Everyone is wondering if “Glicked,” the potentially record-breaking, industry-lifting pre-Thanksgiving combination of “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” will be this year’s “Barbenheimer,” the record-breaking, industry-lifting summertime combination of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”

Could be. Hope so. But it’s hard not to think that everyone is missing the point.

Because Hollywood’s future doesn’t depend on who’s going to see both films on the same day. It depends on who’s going to see “Wicked” in the same row. Sharing Twizzlers and a tub of popcorn.

Families.

Double-feature combos are certainly a novel and fun way to engage audiences and goose the box office, and I would never disrespect the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer,” which did amazingly well with audiences given its serious biopic genre. For its part, “Gladiator II” certainly looks like a gas.

But it was “Barbie,” and now “Wicked,” that put a serious number of butts in seats: Universal Pictures’ musical adaptation earned $114 million at the domestic box office this weekend, leading the $55.5-million take of Paramount’s swords-and-sandals epic. And it will be “Moana 2” that continues to do so over Thanksgiving weekend, if its predicted $125-million opening comes to fruition. Not the R-rated, demographically targeted projects but the big, festive movies that the whole family can enjoy.

“Something the whole family can enjoy” used to be a selling point. Now, in a time of targeted demographics, when Hollywood has decided that an R rating is all but required for a film to be considered “important,” it’s become a joke. Calling something that is not made by Pixar/Disney “family friendly” makes it immediately uncool and definitely unsexy. For all that they love to tout the elusive “four-quadrant” productions, most studios are not going out of their way to make family-friendly films these days. At least not those that exist outside the MCU.

And yet “Wicked,” like “Barbie” and this summer’s big hit, “Inside Out 2,” has played to enormous audiences across all kinds of demographics, not to mention generations, and no doubt included loads of families. (Who, if early accounts are an indication, were prepared to sing along with many of the songs, to the consternation of those who were not.)

If Hollywood really wants to make a comeback, it needs to take this lesson to heart: If you want to sell a bunch of tickets and popcorn, families are the ultimate consumer group. For good reason.

Streaming may have taken over the world, but believe me when I say parents want to take their children, of all ages, to the movies. If your kids are small, it offers the rare opportunity to do something they will enjoy while you get to sit down, without argument or constant demands, for two hours. Bliss! If you like the movie, even better.

If your kids are teens or young adults, movies offer the increasingly rare opportunity to share an experience in which everyone is fully engaged — unlike with home movie nights, dining out or virtually any group activity, cellphone usage is prohibited in movie theaters. Although complaints about bad behavior in cinemas may be on the rise, it’s still likelier here than anywhere that you can experience the joy of movie viewing without feeling compelled to ask, after noting the illuminated phone and bowed head of your child, “Are you even watching this?” They are, because that is the only thing they can do. And then, at least for the drive home, you all have something to talk about that does not require you to explain how people used to navigate entire cities without the benefit of an app or them to show you what they mean by playing something on TikTok.

Once again you have, if only temporarily, a shared language. Amazing!

And more than any other patrons, families — by which I mean any group that includes at least two generations, the elder of whom is paying — see the moviegoing experience as an outing, which means snacks are a given.

Once you’ve gone to the trouble of finding the time everyone is free, arguing over seats, buying the tickets and getting everyone to the theater on time, a parent (or grandparent or aunt or older brother) is not going to draw the line at getting this one a hot dog and that one a slushy. Nope, this is now officially a mini-holiday, so pretzel bites and Skittles all around. (And with “Wicked,” purchasers can console themselves with how much cheaper even the most concession-heavy film experience is when compared with seeing the stage version.)

So why, in an industry struggling to sustain its bricks-and-mortar business model in a digital world, are there so few films the whole family can enjoy?

Once upon a time, there were four-quadrant films in virtually every genre. Oh, for the golden years of the “Harry Potter” franchise, which, in its first three years, overlapped with “The Lord of the Rings.” Long will I remember the wonders of 2005, which included family-friendly hits like “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Batman Begins,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” “Madagascar,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The Corpse Bride,” “King Kong,” “Nanny McPhee,” “Robots,” “Sky High,” “Zathura: A Space Adventure,” “Hoodwinked!” “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and, of course, the enduring classic “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.”

Our family practically lived in the cinema that year.

This is not an argument against sex, violence, mature themes or whatever bags the R rating for a given movie. That same year gave us “Brokeback Mountain,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “The Constant Gardener,” “Cinderella Man,” “A History of Violence,” “The 40 Year-Old Virgin,” “Wedding Crashers,” “Pride and Prejudice” and plenty of other fine, sophisticated, adult movies.

But with the notable exception of superhero movies, Hollywood seems increasingly willing to throw the baby, or at least the 8-year-old, out with the bathwater.

So while it’s clever to marry, and cross-promote, films as different as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” or “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” let’s not lose sight of which films draw the bigger audiences. To paraphrase another movie that drew multiple generations to the multiplex: If you build it, they will come. Especially if they can bring the kids.

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Mild spoilers ahead (though nothing the trailers didn’t already reveal).

I recently rewatched the original “Gladiator” to set myself up for success when going to the theater for its long-awaited sequel. Instead, I found myself wondering what happened to director Ridley Scott. The original “Gladiator,” released in 2000, is a borderline classic that stands the test of time. In contrast, some of Scott’s most recent work seems uninspired and grasping to be something it’s not. I’m specifically referencing “Napoleon,” “House of Gucci,” and now “Gladiator II.”

