Cynthia Erivo recently appeared on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ to discuss the massive box office success of ‘Wicked.’
According to Box Office Mojo, the film adaptation of the Broadway musical became the 33rd highest-grossing live-action movie in history, earning $432 million in the United States. Erivo hadn’t even thought about the potential success when she joined the project, though.
Reflecting on this, she told Barrymore, “It’s insane. I don’t think I’ve really processed it yet. Because you know what? When you’re just like, ‘I wanted to do this,’ it didn’t matter if it did that. I just wanted to be a part of this piece. I knew how special it was. And so for all this to come from it, I keep saying, it’s like being right within a dream.”
By December 2024, ‘Wicked’ had surpassed 2008’s ‘Mamma Mia!’ to become the highest-grossing musical film adaptation and Universal’s highest-grossing musical film ever. It had made $681.3 million globally as of January 2025.
Erivo said she hadn’t expected the movie to perform this well but always felt it was special. At the Red Sea International Film Festival last month, her comments read, “I was aware of how special it was, and I was a fan at the beginning as well. So, to see it translate this way onto film is a really wonderful experience to watch happen because sometimes the adaptations don’t necessarily work when you take something off stage to screen, but to watch it happen in this way, to watch people really connect with it is really special.”
The first part of ‘Wicked’ continues to earn nominations in this year’s awards season, including best actress and best director at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards and Satellite Awards. Meanwhile, the sequel, ‘Wicked: For Good,’ waits for release on November 21, 2025.
