The remarkable box office success of “Wicked” has spilled over into its first week of release on premium on-demand (PVOD), as Universal announced on Thursday that Jon M. Chu’s musical has earned a studio record $70 million from its first week on home platforms.
Released on New Year’s Eve for $20 to rent and $30 to own, “Wicked” earned $26 million in just its first 24 hours of availability. It then blew past the previous first week PVOD studio record of $44 million set by “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in 2023.
Universal’s current PVOD release model was created in 2020 as part of an agreement made with AMC and other top theater chains following the studio’s decision to release “Trolls: World Tour” on home platforms as theaters closed during the pandemic.
The agreement gives Universal the option to release a film on PVOD 17 days after theatrical release or 31 days if the film has a domestic opening weekend greater than $50 million. Universal says that the model has led to $1.5 billion in PVOD sales since it was launched.
With rare exceptions like “Oppenheimer,” which got a full 100-day theatrical exclusivity window as part of a deal made between the studio and director Christopher Nolan, Universal has typically released its tentpole films on PVOD after that 31-day mark, or after five weekends in theaters. Looking to take advantage of the film’s long legs, Universal delayed the “Wicked” PVOD release to after the extended Christmas weekend, releasing a special sing-along version in theaters on Dec. 25.
How to handle theatrical windowing in the years after the COVID-19 shutdown has been a topic of considerable debate in the film industry, and every studio has formulated a different approach. Insiders at Universal have told TheWrap that their data has found that customers who see their films on PVOD tend not to go to movie theaters or go very infrequently, and see their windowing strategy as a way to account for the wide variety of viewing habits that have arisen in the wake of the pandemic even as the studio markets all its films with the big screen in mind.
“We’re meeting the consumer where they are and with a lot of flexibility, giving them different ways to engage with our content,” NBCUniversal chairman Donna Langley said at the UCLA Law Entertainment Symposium last year.
Meanwhile, “Wicked” continues its run in theaters, where it is expected to cross $700 million in worldwide grosses in its eighth weekend. Fueled by strong critical and audience buzz, the star power of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, and a marketing campaign rivaled only by “Barbie” among recent Hollywood films, “Wicked” has become the highest grossing adaptation of a Broadway musical with $686 million grossed and counting.
With such momentum, there’s little reason to believe that Universal and Jon M. Chu’s decision to break up the story of the Wicked Witch into two films, one for each act of the original musical, won’t pay off again next winter when “Wicked: For Good” is released November 21.
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