Wicked: For Good opened with US$150 million, the second-biggest opening weekend of 2025. Photo / Getty Images
One year after Jon M. Chu’s Wicked adaptation turned the Broadway hit into a cultural phenomenon, its sequel has enchanted US moviegoers with the second-biggest opening weekend of 2025.
In a sluggish year at the domestic box office, Wicked: For Good opened with a smashing US$150 million (NZ$267m) according to studio estimates, logging the biggest opening day of the year with US$68.6m on Friday.
As of November, A Minecraft Movie still boasts the most impressive opening weekend of the year, with more than US$162m.
While the critical reception of For Good was more mixed than the first film, audiences were still pining for the Land of Oz. The sequel received an A from theatre pollster CinemaScore, and its audience meter on Rotten Tomatoes is glowing.
Picking up where Wicked left off, For Good tells the tale of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) after she defies the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, settling into her role as the Wicked Witch of the West. Her foil and bestie, Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, is played by Ariana Grande. The two were nominated for Oscars for their performances in the initial film.
For Good provides a boost to a box office that has slowed after a string of summer hits, such as Superman and the unexpectedly popular Weapons. It arrives after the worst October results since 1997, with a total of US$425m across all films in the domestic box office. The most popular film on Halloween weekend – Black Phone 2 – only took a little over US$8m in returns.
“This is a desperately needed victory, having Wicked perform as well as it has and will continue to do,” Karie Bible, a media analyst at Exhibitor Relations, said. “In the age of streaming, and the pandemic accelerated that era, people are just pickier about what they chose to go out and see.”
The event-like For Good seems to offer the type of studio tentpole that gets people off the couch. According to PostTrak exit polls, women bolstered that opening number, making up about 71% of the audience. And with a PG rating, For Good arrives as movies targeted to the entire family – like the live-action remakes of Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon – have seen steady success.
This opening weekend breaks the record – previously set by the first Wicked – for biggest opening ever for a Broadway adaptation, flying past Les Misérables and Mamma Mia! For musicals in general, For Good is the fifth-largest opening of all time, sitting behind the live-action remake of The Lion King, along with animated hits like Moana 2, Frozen 2 and Beauty and the Beast.
The Wicked sequel’s success was supported by a string of early screenings: last Monday saw exclusive shows for Amazon Prime members, then a stream of advance screenings available to the public on Wednesday and Thursday. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) By the time opening morning arrived, For Good had already seen nearly US$30m. In 78 markets outside of the US, For Good saw an additional US$76m in ticket sales, an improvement upon the first film.
The success is good but not unexpected news for Universal Pictures, with production costs of US$300m split between the two films. It comes as Universal’s parent company, Comcast, put in a bid to purchase Warner Bros. this weekend alongside offers from Paramount and Netflix.
Universal also allocated upward of US$100m for promotional efforts in tandem with For Good. The sequel’s campaign included a televised music special, a Wicked night on Dancing with the Stars and an Oz-themed episode of Lego Masters. Even with around 400 brand partnerships, from Dunkin’ to American Girl Dolls, the For Good promotional spree has been described as relatively subtle in comparison to the first film’s, according to Variety.
As film fans head toward the holiday blockbusters and Oscar season, For Good will have competition from the Thanksgiving release Zootopia 2, along with the likely hits The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants and Avatar: Fire and Ash arriving at end of the year.
But it’s possible that For Good continues to pack cinemas through the end of 2025. Last year’s Wicked had an extraordinary 4.2 multiplier, which kept it in theatres from the November opening comfortably past Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, a big one for the January box office. If the conclusion to the Wicked saga puts up similar number, it could easily overtake Minecraft as the most popular movie of the year.
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