Olivia Colman is back in focus as the first trailer for Wicker debuted, and the footage puts her at the center of the film’s oddest business proposition: a malodorous fisherwoman who commissions a husband. The trailer is the clearest look yet at the Sundance-debuted film before its October 23 limited release.
Colman said the script was in her top three favorite scripts she has ever read, a line that helps explain why this project carried through a January festival premiere, a February rights deal and now a trailer launch aimed at the fall rollout. For a film sold as a comedic fable, that is a useful sign that the marketing has something sturdier than just a strange premise.
January to February
In January, Wicker debuted at Sundance with Colman, Alexander Skarsgård and Peter Dinklage attached, and in February Black Bear acquired North American rights. That sequence matters because the trailer is arriving after the film has already moved through the festival-to-distribution pipeline, not before it has any market footing at all.
Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson wrote and directed the film, which also stars Elizabeth Debicki. Their setup is simple enough to track in the trailer: Colman’s fisherwoman turns to Dinklage’s local basketmaker, who makes the husband, and Skarsgård plays the wicker creation that comes back more spectacular than anyone seems prepared for.
Skarsgård’s wicker husband
The trailer does more than introduce the cast list. It shows the wicker husband’s appeal as a source of jealousy, fascination and upheaval that threatens village life, so the film’s central conflict is not whether the stranger arrives, but what happens once everyone reacts to him. That gives the marketing a built-in friction point and keeps the comedy tied to social fallout rather than costume alone.
Colman’s character, by contrast, is not just reacting to spectacle. The trailer presents her as the driver of the transaction, and that makes her the practical entry point for viewers: she wants a husband, the basketmaker supplies one, and the consequences spread outward from there.
October 23 rollout
On October 23, Wicker opens in limited release, then expands a week later. That staggered plan suggests the distributor is treating the film like an audience-building title, using the trailer to seed awareness before the wider booking hits.
For viewers, the main takeaway is simple: the first trailer is now the best guide to tone, cast and premise, and it finally puts Colman’s favorite-script comment into context. The only unanswered piece is how the wicker husband will be portrayed once the full film goes beyond this first look.