While “Gladiator II” has its grand moments that get you all giddy in your seat because the action is so epic, I mostly found myself bored in the “between” parts of this 150-minute movie. This film has pacing issues. “Gladiator II” ebbs and flows between one set-piece sequence to the next with no regard to the audience. A few of the story moments around the identity of Paul Mescal’s character, “Lucius,” specifically feel as if the writers thought they need to hold the audience‘s hand to the reveal, despite the trailers and all marketing material already revealing who he is. 

On top of the pacing issues of the film, I never fully bought into the other story points around “Gladiator II.” Some narrative moments feel like a lazy retelling of the first film while others seem shoehorned in order to give the high-paid actors something to do. 

Kendrick Lamar starts his exhilarating new album by complaining that someone vandalized a mural depicting his face — a mural depicting his face in triplicate, in fact — on the side of a Honduran restaurant in his Compton hometown. Never mind that somebody cared enough about Lamar to paint the mural in the first place. What the 37-year-old rapper is pissed about is that this billboard-sized monument to his greatness was defaced.

That’s the energy Lamar is tapped into on the deeply irritated “GNX,” which came out by surprise Friday morning, eight months to the day after he jumped into an epic feud with Drake that ended up lifting Lamar to new heights of commercial success and cultural prestige. (That the Pulitzer Prize winner vanquished Drake in their beef now goes without saying.) In April, he scored a No. 1 single with his appearance on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That”; in May, he did it again with his own “Not Like Us.” Lamar put on a historic all-star concert in June at Inglewood’s Kia Forum, then announced that he’ll headline the Super Bowl halftime show in New Orleans in February, just a week after “Not Like Us” is set to compete for record of the year and song of the year at the 67th Grammy Awards.

Yet grievances abound on “GNX,” whose dozen tracks had taken spots 1 through 12 on Spotify’s U.S. Top 50 by early Sunday and which is all but certain to debut atop the Billboard 200 next week with one of 2024’s biggest openings. In “Wacced Out Murals” he can’t believe that Snoop Dogg had the audacity to post one of Drake’s diss tracks on social media — “I prayed it was the edibles” is his concern-trolling explanation — and laments Lil Wayne’s public disappointment that Lamar got the Super Bowl gig instead of him. “Used to bump ‘Tha Carter III,’ held my Rollie chain proud,” he raps, “Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down.”

“Hey Now” is about the punishing scrutiny he faces as a celebrity, while “Peekaboo” questions those trying to tarnish his legacy. “I did it with integrity and n— still try hate on me,” he growls in “Man at the Garden” — a distinct shift in outlook from Lamar’s previous album, 2022’s knotty “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers,” where he was riven by self-doubt after a decade of being held up as the voice of his generation. Here, in contrast, he’s daring anyone to say he doesn’t deserve to be admired (even if few beyond Drake have actually suggested that he doesn’t).

Whatever its source at this point, indignation remains a valuable motivator of Lamar’s art; his writing and rapping on “GNX” are as razor-sharp as they were in the brutal diss tracks he released one after another, Drake barely getting a second to breathe between them, this past spring. As funny too: “N— feel like he entitled ’cause he knew me since a kid,” he sneers in “TV Off,” “Bitch, I cut my granny off if she don’t see it how I see it.” Lamar is worked up about liars, about folks doling out backhanded compliments, about other rappers with “old-ass flows” wasting space with empty rhymes. Indeed, what seems to make him angriest is the idea that a person could triumph in hip-hop by taking hip-hop less seriously than he does. The album closes with a song called “Gloria” in which he spends nearly five minutes extending a detailed metaphor that positions writing as the great love of his life.

As eager as he is to frame himself as a singular talent, Lamar happily shares the spotlight on “GNX,” passing the mic to a number of young L.A. up-and-comers including Dody6, Lefty Gunplay, Wallie the Sensei and AzChike; in the title track, he doesn’t even take a verse, merely joining Hitta J3, YoungThreat and Peysoh on the song’s chorus. “Heart Pt. 6” recounts his origin story as a member of L.A.’s scrappy yet shrewd Top Dawg crew. And then there’s the lithe and funky “Dodger Blue,” in which he’s but a humble product of the oft-misunderstood city that shaped him: “Don’t say you hate L.A. when you don’t travel past the 10,” goes one line destined to be seen on a T-shirt or hoodie any day now.

Kendrick Lamar, in green jacket, films the music video for “Not Like Us” in Watts in June.

(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)

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Produced by a team led by Lamar’s longtime collaborator Sounwave and the pop hitmaker Jack Antonoff — Mustard, who helmed “Not Like Us,” also co-produced two tracks — “GNX” is steeped in West Coast styles and sounds; the music slaps, slides, bounces and shimmies. Several songs ride highly recognizable samples: In “Reincarnated,” a densely lyrical fantasy in which Lamar imagines his past lives, the beat is “Made N—” by 2Pac, the late philosopher-braggart in whose contradictions Lamar has always found inspiration; “Luther,” a sensual duet with SZA, remakes Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s remake of “If This World Were Mine” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell — a gorgeous piece of lineage-making that calls to mind Beyoncé’s archival ambitions on albums like “Renaissance” and “Cowboy Carter.”

Even amid those plush textures, though, Lamar has retribution on his mind. “If this world was mine, I’d take your enemies in front of God,” he promises-slash-threatens, “Introduce them to that light, hit them strictly with that fire.” Watch out.