A big success for Wicked: the musical with Ariana Grande is already breaking pre-sales records

While John Chu's film will only be released on December 4 in France, the signals are green in the United States, predicting great success for the adaptation of the famous musical.

“The road leading to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow bricks. You won't be able to miss it“, said the Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Yellow like gold!

The release of Wicked part 1 is slowly looming – November 22 in the US, and December 4 in France -, but some indicators already suggest that the film John Chu could bewitch the American box office. The feature film adapted from the musical of the same name recorded staggering ticket pre-sales yesterday. In terms of tickets pre-sold on the first day, the film climbs directly into the top 2 of the year, reveals Deadlinejust behind Deadpool & Wolverine. It even breaks a record since it is the best rate of pre-reservations for a PG film (with parental consent desirable) in 2024.

Knowing that Deadpool 3 had accumulated 96.1 million dollars in revenue on the first day of its release and raked in 211.4 million dollars for its first weekend, everything suggests that Wicked will make a huge start.

To the detriment of its competitors? Scheduled for the same day as Gladiator 2 and a few days before the release of Moana 2you'd think there would be blood on Hollywood Boulevard in early December. But industry professionals prefer to focus on a new Barbenheimer effect (Wickediator? Paul Mescal prefers Glicked, but the debates are still open).

A new Barbenheimer between Gladiator 2 and Wicked would be “incredible” according to Paul Mescal

As a reminder, Wickedthe first part of which will be released on November 22 (and its sequel at Christmas 2025), is the cinema adaptation of one of the biggest hits in the history of musicals. A prequel to Wizard of Oz which tells of the youth of the “Wicked Witch of the West” Elphaba before she became a real villain. The plot revolves around his family, his youth and his friendship with Glinda, before they were enemies, long before Dorothy arrived. The music and lyrics are by Stephen Schwartz, one of the great names of Broadway. Jon M. Chu directs and he brought together Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey and Jeff Goldblum for the occasion.