Wicked made a successful debut at the top of the Hollywood box office this weekend. The musical grossed $114 million from 3,888 theaters over the weekend. The ticket sales are equivalent to Rp1.81 trillion, making the popular Broadway adaptation the third-biggest domestic debut of 2024.
The previous two positions were held by Deadpool & Wolverine with US$211 million and Inside Out with US$154 million. However, the figure makes Wicked the highest debut among Broadway adaptations, beating Into the Woods ($31 million) when it was released in 2014.
Meanwhile, the debut made Wicked one of the biggest musical films of all time, beating out The Little Mermaid ($95.5 million), although it was still beaten by Frozen II ($130 million). As reported by Variety on Tuesday November 26, 2024, the film Gladiator II, which was also just released in the US, was ranked second with US$55.5 million in 3,573 cinemas over the weekend.
However, there is no certainty whether Wicked and Gladiator II will support each other like the Barbenheimer phenomenon in 2023 which managed to attract tens of thousands of cinema audiences to watch the films back to back. However, this weekend is predicted to be one of the biggest weekends of 2024 with a total revenue of around US$210 million.
While Wicked remains popular, its box office success is considered a cinematic anomaly as a musical adaptation has not been seen on screen for over a decade. The last release of a musical adaptation was Les Miserables in 2012 which grossed US$442 million globally, while Into the Woods in 2014 grossed US$212 million globally.
Some recent ones include Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story, Chu's In the Heights, Dear Evan Hansen, Cats, and The Color Purple, which were less successful due to various factors despite being adaptations of popular productions. Wicked is directed by Jon M. Chu and stars Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. Wicked is already showing in cinemas throughout Indonesia.
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