The original Wicked (2024) earned a 95% Tomatometer score from critics and matched that with a 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the year’s most critically acclaimed and commercially beloved films. However, the story becomes more complex when examining the franchise’s sequel.
Wicked: For Good (2025/2026) saw critics lower their assessment to 74% on the Tomatometer—a notable 21-point drop—while audiences paradoxically pushed the film higher to 97%, suggesting a growing gap between professional film critics and everyday moviegoers.
This article explores both scores in detail, what drives the differences between critic and audience perspectives, and what these ratings tell us about the Wicked franchise’s reception and future.
- Table of Contents
- How Did Wicked (2024) Perform on Rotten Tomatoes?
- Understanding the Critic vs. Audience Score Divide in Wicked's Sequel
- The Sequel's Critical Reception and What Changed
- Why Audiences Rated the Sequel Higher Than Critics Did
- What These Rotten Tomatoes Scores Mean for Film Quality and Viewer Experience
- How Rotten Tomatoes Scores Influence Film Visibility and Box Office Performance
- The Future of the Wicked Franchise and Critical Reception
- Conclusion
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Table of Contents
- How Did Wicked (2024) Perform on Rotten Tomatoes?
- Understanding the Critic vs. Audience Score Divide in Wicked’s Sequel
- The Sequel’s Critical Reception and What Changed
- Why Audiences Rated the Sequel Higher Than Critics Did
- What These Rotten Tomatoes Scores Mean for Film Quality and Viewer Experience
- How Rotten Tomatoes Scores Influence Film Visibility and Box Office Performance
- The Future of the Wicked Franchise and Critical Reception
- Conclusion
How Did Wicked (2024) Perform on Rotten Tomatoes?
The original Wicked film achieved remarkable consensus on Rotten Tomatoes with a 95% critical score, a near-unanimous endorsement from professional reviewers. This elite rating placed it among the year’s most celebrated releases across all genres.
Critics praised the film’s ambition, musical execution, and ability to translate the beloved stage musical to cinema while expanding its scope with original cinematography and new sequences.
The 95% audience score matched this critical acclaim exactly, a relatively rare occurrence in modern filmmaking where audiences and critics often diverge.
For context, a 95% Tomatometer score represents consistent quality across dozens of reviews, with the vast majority of critics recommending the film. This isn’t a situation where a handful of glowing reviews inflated an average; it reflects broad agreement among industry critics.
The matching 95% audience score indicates that the film’s theatrical appeal translated equally well to paying customers who saw it in theaters, suggesting strong word-of-mouth and genuine entertainment value rather than critical hype disconnected from viewer satisfaction.
Understanding the Critic vs. Audience Score Divide in Wicked’s Sequel
The sequel’s performance reveals a fundamental difference in how professional critics and general audiences evaluate films. Wicked: For Good dropped to 74% on the Tomatometer, where critics raised concerns about narrative pacing, character development decisions, and whether the sequel justified its existence as a separate film rather than a concluding act.
Critics, evaluating the film within the context of cinema as an art form and comparing it to other recent sequels and musicals, applied stricter standards about storytelling cohesion and ambition.
However, if you’re an audience member who loved the first film and wants more of that experience regardless of critical concerns about originality, the 97% audience score likely matters more to your viewing decision. This 23-point gap between the 74% critical score and 97% audience score is substantial and unusual in modern film releases.
It suggests audiences weren’t bothered by narrative issues that critics flagged, or that fans of the franchise valued the continuation and emotional payoff highly enough to overlook structural problems.
The pattern also indicates that audiences may have assessed the film purely on entertainment value and fan satisfaction, while critics considered factors like whether the sequel advanced the story meaningfully or relied too heavily on franchise goodwill.
The Sequel’s Critical Reception and What Changed
When comparing Wicked: For Good’s critical performance to the original, the 21-point drop from 95% to 74% on the Tomatometer signals a meaningful shift in how reviewers perceived the film.
Critical reviews of the sequel focused on concerns that it extended story elements that might have worked better as a single narrative, or that it didn’t match the creative energy and surprise factor of the original.
Some critics noted that the novelty of adapting the Wicked stage musical to film was gone, and the sequel had to justify itself on narrative merit alone—a standard the film apparently didn’t consistently meet in professional eyes.
This critical decline is relatively common for sequels to musicals, where the first film carries the advantage of introducing audiences to adapted material and music for the first time. The sequel must either expand the story meaningfully or deliver such superior execution that it justifies its existence.
In Wicked: For Good’s case, critics believed the film leaned heavily on fan affection for the characters while not advancing their journey in sufficiently compelling ways. Despite these reservations, the film succeeded commercially and with audiences, suggesting that the critical concerns didn’t reflect widespread viewer disappointment.
Why Audiences Rated the Sequel Higher Than Critics Did
The 97% audience score for Wicked: For Good actually exceeds the original film’s 95%, a reversal that reflects how dedicated fans and general audiences approached the sequel differently than professional critics. Audiences appeared to embrace the continuation enthusiastically, rating it slightly higher than the first film despite critics viewing it as a step down.
This suggests that for many viewers, the extended time with beloved characters, the emotional payoff of storylines developed in the first film, and the spectacle of another major musical installment outweighed the narrative concerns that bothered critics.
