Box Office: 'Wicked' Defies Both Gravity And 'Moana 2' With $118M Thanksgiving

The Cynthia Erivos and Ariana Grande-starring fantasy has topped $260 million domestically, will soon pass 'Sing' the biggest non-Disney musical in North America

If Universal’s Wicked Part One were opening this weekend with $80 million over the Fri-Sun frame of a $117.5 million Wed-Sun holiday haul, that by itself would be a record-breaker for Thanksgiving. And yet, not only did Wicked Part One nab an $80 million Fri-Sun/$118 million Wed-Sun haul over the holiday, it did so in its *second* weekend while Moana 2 was concurrently earning a $135.5 million/$221 million debut frame. Again, this would have been spectacular in pre-COVID or pre-streaming times. Four years ago, The Croods: A New Age was the top movie of the holiday, making up $14 million of a $20 million Wed-Sun cumulative domestic box office total. Today we’re looking at a Wed-Sun gross of around $420 million just in North America.

The conversation about whether movie theatres can thrive is definitively over. It should have been in early 2021 after Godzilla Vs. Kong and A Quiet Place Part II, but I digress. Audiences are now willing to show up as often as there is something suitably “event film”-ish in the marketplace. If two must-see family-skewing musical fantasies are opening within days of each other, the more, the merrier. So, Wicked Part One earned $80 million in its second Fri-Sun weekend, dropping just 28.8% from its $112.5 million opening weekend. That’s the first or second smallest second-weekend drop ever for a $100 million-plus opener, pending the final figures, alongside the 28.9% drop for Top Gun: Maverick ($90 million from a $126 million Fri-Sun/$162 million Fri-Mon Memorial Day weekend opening in 2022).