Weekend predictions: Wicked on target for the best opening of 2025

From an earnings perspective, Wicked: For Good’s competition this weekend doesn’t come from other movies opening this weekend, but from Wicked: Part One, and from all the other movies that have arrived in theaters in 2025. It will easily beat Wicked’s $112.5-million debut this time last year, but the real question is whether it can top A Minecraft Movie’s $162.8 million to claim the crown as having the biggest weekend of the year. Right now, that’s looking like a good bet, but not a certainty…

Here’s our baseline for Wicked: For Good, before we got preview numbers:

Tracking for this movie has been consistently strong for months, and our prediction has been steadily increasing leading up to its release. $163 million would be a spectacular opening for a musical. In fact, it would be the second-best opening for a musical ever, behind only Beauty and the Beast’s $174.8 million back in March 2017.

Wicked 2’s preview numbers confirm a gigantic weekend…

Wicked: Part One racked up $8.2 million from special screenings ahead of its release, and Wicked: For Good has beaten those numbers from 41%. For Good’s Thursday previews are 65% better than Part One. If we assume a similar ratio between Thursday previews and the final weekend number this time around, and add in the special screening figures, we get an opening weekend around $180 million.

Factoring in the pre-release prediction brings our final prediction down to $176.2 million. That would make Wicked: For Good both the biggest opener of 2025, and also give it the biggest opening for a musical.

That, however, will depend on good legs through the weekend. Sequels tend to be more front-loaded than their predecessors, and that might weigh on Wicked’s numbers a little over the weekend. $150 million looks like a very good bet, which would be a gigantic success however one looks at it.

Wicked isn’t quite the only game in town this weekend. SISU: Road to Revenge will be looking to offer some counter-programming…

Preview numbers are about in line with expectations…

A top five finish is the goal for SISU 2.

Here’s what the model thinks the top 10 will look like.

This weekend is all about Wicked: For Good. With very little competition, it will win the weekend by a mile. This weekend last year was won easily by the original Wicked, of course, but the market as a whole was greatly helped by an additional $55 million from Gladiator II on its second weekend. Without that kind of help from the second-place movie, this weekend in 2025 might actually come a little behind 2024, even while Wicked: For Good sets records.

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com