The wait is finally over. After weeks of weekend overall grosses below $100 million, theaters are about to get the end-of-year boom period they have been salivating for, starting this Friday with Universal’s “Wicked: For Good.” The follow-up is expected to be massive, with tracking putting it at a $150 million opening weekend — at least.
It was just a year ago when Universal put all of its chips down on Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the “Wizard of Oz” Broadway musical starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. The studio spared no expense on a no-holds-barred marketing campaign rivaled only in recent years by Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” promotion blitz, aggressively promoting “Wicked” on every NBCUniversal media platform, launching an expansive line of tie-in merch and toys, and sending the film’s cast on a global press tour.
It paid off big with a $474 million domestic, $758.7 million global box office run, cracking the top 5 highest-grossing films worldwide last year while earning 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and acting noms for Erivo and Grande. That doesn’t include millions more in merch sales, Peacock streaming subscriptions and other ancillary revenue from a post-theatrical run that has only expanded interest in “Wicked: For Good,” which adapts the second act of the Broadway musical.
So can “Wicked: For Good” turn a year of hype and rave reviews for its predecessor into even greater box office heights? At least for opening weekend, the answer is yes.
While the first “Wicked” earned a superb $112.5 million domestic opening, “For Good” is expected to blow past that with an opening of at least $150 million. Theatrical and analyst sources tell TheWrap that an opening as high as $180 million — which would pass the $162.5 million of “A Minecraft Movie” for the year’s highest — could be in reach.
There’s some presale data that backs that up. Last week, Fandango reported that “Wicked: For Good” set a new record on the site for the best ticket preseller ever among PG-rated films. Greenlight Analytics also reports strong viewing intention among the film’s key audience demos, including 55% of aware moviegoers under 35 expressing intention to see the film in theaters along with 60% of women.
Thanksgiving weekend should also be a big one for “Wicked: For Good,” considering that the holiday record launch of “Moana 2” didn’t hold back the first “Wicked” from legging out last year. “Zootopia 2” is tracking strong but still not yet on the level of “Moana 2,” which is a good sign that it can coexist with Universal’s biggest film this year.
But after that, “Wicked: For Good” will have to face a considerably tougher December slate than what was seen in 2024, starting with another Universal title, Blumhouse’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” which could peel off the Gen Z audience. And then, of course, there’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” a film with considerably more audience interest than “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” and “Mufasa” last holiday season.
There is a scenario in which that competition, combined with potentially less enthused audience reception, prevents “For Good” from making significantly more than “Wicked” as this big opening weekend leads to a more frontloaded theatrical run. Critics are still mostly positive about “For Good,” with particular praise heaped on its two leads. But it currently has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 72%, compared to 88% of the first “Wicked.”
For the critics who didn’t like the follow-up, some of the criticisms were inherent to the structure of the source material, as the second half of “Wicked” has fewer showstopping musical numbers and naturally takes a darker turn as Elphaba’s crusade against the Wizard and Madame Morrible threatens to tear Oz in two. Other criticisms were towards Chu’s adaptational choices to expand that second act’s narrative.
Brace yourself for potentially the biggest opening weekend of 2025 come Sunday, but keep an eye on those audience metrics. Will the emotional climax of Elphaba and Glinda’s relationship leave audiences satisfied and perhaps even interested in a theatrical rewatch, or will they be wishing this film had more songs like “Defying Gravity” and “Popular?”
