Wicked: For Good Hits a Sour Note with Record-Low Box Office Debut

Wicked: For Good came out of the gate huge. Week two? Not so magical.

That post-Thanksgiving stumble, explained

According to the Reddit box office crowd tracking weekend drops, the sequel just logged a rare double whammy the weekend after Thanksgiving (which is typically softer than the holiday frame, but this is still rough):

• Down 72.9% weekend-to-weekend
• 10th-worst post-Thanksgiving drop of any movie on record
• Worst post-Thanksgiving drop ever for a title playing in over 2,000 theaters

To be fair, even with that slide the movie still pulled in over $60 million for the frame, which is hardly nothing. A big part of the plunge is likely just how front-loaded it was — tons of people ran out opening weekend — but it is a jarring look for a sequel that clearly wanted to leap past the original film’s strong returns.

So what does this mean for the franchise?

Probably not much in the long run. There is already talk of a third film, so nobody seems to be slamming the brakes. Jon M. Chu is back in the director’s chair, working from a screenplay by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox.

The returning cast is stacked: Ariana Grande as Galinda "Glinda" Upland, Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba Thropp, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero Tigelaar, Ethan Slater as Boq Woodsman, Marissa Bode as Nessarose Thropp, Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, and Jeff Goldblum as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

"The world gets heavier and more complicated."

That is Jonathan Bailey teasing the sequel’s darker tonal shift — which, honestly, tracks with where this story tends to go.

Where things stand right now

Wicked: For Good is in theaters now. It launched with a massive $226 million global debut and set multiple records for a film adaptation of a Broadway musical. The second-week crash is a gnarly stat for box-office nerds, but it does not change the fact that the movie is already a hit — just not the kind that floats down on a bubble forever.