Broadway musicals adapted to the screen are an erratic genre at the box office, despite Miramax’s multi-Oscar winning Chicago reviving the long-dormant Hollywood genre back in 2002 with $306.8M WW. Yet for every Les Miserables ($442.7M) hit from Universal, there were massive misfires like Dear Evan Hansen and Cats. This weekend, Universal defied the odds with their feature take of the $5 billion-grossing Broadway stage show Wicked, opening to $114M domestic, $164.2M worldwide.
Here’s all the records that Wicked broke in its opening weekend:
Biggest Global and Domestic Opening for a Movie Based on a Broadway Show, beating the worldwide opening of 2012’s Les Miserables ($103M) and the domestic opening of Disney’s 2014 Into the Woods ($31M).
Biggest Global and Domestic Opening for Ariana Grande ever, Wicked being her first feature tentpole debut. And therefore arguably…
Biggest Domestic Opening for a Pop Star, with Wicked besting the first films sold around the likeness of such performing artists as Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born at $42.5M), Harry Styles (Don’t Worry Darling at $19.3M), Britney Spears (Crossroads at $14.5M), Taylor Swift (Cats at $6.6M), Madonna (Desperately Seeking Susan at $1.5M), and the entire domestic gross of Michael Jackson’s The Wiz ($21M unadjusted for inflation).
Biggest Global and Domestic Opening Ever for Cynthia Erivo, besting the $12M stateside start of 2018’s Widows.
Biggest Global and Domestic Opening Ever for filmmaker Jon M. Chu, mowing down the $40.5M domestic start of his 2013 Dwyane Johnson, Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and the $132M worldwide start of that Hasbro/Paramount movie.
Biggest Domestic Opening for Producer Marc Platt, besting 2023’s The Little Mermaid‘s $95.5M, however, it’s…
2nd Biggest Global Opening for Producer Marc Platt, behind the 2019 live-action take of Disney’s Aladdin at $213M.
Biggest Global Opening for a non-sequel film for 2024, besting China’s Yolo which opened to $112M over Chinese New Year as well as MPAA title, It Ends With Us, which posted an $80M global first frame.
Biggest Opening Ever for a Musical Feature by Stephen Schwartz, besting Enchanted‘s domestic opening of $34.4M.
Biggest Domestic Previews for a Movie Based on Broadway Musical at $19.2M.
Biggest First Day for a Movie Based on a Broadway Musical at $46.4M, besting the first day/preview haul of Les Miserables ($18.1M) and The Color Purple ($18.1M).
2nd biggest domestic opening for a musical feature in November, behind 2019’s Frozen II‘s $130.2M.
5th biggest domestic opening for a musical feature ever, behind 2019’s The Lion King ($191.7M), 2017’s Beauty and the Beast ($174.7M), 2023’s Barbie ($162M — it did have people singing and plenty of show-stopping numbers!) and 2019’s Frozen ($130.2M).
6th biggest opening at the Global Box Office for a Musical Feature behind 2019’s The Lion King ($446M), 2017’s Beauty and the Beast ($358M), Frozen 2 ($358M), Barbie ($356.3M) and 2019’s Aladdin ($213M).
10th biggest domestic opening for November, in a list that’s topped by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($181.3M).
3rd Biggest Opening Weekend at Domestic Box Office for 2024 at the time of this post, behind Deadpool & Wolverine ($211.4M) and Inside Out 2 ($154.2M) and ahead of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ($111M).