For Good’ soars to $150 million domestic opening
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo star in Universal’s “Wicked: For Good.”
Universal
Universal’s “Bad: For Good” defied gravity at the box office, earning an estimated $150 million in domestic ticket sales.
This marks the second-highest opening weekend for a film released in 2025. Warner Bros.’ “A Minecraft Movie” grossed $163 million in April. It also surpassed the release of “Wicked” last year, which grossed $112.5 million in the U.S. and Canada.
The film’s box office broke the record for the largest opening weekend for a Broadway adaptation. With additional ticket sales from international markets, “Wicked: For Good” will gross $226 million worldwide in its first three days in theaters.
An estimated 10 million tickets were sold for “Wicked: For Good” during its opening weekend, according to data from EntTelligence, surpassing the 8 million tickets sold for the opening of “Wicked” last year.
The box office data company also reported that 30% of domestic releases were in premium large-format theaters; this rate was 18% in “Wicked”. These tickets are more expensive than general admission and can help support blockbuster movies. EntTelligence noted that general tickets for “Wicked: For Good” averaged around $15.25, while premium screen tickets averaged $18.75.
“The Universal Team did a great job of perfectly following up the success of the original film a year ago and turning it into an even bigger launch for this second film,” said Paul Degarabedian, head of market trends at Comscore. “‘Wicked: For Good’ will look forward to delivering incredibly strong gameplay throughout Thanksgiving week and beyond during the all-important holiday movie season.”
Last year’s “Wicked” combination Paramount’s “Gladiator II” and Disney’s “Moana 2” helped propel the Thanksgiving holiday box office to its highest grossing ever. This year, “Wicked: For Good” is joined by Disney’s “Zootopia 2.”
The first “Zootopia” opened to $75 million domestically in 2016 but grossed more than $1 billion worldwide. Pent-up audience demand could push the film’s three-day opening to around $100 million and its five-day Thanksgiving stretch north of $125 million.
“The impressive expected overperformance of ‘Wicked: For Good,’ along with other films on the market, could give last year’s record, Thanksgiving, a run for its money, literally,” Dergarabedian said. “This is great news after all the negative stories about October’s struggling box office have driven the narrative.”
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Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become CNBC’s new parent company, based on Comcast’s planned Versant spinoff.
