‘Wicked: For Good’ rules UK-Ireland box office with £17.8m for biggest opening since ‘Barbie’

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Wicked: For Good conjured up a tremendous £17.8m three-day opening at the UK-Ireland box office – the biggest opening weekend since the £18.5m of Barbie in July 2023.

Opening in 741 locations, the film took a huge £24,121 location average. It has £18.9m including previews from Thursday, November 20.

The For Good opening is 30% up on the start of Wicked from November last year, at an already-impressive £13.7m.

The film brought in more than £5.5m on each day of the weekend, with £5.5m on Friday – the biggest opening day ever for a live-action musical; £6.6m on Saturday – the biggest opening Saturday of the year; and £5.7m on Sunday.

Other records included the biggest opening ever for a stage musical adaptation, the biggest three-day November opening of all-time, and Universal’s second-biggest three-day opening of all time in the territory, behind only 2021’s No Time To Die (£21m).

It brought in 6% of its takings through Imax – ahead of the Wicked figure, and making For Good the first PG film to open over £1m in the territory.

Looking ahead, for films that opened in a similar range, Barbie ended on a huge £95.7m, which may be beyond For Good as a sequel. More achievable targets may be Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (opened: £18.3m; closed: £52.6m) and Avengers: The Age Of Ultron (opened: £18.3m; closed: £48.3m).

Wicked: For Good dominated the chart with a huge 80% of the total box office. It took more than 15 times the second-ranked film – Lionsgate’s magic thriller Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. That title posted an admirable hold in the face of Wicked -mania, dropping 45% with £1.1m, and is up to £4.9m. It should overtake the £6.4m of 2016’s Now You See Me 2 before the end of its run; but the £11.2m of Now You See Me will likely be beyond it.

Edgar Wright’s The Running Man fell 61% across its second weekend for Paramount, with £655,000 taking it to £3.8m total.

Nuremberg starring Russell Crowe added £490,466 on its second session for Sky Cinema, distributed by Studiocanal. This drop of 43% brought the film just beyond the £2m mark.

Disney made it five different distributors in the top five, with Predator: Badlands adding £375,131 – a 59% fall across its third weekend which brought it beyond the £5m mark.

Takings for the top five shot up a massive 225%, inspired by Wicked: For Good; although are still down 14% on the equivalent weekend from last year, when the first Wicked had Gladiator II and Paddington In Peru for company. Exhibitors will need For Good to balance with Disney’s Zootropolis 2 from November 28 to achieve similar results.

More to follow.

• Wicked: For Good soars to $226m at global box office including $76m international bow