What's Inside?
- Wicked: For Good opened to $150 million domestically and $226 million globally, making it one of 2025’s biggest film launches.
- The film ranks second in Universal’s domestic opening history and outperforms Avatar: The Way of Water’s domestic debut numbers.
- With strong audience scores and cultural excitement, Wicked: For Good is positioned as a potential billion-dollar box office phenomenon for 2025.
Wicked: For Good dominated the weekend box office and broke multiple records. Audiences showed up in huge numbers, pushing the movie into an elite financial tier that surpasses even the most confident industry forecasts. Many expected it to outperform its predecessor, which impressed with a $112 million opening back in November 2024, but few predicted it would soar not only above Wicked, but above the $134 million domestic opening for Avatar: The Way of Water. Now, December’s Avatar: Fire and Ash stands as one of the most closely-watched releases of the coming month, with Hollywood looking to see whether Cameron’s franchise can reclaim momentum.
Wicked: For Good Box Office Success
Deadline reports that Wicked: For Good opened to $150 million at the domestic market, making it the second-biggest opening weekend of 2025, behind only The Minecraft Movie at $162 million. That followed with a worldwide total of $226 million, surpassing the previous Broadway-to-film opening record. The film now holds the fourth-biggest global opening weekend of the year, just trailing Lilo and Stitch at $340 million, Jurassic World: Rebirth at $322 million, and A Minecraft Movie at $313 million. Numbers like these do not happen by accident. They signal strong fan engagement, brand-building from the first film, and a genuine desire among audiences for theatrical spectacle.
Its weekend showing also earned another set of distinctions. Wicked: For Good now holds the second-biggest domestic opening ever for Universal Pictures, behind Jurassic World’s $208.8 million in 2015. For the weekend before Thanksgiving, it stands second only to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which scored $158 million in 2013. It also ranks as the third-highest-grossing November opening in history, sitting just behind that Hunger Games entry and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with $181 million.
With this momentum, attention shifts to whether Avatar: Fire and Ash can match the energy. True, Avatar: The Way of Water pulled a bigger global opening with $435 million in 2022, but the cultural buzz around Wicked: For Good is different. It is being perceived not just as a film release, but a social moment. For at least the next several weeks, Wicked: For Good and Zootopia 2 are expected to rule the box office until Avatar arrives on December 19. Right now, all three releases appear capable of breaking into both domestic and global box office top-ten lists by year’s end.
Wicked: For Good sets new Hollywood milestones
Jon M. Chu’s evolving Wicked franchise is quickly becoming a modern cinematic achievement. After the Oscar-winning first film in 2024, the second part continues the surge. The $226 million global haul even broke producer Marc Platt’s own previous record from Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin, which held $213 million. The first Wicked film closed with $756.4 million worldwide, finishing as the fifth-highest-grossing title of that year and the only film in the top five that did not belong to an existing franchise. Many are now predicting that Wicked: For Good could become the second billion-dollar movie of 2025 after Lilo and Stitch.
Its placement in musical film history is also notable. Wicked: For Good now ranks behind only The Lion King from 2019 at $191.7 million and Beauty and the Beast from 2017 at $174.7 million for musical openings. It sits just ahead of Moana 2, showcasing its strong cultural imprint.
Universal Domestic Distribution President Jim Orr captured the moment perfectly when he said, “When it comes to the success of Wicked: For Good, Wicked paved the yellow brick road.” He also described the film as “more than just a movie, rather a cultural event that continues to defy expectations, as well as gravity.”
Wicked: For Good holds an “A” CinemaScore, matching the first film, and currently enjoys a robust 95 percent audience approval on Rotten Tomatoes, demonstrating that the film delivers both entertainment and emotional impact to fans.
