Why everyone’s got wood for Alexander Skarsgård in Wicker after meltdown over horny trailer

While Spider-Man: Brand New Day was busy raking in a billion dollars at the box office over the weekend, joining The Odyssey to lead the charge in an explosive summer so far for cinema, there was another very different sort of excitement mounting.

The trailer for Wicker dropped on Thursday afternoon, a movie about a smelly, ridiculed fisherwoman played by Olivia Colman who orders the local basketmaker to weave her a husband out of wicker (played by Alexander Skarsgård).

The film had premiered quietly in January at Sundance to not much fanfare – although it was praised as a ‘kooky hidden gem’ from the line-up worth seeking out.

Well, there’s nothing under the radar about it now fans have gone into meltdown after admiring Skarsgård’s sentient – and virile – woven husband in the unexpectedly raunchy trailer.

It’s safe to say that none of us were quite prepared for what we saw, from bed-breaking antics to the unexpectedly explicit soundtrack of their energetic sex life.

While a few people were slightly concerned, and questioning logistics (wicker doesn’t splinter FYI, but it would likely chafe), most fans clapping their eyes on the film’s first look were actually going a little feral at the prospect.

Wicker is certainly bringing new meaning to the phrase ‘I’d climb him like a tree’ I’d say, with all the girls and gays (certainly after the glorious Pillion) coming together to drool over the quirky romantic fantasy comedy, based on Ursula Wills-Jones’ short story The Wicker Husband.

Reactions have been suitably thirsty – to put it mildly – to the tale, directed and adapted by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, and also rather hilariously imaginative.

Not only has Wicker has been dubbed ’50 Shades of Hay’ and ‘Pornocchio’, but it’s also inspired some brilliantly risqué rhymes.

‘A tisket, a tasket, a fully functional and anatomically correct basket,’ quipped @meowmi_mi, while Katie McPherson added: ‘I saw a Threads post this weekend that said “wickery dickery dock, this basket has a c**k” and I can’t get it out of my head.’

(And you certainly catch an eyeful while he’s bathing in the river.)

Others were enjoying the similarity between Skarsgård’s character’s design and that of Jonathan Bailey after Fiyero transforms into the Scarecrow at the end of the second Wicked film.

‘Fiyero walked so Wickerman could run,’ commented Andrea, while Sarah Scott joked: ‘Wickered For GOOD.’

‘It’s giving Beauty and the Beast where he’s both the beast AND the furniture,’ suggested Aimee Marie Woodard in another popular comparison – but some fans were concerned as to how it all might end for the wicker husband (the scissors brandished in the trailer made me nervous, I’ll admit).

‘I watched Beauty and the Beast at an impressionable age. I need to know if the Wicker man is played by Alexander Skarsgård for the ENTIRE movie,’ demanded @janaandbooks, bracing herself for any kind of human transformation disappointment.

Dina Wormgoor echoed this when she observed: ‘So after vampires, werewolves, dragons and now wicker, I think it’s safe to say the trend is: anything but a human man.’

And this is not to suggest any hate towards male leads from us, but it sounds like Wicker is scratching that itch that dark romantasy readers have long been managing with their stories featuring those kinds of supernatural… I’ll say ‘love interests’.

Skarsgård also has excellent prior form too for playing non-human characters and making them sexy, e.g. a vampire in True Blood and a security cyborg in Apple TV’s Murderbot.

But there were also much more simple things the wicker husband was being praised for.

‘Everything I read is how bl**dy hot it is that he fixes the bed when he says he will,’ pointed out Claire Harvey.

I also feel it’s my duty to point out you should watch both the UK and US trailers to see all the action so far teased, as they are different edits.

But suffice it to say, it really feels like Wicker – which also features Elizabeth Debicki, Peter Dinklage, Richard E. Grant, Nabhaan Rizwan and The Other Bennet Sister’s Ella Bruccoleri in its cast – is poised to serve women in a similar fashion to Wuthering Heights.

It’s just that this time, the gals are swooning over a wicker husband who says things like ‘you are the reason I live and breathe’ to a woman previously ostracised and mocked by her village, instead of Jacob Elordi lifting Margot Robbie up by her corset strings – or shielding her face from the rain.

Actually, this relationship seems a lot less toxic than that of Cathy and Heathcliff’s anyway, wicker peen and all.

And as @lifelivedsideways gleefully argued on Instagram: ‘“Ribbed for her pleasure” is taking on a whole new meaning.’

Wicker is in UK and Irish cinemas on October 30. It releases in the US on October 23.