Universal’s “Wicked: For Good” has brought out Elphaba and Glinda’s loyal fans en masse this weekend with a stellar $150 million domestic and $226 million global opening weekend, ranking second highest among all Hollywood films in 2025.
That start easily clears the launch of the first “Wicked” a year ago, which earned $112.5 million domestic and $164 million worldwide. In doing so, “For Good” is now the box office record holder for Broadway adaptations.
Buoyed by its predecessor’s critical acclaim and months of play on streaming and digital rental platforms, “Wicked: For Good” has been successful in turning out a crowd of passionate fans that has skewed heavily towards younger women, with 71% of the audience being female and 50% being in the core 18-34 demographic.
Overseas, the opening weekend for “Wicked: For Good” is 13% above its predecessor, led by an excellent $24.4 million in the United Kingdom that is the best opening of 2025 in that country. Other top contributors are Australia with $8.6 million and Germany with $4.1 million.
From here, “Wicked: For Good” will try to match or exceed the legs of the first “Wicked” starting with a Thanksgiving weekend where “Zootopia 2” is expected to earn a 5-day opening weekend of $150 million with strong overseas support, including one of Hollywood’s biggest post-pandemic launches in China.
Then it’s on to December where it will compete for Gen Z attention against another Universal release, Blumhouse’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” and a stacked Christmas release slate led by the expected $2 billion grosser, “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
Theaters have been waiting weeks for “Wicked: For Good” to lift the box office out of a slump it has been in since the start of October. But without secondary support from a film like last year’s “Gladiator II,” this weekend’s overall domestic total of $187 million is still down roughly 8% from last year.
Taking a very distant second is Lionsgate’s “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” with a solid second weekend of $9.1 million, bringing the film’s total to $36.8 million domestic and $146.2 million worldwide.
20th Century’s “Predator: Badlands” is in third with $6.3 million, bringing its total to $76.3 million domestic and just under $160 million worldwide. Having burned through its relatively small hardcore fanbase and unable to use its strong reception with those fans to expand its fanbase, “Badlands” will have to stretch just to reach break-even territory at $200 million worldwide.
Paramount’s “The Running Man” is in fourth and is flaming out fast with a 65% drop from its anemic $17 million opening to a second weekend of just $5.8 million, leaving the $110 million production with a domestic total of just $27 million.
Completing the top 5 is Searchlight Pictures’ “Rental Family,” a film looking to attract older audiences with a family dramedy starring Brendan Fraser as an American actor who gets a job at a rental family firm in Japan pretending to be a girl’s long-lost father. The film has earned an opening of $3.3 million from 1,925 locations.
Finally, there’s Sony/Stage 6’s “Sisu: Road to Revenge,” the sequel to the 2022 revenge action film “Sisu.” The sequel earned a soft $2.6 million from 2,222 locations, below the $3.3 million opening of its predecessor.
