Why Wicked Blew Everyone Away At The Box Office

After literal years of anticipation, the "Wicked" movie is finally here (well, the first part is, at least; the second doesn't release until November 2025). Based on Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman's acclaimed Broadway musical — which itself is based on Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," which itself is based on the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz" and that movie's source material, Frank L. Baum's 1900 novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" — the first half of the epic "Wicked" movie boarded a broomstick and flew into theaters on November 22, 2024. It's certainly not a huge surprise that the film was an enormous success at the box office, blowing expectations out of the water and even earning a tidy sum during preview screenings before its Friday release. So why was "Wicked" a huge success?

There are a lot of factors at play here, from the overall anticipation to the timing of the movie's release to the biggest marketing campaign since Greta Gerwig's 2023 blockbuster "Barbie" turned Hollywood hot pink. Here's the full box office download on "Wicked," why it turned out to be one of the biggest and most successful movies of the year, and everything you need to know about this pop culture phenomenon's cultural takeover.

The "Wicked" movie made a lot of money at the box office, and frankly, the writing was on the wall long before the movie even came out. According to Box Office Pro, shortly after tickets officially went on sale in October 2024, the movie broke a few records, becoming the "best PG-Rated first-day ticket pre-seller of 2024 and the No. 3 best PG-Rated first-day ticket pre-seller of all time" (behind massive juggernauts like "Frozen II" and the "live-action" adaptation of "The Lion King" that came out in 2019). So what about opening weekend?

"Wicked" performed so well just before and during its opening weekend that Deadline actually has a list of all the box office records it absolutely smashed into smithereens. Not only is it the biggest opening for a broadway musical adaptation ahead of hits like "Into the Woods" and "Les Miserables," it's the biggest opening for a pop star in a film (specifically, Ariana Grande) and also set a record for how much money it made in previews alone ($19.2 million). Ultimately "Wicked" earned $114 million during its opening weekend with a domestic and international haul totalling $164 million, making it the third-biggest opening of 2024 (behind "Deadpool & Wolverine" and "Inside Out 2," two historically massive box office champions).

Never underestimate the power of theater kids. While there are probably some "Wicked" newbies who went to see the Broadway adaptation out of sheer curiosity, musical theater nerds have been waiting for this movie for years, and they were primed and ready to show up to support the project during opening weekend. (Waiting for "years" isn't hyperbole; the movie was first announced in 2012 and underwent an astonishing number of delays — including a massive one due to the COVID-19 pandemic — and the musical first hit the Great White Way in 2003). Anyone who dabbled in the theater kid lifestyle in middle or high school probably went through a massive "Wicked" obsession, and for many, it hasn't faded. The movie was always going to be a success thanks to a built-in audience full of people who dreamed of belting "Defying Gravity" in front of a packed audience.

If you're unfamiliar with Gregory Maguire's original novel, it's pretty dark ... and in their musical adaptation, Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman made the wise choice to lighten things up quite a bit to tell the origin story of Elphaba Thropp, the magical green girl who goes on to become the Wicked Witch of the West. By adding in some much-needed levity and campiness, Schwartz and Holzman made "Wicked" into a full-on cultural phenomenon, aided by the musical's two original, extraordinary lead performers (Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Kristin Chenoweth as Galinda Upland, the future "Good Witch"). "Wicked" is still one of the highest-grossing musicals in Broadway history, earned a handful of Tony nominations — Menzel won best actress, but the show lost most of its major awards to "Avenue Q" — and productions of "Wicked" still play in theaters all over the world, decades after it first came out. Frankly, it's one of the most successful, long-running, and ... "popular" musicals of all time. Of course it was going to make a boatload of money at the box office.

Sure, for a certain generation of people, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth are the platonic ideals of Elphaba and Galinda (although it should be said that some other actresses have brought something special to these roles, including Eden Espinosa and Lindsay Mendez as the former and Annaleigh Ashford and Megan Hilty as the latter, just to name a few). With that said, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are giving those two a run for their money. As Elphaba, Erivo brings some "gravity" to the role of a young girl lost in the world whose green skin makes her an outcast; to say Grande is outstanding as Galinda-turned-Glinda is an understatement (she runs away with the film so hard that it's actually breathtaking). The supporting cast is also a murderer's row of talented folks. Though Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, and Peter Dinklage — who appear as Shiz University professor Madame Morrible, the infamous Wizard of Oz himself, and another professor who happens to be a goat named Doctor Dillamond — aren't the strongest singers, they turn in great performance, and the rest of the central performers are Broadway veterans.

