The highest grossing Broadway musical movie, Wicked, minted a great first seven days on PVOD with $70M, Universal reports. This is after the Jon M. Chu directed, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande movie landed in homes on Dec. 31.
In the first day alone, Wicked yielded $26M in Premium EST and Premium VOD sales.
That amount ranks as the biggest Day 1 and first week that Universal has had for any theatrical title with a premium release to date — 2X Universal’s next largest Day 1 for a theatrically released title, which was Illumination/Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros Movie.
Universal’s largest first week on PVOD for a theatrical release prior to Wicked made $44M, and Wicked still has 2.5 months with an exclusive premium home entertainment window before it goes to NBCUniversal’s SVOD service Peacock. The studio expects a considerable amount of additional sales from this point forward.
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Wicked was on a 40-day theatrical window before hitting PVOD.
Universal releases its larger tentpole titles in the home after their fifth theatrical weekend, which in the case of Wicked would have meant Tuesday, December 24. The studio decided to hold the film back another week and turn Wicked into a New Years Eve event for families. The studio generated solid word of mouth for the PVOD release after its Dec. 26 announcement via social, digital, and TV promotion including a Rose Bowl parade float.
In the weekend following its release on PVOD, Wicked eased -50% at the domestic weekend box office with a $9.98M take. The Golden Globe winning movie currently counts $453 million at the domestic box office, and $686 million worldwide.
Beginning in 2020, Universal Filmed Entertainment Group (UFEG) set an industry precedence in formalizing a PVOD window for consumers to watch first-run movies in the home. Since then, PVOD has become an integral component of UFEG releases—inclusive of movies from Universal Pictures, Focus Features and DreamWorks Animation—and has accounted for more than $1.5 billion in consumer spend to date.
Universal is offering Wicked to consumers in the home at a $30 price point for Premium EST (digital ownership) and $20 for PVOD (digital rental), which includes the original film and the Sing-along versions.
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