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Universal’s female Jurassic World movie, if you will, the feature take of the Broadway musical Wicked, is expected to pull in any every single woman to the tune of a $125 million-$150 million domestic opening this weekend. Add in an extra $40M-$50M from its overseas launch.
By every single woman we mean in the U.S., where pre-sales are through the roof; we’re hearing that they’re around $30M+. The movie is already holding previews, last night and Wednesday in premium theaters via an Amazon promotion, with regularly scheduled early screenings starting Thursday at 2 p.m. Last night’s preview was strong enough business-wise to land Wicked a 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Meanwhile, Paramount’s Gladiator II touches stateside with a $60M+ opening forecast, which will be the biggest start for an R-rated movie in November, and best ever three-day total for filmmaker Ridley Scott and star Denzel Washington. The ancient Rome sequel crossed the century mark at the overseas box office today after an $87M foreign bow.
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Meanwhile, Wicked will earn the best box office openings for director Jon M. Chu and stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
Glicked is about to take effect at the box office. If anything, with Moana 2 coming on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the holiday stretch from this Friday through the Sunday after Black Friday is expected to be the highest-grossing ever at the domestic box office for all films.
“There’s a little bit of a Barbie moment going on with Wicked in terms of pre-sales,” one industry insider commented this morning. “They just keep going up and up with tracking numbers through the roof.” Quorum reports that Wicked ranks as the firm’s most highest-tracked title in its post-Covid run with 70% total awareness.
While it was clear women were heading to Barbie and It Ends With Us leading up to their openings, what we saw was that it was more of turnout than ever imagined. As such, don’t be shocked if there’s repeat viewership this weekend for Wicked.
Here in the states, Wicked will have more PLFs, while Gladiator II will have more Imax. Wicked is booked at 3,800 theaters, while Gladiator II is booked at 3,500. Gladiator II isn’t all male; there are some women who will want to go watch Washington. As one tracking authority told us about both titles’ crossover audiences, Wicked will pull in less men, while Gladiator II will pull in more women.
The only preview shows Gladiator II has held stateside before its 5 p.m. Thursday previews is a “Screen Unseen” sneak of the movie in 200 locations.
Wicked will hit 61 overseas markets this weekend, beginning notably with Korea on Wednesday; followed by Australia, Brazil, Italy and Mexico on Thursday; and with Spain and the UK joining Friday. This will represent 65% of the offshore footprint — such majors easing on down the Yellow Brick Road later include France on December 4, China on December 6, Germany on December 12 and Japan on March 7, 2025.
While Universal has been building Wicked awareness with a strong global campaign with spots during the Super Bowl and Summer Olympics, this is a property that doesn’t come with built-in awareness in certain areas of the globe.
If we look at comps, Wonka opened to $45.7M in like-for-like markets at today’s rates, though it debuted into a holiday frame and generally is a better known IP given previous iterations of the Roald Dahl source material. Another musical, The Greatest Showman, did $18.5M at open back in 2018, then saw terrific leg-out. The hope with Wicked, which as noted above still has significant hubs to come, is that it also sees play-through.
The top performers this session are expected to be a mix of the UK, Australia, and possibly Korea, whose audiences lean into musicals.
In terms of the sophomore session of Paramount’s Gladiator II, there may indeed be a battle for No. 1 with Wicked at the international box office. Gladiator II is adding China this frame and could see a pendulum swing with older audiences coming out for the second weekend. Essentially, which film ends up tops overseas will vary market by market. But, as much as some chatter wants this to be the next Barbeheimer, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards. The hope, we understand, in regards to the sequel’s second weekend overseas take is a -50% ease off its $87M foreign start, or $43.5M.
RELATED: Jeff Goldblum On Expected Impact Of ‘Glicked’ At Box Office: “Nobody’s In Competition”