Wicked Breaks Box Office Records With Massive $164 Million Global Opening Weekend

The pre-Thanksgiving weekend box office potentially just scored its biggest haul in 11 years, thanks to the combined powers of Broadway musical adaptation "Wicked" and swords 'n' sandals sequel "Gladiator II." Of course, in every group project there's one person who does most of the heavy lifting, and in this case it's "Wicked." The "Wizard of Oz" prequel grossed an estimated $114 million domestically, easily landing the No. 1 spot, while "Gladiator II" has opened in second place with $55.5 million. 

There have been a spate of high-profile musical box office bombs over the last five years, including "Cats," "West Side Story," and "Wicked" director Jon M. Chu's last musical outing, "In the Heights." In an extreme reversal of fortunes for Chu, "Wicked" has scored the biggest box office opening weekend ever for a Broadway feature adaptation, both domestically and globally. Overseas ticket sales of approximately $50.2 million (per Deadline) bring its worldwide debut total to $164.2 million, leaving the record previously set by "Les Miserables" ($103 million) in its dust.

The marketing strategy for "Wicked," like most movie musicals these days, was to hide the "musical" aspect of the movie as much as possible, in order to trick musical-wary mainstream audiences into seeing it. Perhaps people were fine with that trickery, or perhaps the opening weekend was simply dominated by existing fans, because "Wicked" earned an excellent A grade from CinemaScore exit polling. That's the third A grade in a row for Chu, following "In the Heights" and "Crazy Rich Asians," and it pairs nicely with the "Certified Fresh" 90% score for "Wicked" on Rotten Tomatoes. (Read /Film's review here.)

Characters bursting into song isn't the only secret that marketing for "Wicked" has been hiding. Universal has also been keeping quiet about the fact that this movie, despite having a longer runtime than the original Broadway production, is actually only the first half of the story. "Wicked: Part Two," which was shot back-to-back with "Wicked," is set to release in the same pre-Thanksgiving frame in 2025.

As the disastrous box office performance of "Joker: Folie à Deux" recently reminded us, one movie being a box office hit doesn't necessarily guarantee that its sequel will be as well. Another villain-focused fairy tale prequel, "Maleficent," grossed $758 million worldwide with its first outing, but follow-up "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil" managed a more modest $492 million. Then again, we've also seen things trend the opposite way with "Dune: Part Two," whose box office far surpassed "Dune: Part One." 

"Wicked: Part Two" already has two things on its side: it'll arrive in theaters within a year of the first movie (compared to the five-year waits for "Joker: Folie à Deux" and "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil"); and the first part of the story is a hit with critics and audiences alike. 

While "Gladiator II" was a neat bit of counter-programming, "Wicked" has incoming competition from Disney's "Moana 2," which arrives in theaters on Tuesday. Grab some popcorn and prepare to watch these two family-friendly musicals duke it out over Thanksgiving.