Christmas came early this year at the box office.
“Moana 2” brought in a tidal wave of moviegoers over the Thanksgiving weekend, setting records with $221 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates on Sunday. That, combined with “Wicked” and “Gladiator II”, made for an unprecedented weekend in theaters and a set of hits more akin to what often happens in late December.
Expectations were high for Walt Disney Co. “Moana 2,” but the movie — which was originally planned as a Disney+ series before being diverted to the big screen — blew predictions out of the water. Its five-day opening set a new record for Thanksgiving movies. (The previous best was $125 million for “Frozen 2” in its second week in 2019.) “Moana 2” earned $165.3 million internationally; with $386 million worldwide, it’s the second-best global launch of the year.
Simultaneously, sensation “Wicked” he showed no signs of slowing down. The Universal The movie musical brought in $117.5 million over the five-day weekend, pushing its two-week global total to $359.2 million. Excluding inflation, “Wicked” is now the top-grossing Broadway adaptation behind “Grease.” (That 1978 film grossed $190 million, but when adjusted for inflation, that would put it in excess of $900 million.)
Meanwhile, “Gladiator II” also held up well, dropping 44% from its opening weekend. Ridley Scott’s sequel to his Best Picture Oscar-winning original grossed $44 million in its second weekend. Although its high price tag of $250 million will make profitability challenging, “Gladiator II” quickly collected $320 million worldwide.
Those three films brought the box office total to a record $420 million in total Thanksgiving ticket sales, according to Comscore — more than $100 million more than ever before. For an industry battered in recent years by the pandemic, outages and upheaval caused by streaming, it was a triumphant weekend that showed the still-powerful power of the Hollywood blockbuster. Before “Wicked,” “Moana 2” and “Gladiator II” hit theaters, ticket sales were about 25% below pre-pandemic levels.
Michael O’Leary, president and CEO of the National Association of Movie Theater Owners, said the weekend showed what’s possible when “all the pieces of the puzzle come together” in compelling big-budget movies with marketing muscle.
“We’re very optimistic that this weekend is the start of what we believe is a full charge into the future,” he said. “The remaining quarter of this year looks very promising, and then into 2025 and 2026. Hopefully next year will be the first normal year this industry has had in a long time.”
Just like the last time such highly anticipated films collided in the release calendar — 2023 is highly hyped “Barbenheimer” — the film industry could once again see evidence of the rising tide of movie viewing that lifts all blockbusters. In recent years, studios have mostly tried to space out most of their biggest releases. Earlier this fall, for example, there was “Venom: The Last Dance.” #1 movie for three weeks in a rowdespite not being particularly successful.
“For a long, long time there was a belief in Hollywood that the big blockbuster movies didn’t compete with each other,” O’Leary said. “But the truth is that competition is good. It’s good for movies. It’s good for studies. That’s good for theater owners. But it’s especially good for movie audiences.”
“Moana 2” was the nexus of a change in strategy for Disney. When it first started developing, it was designed as a streaming series. But when Bob Iger returned as CEO, he reconsidered the balance between theaters and streaming. After all, the original “Moana” was the most-watched movie on Disney+ in 2023, with the added benefit of $680 million at the box office in 2016. It wasn’t until February of this year that Iger announced the release of “Moana 2” with Auli ‘i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson returning as the voices of Moana and Maui.
“It just goes to show you that the big screen and the small screen are not opposed. They can be complementary and additive,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “Whoever made that decision to bring ‘Moana 2’ to the big screen, it was one of the biggest decisions ever.”
And it’s helped a rebound for Walt Disney Co., whose last two November animated releases — “Strange World” and “Wish” — flopped in theaters. “Moana 2” could become the studio’s third film to gross $1 billion in 2024, joining “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Although “Moana 2″ was only 65% ”fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences gave it an “A-” CinemaScore.
“Moana 2” is also part of a major resurgence in family moviegoing. According to David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes the Franchise Entertainment newsletter, family moviegoing will account for roughly $6.8 billion in ticket sales in 2024, about the same as in 2022 and 2023 combined.
After such big debuts, “Moana 2” and “Wicked” will likely continue to drive movie ratings through December. The only question will be whether this year’s Christmas movies – historically a much bigger holiday season for movie theaters – can come close to matching the Thanksgiving lineup. Among the films targeting that holiday corridor are Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” and Searchlight’s “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet as a young Bob Dylan.
The final domestic figures will be released on Monday. Estimated Friday-Sunday ticket sales in US and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
1. “Moana 2,” $135 million.
2. “Wicked,” $80 million.
3. “Gladiator II” $30.7 million.
4. “Red One,” $12.9 million.
5. “The Best Christmas Choice Ever,” $3.3 million.
6. “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin,” $2.4 million.
7. “Venom: The Last Dance,” $2.2 million.
8. “The Heretic,” $956,797.
9. “The Wild Robot,” $670,000.
10. “A Real Pain,” $665,000.