Newcomer Marissa Bode, who makes history in the film as the first disabled actress to play Elphaba's younger, wheelchair-bound sister Nessarose, shows off an impressive voice honed thanks to years in small productions, while Ethan Slater, known for "The Spongebob Squarepants Musical," gets a moment front and center to prove why he earned a Tony nomination for starring in that show. Jonathan Bailey, an Olivier recipient for a 2019 production of "Company" in the West End, might be known more for "Bridgerton" and "Fellow Travelers" these days, but his dancing and singing prove pretty extraordinary in "Wicked." (Menzel and Chenoweth also cameo in the giant ensemble number "One Short Day," chronicling Elphaba and Galinda's arrival in Oz.) The success of "Wicked" depended heavily on its cast, and this film was cast perfectly.

Ever since "Barbie" turned the world pink during the summer of 2023, studios have tried to recapture the magic of that movie's marketing blitz — and until "Wicked," nobody really succeeded. Universal Pictures really went for it, and as a result, pink and green products have been everywhere recently. No, seriously; Stanley, maker of those ubiquitous giant water bottles, is offering pink and green versions so you can channel either Elphaba or Galinda while you hydrate. Ariana Grande's makeup company, r.e.m. beauty, released a "Wicked"-inspired line (which, considering that Grande stars in the film, isn't exactly a huge surprise). Clothing retailer Forever 21 released glittery jerseys bearing Elphaba and Galinda's names, you could find a "Wicked" collaboration at Target stores across the United States, Shay Mitchell's luggage line BÉIS Travel released green and pink-hued suitcases and weekender bags, Oreos changed their fillings to green and pink, and Rice Krispie Treats added green and pink sprinkles to their signature sweets. To add to that, Grande and her co-star Cynthia Erivo have been donning Elphaba and Galinda inspired outfits for some time now; their outfits for the 2024 Met Gala were definitely giving "Galinda and Elphaba."

This isn't to say that just because a marketing campaign is absolutely enormous — and perhaps even inescapable — that a movie will be automatically successful. It pretty clearly worked for "Wicked," though! Whether or not Grande sold a whole lot of "Wicked" eyeshadow palettes through r.e.m. is basically immaterial at this point; nobody could possibly forget "Wicked" was coming to theaters thanks to the wild marketing blitz.

The social media platform now called X — formerly known as Twitter — has been going absolutely wild over "Wicked" memes lately, whether they're referencing the actual movie or the increasingly emotional press tour. With all due respect to Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, they sure have been crying a lot while they promote the movie, which has, for better or for worse, led to some insanely viral moments. Take, for example, the moment where Out reporter Tracy E. Gilchrist made a surprising admission to Grande and Erivo during an interview (via Rolling Stone). 

"I've seen this week, people are taking the lyrics of 'Defying Gravity' and really holding space with that, and feeling power in that," Gilchrist says in a sentence that says so much and yet so little at the same time. What happens next feels like an out-of-body experience. Erivo looks like she's near tears and responds, "That's really powerful. That's what I wanted. I didn't know that was happening." While Erivo says this, Grande ostensibly reaches for her co-star and friend's hand but grabs Erivo's index finger instead. It's a perfect combination of "completely absurd" and "strikingly emotional," and in the aftermath, everyone has been "holding space" for the lyrics of the show-stopping number "Defying Gravity."

Sure, this sounds silly, but there's no question that viral moments like these have contributed to the overall success of "Wicked." Whether it was Erivo lashing out at a version of the poster edited by a fan to the many, many instances where Grande and Erivo burst into tears during interviews, the "Wicked" press tour will life in infamy ... and it'll end up happening all over again for the second half of the movie, which hits theaters in November 2025.

Director Jon M. Chu has come a long way from sequels like "Step Up 2: The Streets" and "Step Up 3D" (with all due respect to the storied "Step Up" franchise). In 2016, Chu was chosen to helm a bigger sequel, "Now You See Me 2" — the magic heist movie that added Daniel Radcliffe to a cast that included Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, and Woody Harrelson — but his biggest film by far came two years later in 2018, when he adapted Kevin Kwan's hit novel "Crazy Rich Asians" for the big screen.

