Expectations were high for Walt Disney Co.’s “Moana 2,” but the film blew predictions out of the water.
NEW YORK — Christmas came early at the box office this year.
“Moana 2” made a big splash at the box office over the Thanksgiving weekend, shattering records with $221 million in ticket sales, as reported by the studio on Sunday.
The movie, along with “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” created a remarkable weekend for cinemas, featuring a lineup of blockbusters usually seen towards the end of December.
The expectations for Walt Disney Co.’s “Moana 2” were exceeded significantly, with the film surpassing all predictions. Its five-day debut marked a new Thanksgiving box office record, beating the previous record of $125 million set by “Frozen 2” in its second week of release in 2019. Globally, “Moana 2” earned an additional $165.3 million.
At the same time, the sensation of “Wicked” showed no signs of slowing down. The Universal Pictures musical brought in $117.5 million over the five-day weekend, pushing its two-week global total to $359.2 million. Not accounting for inflation, “Wicked” is now the highest grossing Broadway adaptation over “Grease.” (That 1978 film grossed $190 million, but factoring in inflation would put it past $900 million.)
“Gladiator II,” meanwhile, also held well, dipping 44% from its opening weekend. Ridley Scott’s sequel to his Oscar-winning best picture original collected $44 million in its second weekend. While its steep price tag of $250 million will make profitability challenging, “Gladiator II” has swiftly gathered $320 million worldwide.
Those three films drove the overall box office to more than $400 million in Thanksgiving weekend ticket sales, a record. For an industry that has been battered in recent years by the pandemic, work stoppages and the upheaval caused by streaming, it was a triumphant weekend that showed the still-potent power of Hollywood’s blockbuster machine. Before “Wicked,” “Moana 2” and “Gladiator II” arrived in theaters, ticket sales were running about 25% behind pre-pandemic levels.
Michael O’Leary, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theatre 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-on charge into the future,” he said. “The remaining quarter of this year looks very promising and then on into 2025 and 2026. We’re hoping next year is the first kind of normal year this industry has had in a long time.”
Like the last time such anticipated movies collided on the release calendar — as in 2023’s much-ballyhooed “Barbenheimer” — the movie industry again could see evidence of a rising moviegoing tide lifting all blockbusters. In recent years, studios have typically tried to space out most of their biggest releases. Earlier this fall, “Venom: The Last Dance,” for example, was the No. 1 film for three straight weeks, despite not being particularly successful.
“For a long, long time in Hollywood, there’s been a belief that you don’t put big blockbuster movies up against each other,” said O’Leary. “But the truth of the matter is that competition is good. It’s good for the movies. It’s good for the studios. It’s good for the theater owners. But it’s particularly good for the moviegoing public.”
“Moana 2” was the nexus of a strategy shift for Disney. When it first began development, it was fashioned as a series for streaming. But when Bob Iger returned as chief executive, he reconsidered the balance between theatrical and streaming. The original “Moana,” after all, was the most streamed movie on Disney+ in 2023, with the added benefit of $680 million in box office in 2016. Only in February this year did Iger announce the release of “Moana 2,” with Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson returning as the voices of Moana and Maui.
“It just shows you that the big screen and small screen are not adversarial. They can be complementary and additive,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “Whoever made that decision to go big screen globally with ‘Moana 2,’ that was one of the greatest decisions ever.”
And it helped lead a resurgence for Walt Disney Co., whose last two animated November releases — “Strange World” and “Wish” — fizzled in theaters. “Moana 2” may become the third $1 billion-grossing movie for the studio in 2024, along with “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Though reviews for “Moana 2″ have only been 65% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences gave it an “A-” CinemaScore.
“Moana 2” is also part of a major rebound for family moviegoing. According to David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter for Franchise Entertainment, family moviegoing in 2024 is going to account for approximately $6.8 billion in ticket sales, roughly the sums of 2022 and 2023, combined.
After such large debuts, “Moana 2” and “Wicked” are likely to continue to drive moviegoing through December. The only question will be if this year’s Christmas movies — historically a much bigger holiday period for theaters — can come anywhere near the Thanksgiving lineup. Among the movies aiming for that holiday corridor are Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3″ and Searchlight’s “A Complete Unknown,” with Timothée Chalamet as a young Bob Dylan.
Final domestic figures will be released Monday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
- “Moana 2,” $135 million.
- “Wicked,” $80 million.
- “Gladiator II” $30.7 million.
- “Red One,” $12.9 million.
- “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” $3.3 million.
- “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin,” $2.4 million.
- “Venom: The Last Dance,” $2.2 million.
- “Heretic,” $956,797.
- “The Wild Robot,” $670,000.
- “A Real Pain,” $665,000.
