Topline
“Wicked: For Good” earned $30.8 million in preview screenings ahead of its official opening in theaters Friday, the biggest preview haul of 2025 and more than $10 million more than what the first “Wicked” film made in previews last year—despite “For Good” having weaker reviews.
“Wicked: For Good” could surpass the opening weekend gross of “A Minecraft Movie.” (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images)
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Key Facts
“Wicked: For Good” earned $30.8 million between Thursday showings and several early screenings held earlier in the week, including Monday showtimes for Amazon Prime members and Wednesday advance screenings.
The movie grossed $18.2 million on Thursday alone, and about $6 million each on Monday and Wednesday, Deadline reported.
“Wicked: For Good” surpassed the preview hauls of a pair of superhero movies, “Superman” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” which made $22.5 million and $24.4 million in previews earlier this year, respectively.
The new “Wicked” movie outperformed part one, which made $19.2 million in preview screenings in November 2024.
“Wicked: For Good” is on track to surpass the opening weekend gross of its predecessor, with Variety projecting an opening between $150 million and $180 million and Deadline more conservatively projecting between $125 million and $150 million or more, still higher than the $112.5 million the original film grossed last year.
It could also unseat “A Minecraft Movie,” which made $163 million in its opening weekend and still stands as the highest-grossing movie of 2025 stateside, for the biggest opening weekend of 2025 if its weekend tally comes in at the higher end of projections.
How Do Critics Feel About “wicked: For Good?”
Critics gave the “Wicked” sequel mostly positive reviews, but its critics scores lag noticeably behind the first movie. “Wicked: For Good” has a decent 70% score on Rotten Tomatoes, behind the 88% score “Wicked” earned last year. Though a few critics found the second movie better than the first, many critics felt “Wicked: For Good” was not as good as part one and questioned whether the film adaptation of the Broadway hit needed to be split into two films, which total about five hours in combined runtime. IndieWire critic Kate Erbland called the film duology a “needlessly two-part adaptation” of the Broadway show, noting the Broadway production is a much shorter 2 hours, 45 minutes including a brief intermission. Rolling Stone critic David Fear said the movie just serves to “tie up loose ends” and lamented that it lacks many of the story’s emotional peaks, like “Defying Gravity,” which concludes the first act of the Broadway production and the first film.
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/11/21/wicked-for-good-earns-huge-308-million-in-previews-best-of-2025-flies-past-wicked-part-one/
