Wicked For Good

Photo Credit: Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures’ ‘Wicked: For Good’ was a box-office smash over the weekend, showing there’s no place like the movie theater for some devoted fans.

Wicked: For Good, Universal Pictures’ Wicked sequel, grossed a whopping $225 million at the global box office over the weekend, with a reported $150 million across North America alone. That’s 33% more than the original film’s domestic opening weekend of $114 million during last year’s pre-Thanksgiving weekend.

Impressively, it’s the biggest theatrical opening for a Broadway musical-based film to date. The Broadway adaptation of the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel debuted in 2003, starring Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda. Both made cameos in last year’s first volume of the film adaptation, which stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda.

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last two decades, here’s a Wicked rundown: the new movie is the second part of the film adaptation of the musical, which itself is an adaptation of the novel. The novel is the first in a series by Gregory Maguire based on L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

While the sequel undoubtedly benefitted from the marketing success of the original Wicked film across streaming platforms and retail, it’s worth noting that both the musical and Ariana Grande enjoy massive fandoms. Still, it’s impressive for a Broadway-based film to do so well—especially a sequel.

“It’s never a guarantee that a second installment will outperform an original, especially on the opening weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Head of Marketplace Trends at Comscore. “The first film, and now this movie […] created a cultural phenomenon. This was not an overnight success.”

It’s also the second-highest domestic opener of the year, behind Warner’s A Minecraft Movie ($162.75 million) and Disney’s live action Lilo & Stitch ($146 million). Wicked: For Good also broke a record for fantasy-adventure sequel openings, which average an opening of only $46 million, according to David A. Gross of film industry newsletter FranciseRe.

“The fact that ‘Wicked’ is up there in the conversation is a triumph,” said Shawn Robbins, Director of Analytics at Fandango and founder of analytics firm Box Office Theory. “It’s not very long ago [that] a lot of musicals were not performing well at the box office.”

Overall, the box office is 3.3% ahead of last year’s earnings from the same period (January 1 to November 23), according to data from Comscore. It bodes well for Hollywood; the domestic box office has grossed around $7.5 billion this year, and could hit or exceed the $9 billion mark by year’s end. It’s a milestone that hasn’t been reached since 2023, the first post-pandemic year to do so.