Not only did "Crazy Rich Asians" make huge strides in Hollywood by featuring a predominantly Asian cast — the first movie to do so since 1993's "The Joy Luck Club" — but it made a ton of money at the box office. Chu's film became the highest-grossing studio romantic comedy in a decade (at the time of its release) and the sixth highest-grossing movie across that entire genre, and when all was said and done, it earned a stunning $234 million at the worldwide box office based on a budget of just $30 million. After the film's outstanding box office performance, outlets like Deadline estimated that the movie's profit totaled $120 million.

Unfortunately for Chu, his next movie — and first Broadway adaptation — didn't fare as well as either "Crazy Rich Asians" or "Wicked." In 2021, Chu's take on Lin-Manuel Miranda's first Tony winner "In the Heights" hit theaters and Max simultaneously, and thanks to a large budget and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it wildly underperformed at the box office with an estimated gross of roughly $45 million. This doesn't seem like a fair metric for Chu, though, considering the worldwide pandemic and the film's immediate streaming release, so the lesson we can lean from "Wicked" is that when Chu directs an epic spectacle, it does well at the box office.

Everyone knows that all of the "good" prestige films come out starting around Thanksgiving, so the simple fact that "Wicked" took advantage of the fact that the major holiday falls so late in November by releasing one week prior certainly didn't hurt its box office chances. Movies released in this window usually qualify for major awards nominations, and while every major release calendar has two months that could easily be categorized as dumping grounds for lesser products — specifically, January and August — November is a really good month to put out a hit movie.

So what about that awards chatter? Frankly, a movie like "Wicked," with its excellent performances and massive spectacle, is basically tailor-made for multiple Golden Globe nominations; it actually seems pretty likely that Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande will end up competing against one another in the acting category for lead actress in a comedy or musical. The Oscars aren't out of the question either — Grande could potentially score a supporting actress nod for her unbelievably precise, lived-in, and sharp performance as Galinda, and it also seems quite possible that the movie could crack the best picture category. Not only did the November release of "Wicked" set it up for box office success — especially considering that more people may well see it during the Thanksgiving weekend — but it could mean that major nominations are imminent as well.

If "Barbie" — which is certainly a contemporary of "Wicked" at this point — had "Oppenheimer" as the yin to its yang when it hit theaters in the summer of 2023, "Wicked" shared a release weekend wuth a similarly testosterone-fueled movie: Ridley Scott's long-awaited sequel "Gladiator II." Let's get this out of the way: "Gladiator II" also performed really well at the box office, which is hardly a surprise (the first film won an Oscar for best picture and the sequel features newcomers to the franchise like Pedro Pascal, Paul Mescal, and Denzel Washington). 

Why is this relevant? Some people might have done a "Barbenheimer" style double feature, an idea dubbed "Glicked" on social media — but "Wicked" didn't have to compete directly against "Gladiator II." The audiences for these films are pretty radically different, and again, if there is any overlap, people interested in both buzzy projects very likely saw both movies during their joint opening weekend. Not having another film directed squarely at a female audience as direct competition was certainly a boon for "Wicked" — and the same is true, in reverse, for "Gladiator II" — and even though Glicked never really hit the heights reached by Barbenheimer, it still contributed to the success of "Wicked" in the end.

Even before it officially hit movie theaters, "Wicked" garnered pretty solid reviews, including from Looper's own Cynthia Vinney. As of this writing, the film has a healthy 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes — so even if it does fall going forward, it's still quite high — with a critical consensus that reads, "Defying gravity with its magical pairing of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, 'Wicked's' sheer bravura and charm make for an irresistible invitation to Oz." Reviews universally praise the film's world-building and scale, Erivo and Grande's captivating central performances, and the way the film captures the essence and feel of the original Broadway show; early reviews were similarly great too, even if the sample size was admittedly small.

The fact that "Wicked" is a critical and commercial darling should make Jon M. Chu and his cast and crew very proud, and it could be a good omen for "Wicked: Part 2," even though that movie won't release until November 21, 2025. "Wicked" is, without a doubt, one of the biggest — and perhaps best — movies released this year, so it's no surprise that it blew everyone away at the box office. You could even say it ... defied gravity.

"Wicked" is playing in theaters now.