The domestic box office is poised for its biggest Thanksgiving haul since the pandemic thanks to a Polynesian princess, a pair of witches and a revenge-fueled gladiator.<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s\u00a0\u201cMoana 2\u201d is set to hit theaters Wednesday and generate between $120 million and $150 million in box office receipts in the U.S. and Canada through Sunday. It\u2019ll be joined by\u00a0Universal\u2019s\u00a0\u201cWicked\u201d and\u00a0Paramount\u2019s\u00a0\u201cGladiator II,\u201d\u00a0both in their second week of domestic screenings.<\/p>\n
Box-office analysts believe the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, which runs from Wednesday to Sunday, should easily clear $200 million in ticket sales and could even become the second- or third-highest Thanksgiving period in cinematic history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trifecta of \u2018Moana 2,\u2019 \u2018Wicked,\u2019 and \u2018Gladiator II\u2019 is a bona fide perfect storm for movie theaters this Thanksgiving,\u201d said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe holiday used to regularly see major releases combining for all-audience appeal, but that\u2019s been a challenge for the industry to replicate in the post-pandemic era so far,\u201d he said. \u201cThis year is much different with such a holy trinity of tentpole releases that could anchor some of the biggest all-around box office results the holiday frame has ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Thanksgiving holiday haul hasn\u2019t topped $200 million since 2019, according to data from Comscore. Currently, the highest-grossing Thanksgiving weekend is 2018\u2032s slate, led by \u201cRalph Breaks the Internet,\u201d \u201cCreed II\u201d and \u201cFantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,\u201d which generated $315 million in ticket sales combined. The second-highest haul for the holiday period was the $294.2 million secured during the same five-day period in 2013.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanksgiving is arguably the most important holiday period of the year for movie theaters as it sets the tone for the year-end box office sprint,\u201d said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. \u201cThe strength of the final few weeks of the year will determine the total annual box office revenue and its perception as either a win or a loss for the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disney could use another animation win.<\/p>\n
After\u00a0ruling the Thanksgiving box office\u00a0for years with titles from Pixar and Disney Animation, it\u2019s failed to live up to expectations with its recent string of releases.<\/p>\n
In 2016, \u201cMoana\u201d opened over the Thanksgiving holiday, generating $82.1 million. The following year \u201cCoco\u201d took in $72.9 million during its opening, and in 2018 \u201cRalph Breaks the Internet\u201d tallied $84.8 million during its debut over the five-day period. Just before the pandemic in 2019, \u201cFrozen II\u201d added $125 million over the Thanksgiving holiday after opening the week before to more than $130 million.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, \u201cEncanto,\u201d which arrived during the midst of the pandemic, managed to tally $40.6 million in 2021. \u201cStrange World\u201d flopped, having scooped up just $18.9 million during the holiday period in 2022, and \u201cWish\u201d snared a meager $31.6 million in 2023. No Disney animated film was released over Thanksgiving in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoana 2\u201d should outperform these post-pandemic releases, however. It arrives in theaters a year after the first film was named the top-streamed film aimed at kids and families. And audiences came out in droves for Disney and Pixar\u2019s \u201cInside Out 2\u2033 over the summer. \u201cInside Out 2\u201d opened to $154.2 million domestically and tallied more than $1 billion globally during its full run.<\/p>\n
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, CNBC and Fandango. NBCUniversal distributed \u201cWicked.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The domestic box office is poised for its biggest Thanksgiving haul since the pandemic thanks to a Polynesian princess, a pair of witches and a revenge-fueled gladiator. Disney\u2019s\u00a0\u201cMoana 2\u201d is set to hit theaters Wednesday and generate between $120 million and $150 million in box office receipts in the U.S. and Canada through Sunday. It\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}