This pattern reveals an important truth about franchise films: audiences often value different aspects than critics do. While critics evaluate whether a sequel justifies its existence on artistic merit, audiences frequently assess whether a sequel delivers more of what they enjoyed in the original and provides satisfying emotional or entertainment value.
The 97% audience score indicates that Wicked: For Good accomplished this goal successfully, delivering fan satisfaction even if it didn’t expand the story in ways critics deemed sufficiently innovative.
For potential viewers, this discrepancy matters—if you prioritize critical assessment of narrative structure, 74% suggests moderate quality, but if you value audience-verified entertainment and character continuation, 97% indicates strong fan satisfaction.
What These Rotten Tomatoes Scores Mean for Film Quality and Viewer Experience
A key limitation to understand about rotten Tomatoes scores is that the Tomatometer measures critical consensus, not film quality on a numerical scale.
A 74% Tomatometer for Wicked: For Good doesn’t mean the film is 74% “good”—it means that approximately 74% of professional critics gave it a favorable review, while the remaining 26% did not.
This system can be misleading because it treats all reviews equally regardless of intensity; a critic who thought the film was excellent and a critic who thought it was merely decent both contribute one favorable review each.
However, if X critics believe a film is unwatchable and X other critics believe it’s masterful, Rotten Tomatoes would show that as 50%, even though the range of opinions is extreme.
The audience score operates differently, representing an aggregate of individual user ratings on a 1-10 scale converted to a percentage. A 97% audience score means viewers collectively rated Wicked: For Good very highly on average, though individual ratings still vary.
Neither score tells you whether you personally will enjoy the film—they indicate overall reception. Someone who dislikes modern musicals in general might find the 97% irrelevant to their experience, while someone who adores the Wicked franchise might find even the 74% critical score doesn’t diminish their enthusiasm for the sequel.
How Rotten Tomatoes Scores Influence Film Visibility and Box Office Performance
Rotten Tomatoes scores carry measurable influence on film marketing and audience perception, affecting which films receive prominent theater placement and how studios promote upcoming releases.
A 95% critical score like the original Wicked received generates marketing materials that emphasize universal critical acclaim, attracts film critics who see it as a must-watch, and creates momentum for box office success.
Conversely, a 74% score is less immediately marketable, though studios can highlight the 97% audience score to counter critical reservations.
The sequel’s lower critical rating likely influenced some fence-sitting viewers to wait for streaming or video rental rather than committing to a theater ticket, though the strong audience score helped mitigate this effect. The practical impact on your viewing decision depends on your own priorities.
If Rotten Tomatoes scores significantly influence your entertainment choices, the original Wicked’s dual 95% scores offer near-guaranteed satisfaction, while Wicked: For Good presents a choice between following critic guidance (suggesting moderate quality with reservations) or audience enthusiasm (suggesting strong enjoyment and fan satisfaction).
Studios monitor these scores closely because they correlate with audience awareness and purchase intent—a critically acclaimed film like the original Wicked generates buzz that extends far beyond film criticism communities, whereas lower critical scores require stronger marketing efforts to overcome perception barriers.
The Future of the Wicked Franchise and Critical Reception
The divergence between critical and audience reception for Wicked: For Good raises questions about how the franchise will proceed if future installments are greenlit. If critics continue to lower their assessments while audiences remain enthusiastic, studios may increasingly rely on audience scores and fan sentiment rather than critical consensus when marketing the franchise.
Conversely, if future films manage to satisfy both critics and audiences—matching the original’s achievement of aligned high scores—it could signal that writers and directors have found a formula that balances fan expectations with critical standards for originality and narrative advancement.
The Wicked franchise currently sits in a position where commercial and audience success suggest ongoing demand for continuation, even as critical reception questions whether those continuations are justified artistically. This tension isn’t uncommon in contemporary filmmaking, where beloved franchises and adaptations can sustain audience interest independent of critical approval.
How the franchise ultimately develops will likely depend on whether future entries can narrow the gap between what critics want (narrative justification and innovation) and what audiences want (more time with beloved characters and worlds), or whether studios accept that this franchise operates in a space where those two audiences have fundamentally different priorities.
Conclusion
The Rotten Tomatoes scores for Wicked tell a story of initial universal acclaim followed by critical skepticism paired with intensifying audience enthusiasm. The original Wicked earned identical 95% scores from both critics and audiences, reflecting genuine quality and broad appeal.
The sequel, however, saw critics downgrade to 74% while audiences elevated to 97%, revealing a meaningful gap between professional assessment and fan satisfaction.
Understanding these scores requires recognizing that Rotten Tomatoes measures critical consensus and audience aggregate ratings rather than objective quality measures, and different viewers will weight these sources differently based on their own film criticism preferences.
If you’re deciding whether to watch either film, consider what matters to you: the original’s dual 95% scores suggest a rare film that satisfies both critics and general audiences, while the sequel’s divergent scores reflect a film that critics viewed as a narrative step down but audiences embraced enthusiastically.
Neither score negates the other—they simply reflect different perspectives on entertainment value. For fans of Wicked and musical theater, exploring both films and forming your own assessment will ultimately prove more valuable than relying solely on critical or audience scores.
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