‘Wicked’ Thumps ‘Gladiator 2’ at Box Office With Record-Breaking $114 Million Opening

Wicked was unstoppable during its opening weekend.

The Broadway musical adaptation soared to the top of the box office charts, garnering $114 million in North America and $50.2 million internationally, for a total of $164.2 million, per Variety.

That marks the biggest opening for a film based on a Broadway musical, surpassing 2012’s Les Miserables, which earned $103 million during its first weekend. It also marks the third-biggest domestic debut of the year, after Deadpool & Wolverine, which amassed $211 million, and Inside Out 2, which collected $154 million.

Wicked outperformed Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, which launched with $55.5 million domestically and $50.5 million internationally. The much-hyped box office faceoff was dubbed “Glicked,” a followup to last year’s juggernaut "Barbenheimer," when Barbie and Oppenheimer were released on the same day.

Wicked's huge debut comes after a massive, months-long marketing push that drew comparisons to Warner Bros.' huge promotional undertaking of Barbie last year. The film's stars, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, have been everywhere of late, sparking a number of memes that have gone viral online.

The film is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, which doubles as the origin stories for Erivo’s Elphaba, who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, and Grande’s Glinda, later known as Glinda the Good.