entertaining."

Colman's takeaway for audiences: "Think wisely. Hopefully, the love you choose enhances your life, not diminishes it."

Can an oddball romance survive the box office?

The cast thinks so, crediting the filmmakers' complete creative control. "There's also space for something totally original and different," Colman said. Skarsgård added: "We're making something quite unique here. There's freedom in that."

Now playing in theaters nationwide, "Wicker" will test whether trailer-era buzz converts into a long run.