Wicked: For Good’s Opening Weekend Tracking! Can It Make $1 Billion?

Wicked: For Good’s Opening Weekend Tracking! Can It Make $1 Billion? 

Wicked: For Good is officially one month away from release. Tickets have been on sale for a few weeks now. That means we have the opening weekend numbers for what the film is looking to open at the domestic box office, plus some other interesting things to talk about! Let’s get started!

The Numbers: There’s a few things in regards to Wicked: For Good’s ticket sales that are rather interesting…

1. Domestic opening weekend is tracking between $130-$155 million.

2. Fandango’s best first-day ticket pre-stellar of 2025, beating hit films like Damon Slayer, Taylor Swift: The Officer Release Party of a Showgirl, and Superman.

3. Fandango’s 10 best all-time first-day ticket pre-sellers of all time. Films in this list include Avengers Endgame, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Taylor Swift: The Era Tour 

4. Biggest PG-rated first-day ticket pre-seller of all time on Fandango surpassing Frozen II, The Lion King (2019), and K-Pop Demon Hunters: Sing-Along Event

My Thoughts

Keep in mind, this is just on Fandango so I don’t know what records it’s been breaking for Cinemark, AMC, Regal, or any other movie ticket buying platform. Purely on Fandango, the film is crushing it and is looking to be a big money winner for Universal. Honestly, this isn’t too surprising because the original was a big money maker grossing almost $800 million against a $150 million budget. 

I’m not too surprised that the film’s opening weekend is tracking to be $20-$30 million higher than the original. I am a bit surprised that it’s not higher. I would’ve guessed the film’s tracking based on the records being broken that the number would be more like $150-$160 million. But if the film opens to $140 million or whatever, that’s still a great number and Universal shouldn’t be complaining. I say that I’m surprised because you look at some of the films that it’s surpassed pre-ticket sales. Frozen II made $130 million opening weekend and The Lion King (2019) made $191 million. The fact that Wicked: For Good is tracking for an opening closer to Frozen II is a bit surprising to me. The budget for the film hasn’t been revealed yet, I’d guess it’s about the same as the original of $150 million. A domestic opening weekend of $140 million or whatever against a $150 million budget is a great number. I’m sure it’ll do well overseas, probably have a global opening of close to $300 million and will have great legs leading into Christmas time like the first film did last year. We’re still a month out, the film’s numbers can change drastically from now and until then. Once the early reviews come out and we see how good it is, these numbers could fluctuate and go up a lot. 

There’s three things why I think this film is tracking to open bigger…

 

First up, the first film was a big hit that loved people and it won over skeptics. I was not excited for Wicked last year, it wasn’t on any of my most anticipated lists. I thought the trailers looked bad. The film won me over and I think it did that for a lot of people and so I think people are going into this film more excited because they loved the original more than they thought they would. For me, I got tickets to see this film at an early screening the Wednesday before it comes out. I also got tickets to see it on Thanksgiving with my family and I’m happily doing that because I’m very excited for this film. 

Second, I think with this film there’s a lot more that can be spoiled. I haven’t seen the Broadway play, I don’t really know where the story goes. But people will want to see this film before spoilers start to spread and see how the film connects to The Wizard of Oz. Some of the actors have teased on social media as to how this film ties into The Wizard of Oz and who they play in the film. The trailers show the main character from The Wizard of Oz very prominently in the trailer. Just yesterday it was reported that Colman Domingo will be voicing The Crowdly Lion in the film. 

Third, this one ties back to the second point but I think people will have FOMO with this film, “fear of missing out”. A lot goes back to what I just mentioned about people not wanting to have anything spoiled either at work or Thanksgiving dinner the following week. Since Wicked: For Good is shaping up to be one of the big event films of 2025 people want to be a part of the conversation discussing the film since the film is going to be big and popular (no pun intended)

Will It Make $1 Billion?

The final thing I wanted to discuss here is whether or not the film will make $1 billion. The original film is an interesting one because it was one of the most celebrated films of last year. A bunch of people were talking about it and it got a whole bunch of Oscar nominations. Domestically the film made $473 million, you look at the movies that grossed around that number, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Finding Dory, Frozen II,  and Moana 2 all made over $1 billion. Wicked didn’t make $1 billion and only made $756 million. Which is still a lot of money, but it means that the film did great domestically but only did well internationally, it made $283 million internationally. Normally with big blockbusters like this, the domestic and international are either 50/50 or it’s like 30% domestically or 70% internationally. In the case of Wicked that wasn’t the case. If its international numbers were as good or even better then its domestic number, then the film easily would’ve made $1 billion.

I’m not really sure if the international number weren’t higher, I’m obviously not from an international country. The international number is the big thing working against it making $1 billion. Domestically the film is looking to open higher than the original, I’m curious what its worldwide opening is going to be. I’d guess it’ll be a $250-$300 global opening. If it’s able to open to that or even better then I think it’s very likely it’ll make over $1 billion. I feel the international numbers will be better because this is the sequel and therefore there’s more of a fanbase going into this film. 

Right now, I don’t see the film making $1 billion simply because I don’t know if the international numbers are going to be strong enough to push it over the milestone. I’m guessing it’ll be in the $850-$900 million, it’ll get close to $1 billion is my guess.