Wicker 2026 went viral in August after the first trailer turned Alexander Skarsgård’s wicker husband into an online fixation. The reaction was driven by a premise that is absurd on paper and unusually legible on screen: a woman commissions a basketmaker to weave her the perfect husband.
Skarsgård and Colman
Olivia Colman stars as the ostracised Fisherwoman, while Peter Dinklage plays the basketmaker who builds the husband she wants. Skarsgård plays the woven partner, and the trailer response centered on the contrast between the character’s handmade body and the ease with which he performs domestic and sexual labor.
Alex Huston Fischer said, “They're having sex, the roof is leaking, and he just says, 'I'm going to fix the roof' – then she has a screaming orgasm,” which is the kind of line that explains why the clip traveled so quickly. Eleanor Wilson added, “We made him very beautiful,” and that plainly tracks with the online response.
Threads and the bucket
Threads users helped push the trailer into wider circulation, turning the wicker husband into a shorthand for a fantasy that is both domestic and erotic. Regal Cinemas also leaned into the reaction by creating a promotional popcorn bucket from a scan of Skarsgård’s torso, with a version that can be printed at home using a 3D printer.
That marketing move fits a film already positioned inside monster-human romances, alongside Beauty and the Beast, Shrek, The Shape of Water, Your Monster and Frankenstein. The appeal is not just that the husband is unusual; it is that he is designed to meet domestic expectations without demanding credit for it, which is exactly the friction modern viewers latched onto.
Eleanor Wilson’s script
Wilson said the script was written five years ago, before domestic labour and the mental load were as present in the cultural conversation as they are now. She also said she and Alex Huston Fischer now have a child, which gives the film’s focus on household work a sharper edge than the trailer alone suggests.
Wilson described the Fisherwoman’s journey as “what it is to be a woman in this world, struggling with your feelings about yourself and everybody else's feelings about you.” That makes the wicker husband more than a visual gag: he is a fantasy figure built to look ideal while still exposing how desire, service and resentment can sit in the same frame.
