2025 hasn't been a particularly strong year for movies, with only one U.S. release—Lilo & Stitch—managing to surpass $1 billion worldwide. Avatar: Fire and Ash is bound to be a hit this December, but Wicked: For Good promises to dominate November.
According to Deadline (via SFFGazette.com), the Wicked sequel is currently eyeing a $112 million - $115 million opening weekend in North America. That places it around the same ballpark as the first movie (which debuted with $112.5 million last year).
With less competition this year—Zootopia 2 isn't likely to be a success on the same level as Gladiator II and Moana 2—it will be interesting to see how high Wicked: For Good can soar.
As the trade explains, "[Wicked: For Good is] first choice with women over and under 25 is ahead of Wicked by respectively five to two points, and it’s also way ahead of Lilo & Stitch, which opened to $146M. Unaided awareness for the sequel, the category by which pollsters cite a movie they want to see without being prompted in a survey, is spot [on] with the original movie."
Wicked was a hit in 2024, grossing $473.2 million in North America for a global cume of $756.4 million. Whether Wicked: For Good can soar beyond that and reach $1 billion remains to be seen, but all signs point to the sequel being one of the year's biggest financial hits.
Filmmaker Jon M. Chu was recently asked about the possibility of Wicked and Wicked: For Good one day being released together with an intermission, similar to the musical version of this tale.
"Absolutely," he told Collider. "I'm maybe one of the very few people, including the studio — I don't think the studio's done it, but I've done it — both my editor and I, we've watched both back to back, and it is a whole new experience. It's great. It is wonderful. And I wouldn't do a 15-minute intermission. I’d do a 13-minute intermission because it's 13 hours on the clocks in Oz."
Last year’s global cinematic cultural sensation, which became the most successful Broadway film adaptation of all time, now reaches its epic, electrifying, emotional conclusion in Wicked: For Good.
Directed once again by award-winning director Jon M. Chu and starring the spectacular returning cast, led by Academy Award-nominated superstars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, the final chapter of the untold story of the witches of Oz begins with Elphaba and Glinda estranged and living with the consequences of their choices.
Wicked: For Good arrives in theaters on November 21.