This weekend, movie theaters became a real paradise for fans of “Wicked.” Universal’s film “Wicked: For Good” soared to the top of the box office, collecting $150 million domestically and $226 million worldwide—significantly surpassing the performance of the first part, “Wicked,” which earned $114 million domestically before Thanksgiving last year. “There’s never a guarantee that a sequel can top the original, especially right out of the gate,” noted Paul Dergarabedian, head of market intelligence at Comscore. “The first film, and now this one… have created a genuine cultural phenomenon. This was not an overnight success.” The musical fantasy film, which is a reimagining of the 1900 children’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” became the second-biggest opening weekend of the year in the US, trailing only Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Minecraft: The Movie” ($162.75 million) and ahead of Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” ($146 million). Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company of CNN. According to David A. Gross, who publishes the industry newsletter FranchiseRe, “Wicked: For Good” also set a record for fantasy-adventure sequel openings. Gross stated that the average gross for such films at launch is $46 million. “The fact that ‘Wicked’ is in this company is a triumph… not long ago, many musicals were not performing well at the box office,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Fandango and founder of the analytics firm Box Office Theory. Also released this weekend were Searchlight Pictures’ “The Beanie Bubble” ($3.3 million), which took 5th place, and Sony Pictures’ “Sisu: Road to Revenge” ($2.6 million), which ranked 6th. These two films could not match the success of “Gladiator II,” whose domestic opening weekend was $55.5 million when it premiered alongside “Wicked.” Last week’s competitors—Lionsgate Films’ “The Inheritance: More Magic” ($9.1 million), Disney’s “Predator: Borderlands” ($6.25 million), and Paramount Pictures’ “The Running Man” ($5.8 million)—took 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places, respectively. This is a good sign for Hollywood, which experienced a historically sluggish October. Overall box office revenue from January 1st to November 23rd of this year is up 3.3% compared to last year, according to Comscore data. Total domestic gross since the beginning of the year stands at approximately $7.5 billion, per Comscore. Dergarabedian noted that by the end of the year, box office receipts could reach or exceed the $9 billion mark. This milestone was surpassed in 2023, which was the first post-pandemic year to achieve that figure. Additional momentum could come over the Thanksgiving weekend with the release of Disney’s animated film “Zootopia 2,” which is counting on the success of last year’s hit “Moana 2″—an animated feature that grossed over $460 million domestically. “Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good” are capable of complementing each other in theaters, believes Daniel Loria, editor at Box Office Pro. “The potential for first weekend grosses is essentially a double whammy,” Loria said. Disney also expects to dominate the Christmas weekend with the film “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” Furthermore, there are a number of films releasing before and during the Christmas holidays that, according to Loria, could bring in up to $30 million each. These include Paramount Pictures’ “The SpongeBob Movie: A Patrick Story,” Sony’s “Anaconda,” Lionsgate’s “The Maid,” and Angel Studios’ “David.”
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