Film Earns Record $70 Million in a Week

“Wicked” is “very very popular” — on the big screen, and now on video-on-demand. In a rare display of transparency for downstream revenues, Universal reported the big-budget musical has racked up $26 million in its first day and $70 million in its first week of digital release in the United States and Canada.

“Wicked” debuted on home entertainment on Dec. 31, for $30 to buy and $20 to rent the original or sing-along version of the film. According to the studio, the Broadway adaptation delivered the largest first day and initial week of sales for any Universal theatrical title. For comparison, the studio’s second-largest video-on-demand (VOD) launch was 2023’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” with $44 million from its first week of digital rentals and sales.

And Universal expects the Oz-related riches to grow: “Wicked” still has more than two months of exclusivity on home entertainment platforms before the song-and-dance extravaganza will be available on Peacock, the streaming service owned by its parent company, NBCUniversal. Then there’s “Wicked: For Good,” which chronicles the Broadway show’s second act and opens in theaters a year after the original, on Nov. 21.

“Wicked: Part One” has already generated $682 million at the worldwide box office since launching in cinemas on Nov. 22. Though box office reporting is commonplace, downstream revenues like premium VOD are either seldom made public — or done so in an aggressively spun manner.

Hollywood studios have conceded (after mass experimentation during the early days of COVID) that a theatrical release is vital for propelling a film into the zeitgeist, and thus boosting ancillary revenues like PVOD. Executives at Universal, for one, have publicly said they view premium video-on-demand as complementary to, not a replacement of, theatrical. To wit: “Wicked” brought in another $10 million domestically in its eighth weekend on the big screen despite being available to buy or rent at home. But digital platforms are appealing because media companies get to keep about 80% of online revenues compared to roughly 50% of box office returns. In the case of “Wicked,” the studio got to keep roughly 65% of box office ticket sales, according to knowledgable sources.

Universal has been the most aggressive of traditional film studios in experimenting with the theatrical window and finding ways to optimize a movie’s time on the big screen before offering it to home entertainment consumers. The studio broke industry precedent in March 2020 by deciding to release “Trolls World Tour” simultaneously on digital platforms and in cinemas (though none except drive-in venues were open at the time). After its first few weeks, at the height of COVID-related lockdown measures, Universal estimated that five million people rented “Trolls World Tour,” generating roughly $100 million in sales. Since then, Universal has settled on roughly 17 days of big screen exclusivity for smaller titles and after five weekends of release for tentpoles (75 to 90 days of theatrical exclusivity were customary prior to the pandemic) — with premium video-on-demand sales accounting for more than $1.5 billion to date. A quicker pivot to the small screen also allows the studio to save on marketing dollars.

Jon M. Chu directed the PG-rated “Wicked,” which stars Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh and Jonathan Bailey. Set before, during and after the events of “The Wizard of Oz,” the story tells the origins of Grande’s Galinda (later known as Glinda the Good) and Erivo’s Elphaba (eventually dubbed the Wicked Witch of the West) before Dorothy landed in Oz and sauntered down the Yellow Brick Road. It became the sixth-highest grossing movie of 2024 and biggest Broadway adaptation in box office history.