New York – Christmas came early this year at the box office.
“Moana 2” brought huge excitement among movie lovers The Thanksgiving weekend set a record with $221 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
This, combined with “Wicked” and “Gladiator II”, led to an unprecedented weekend in theaters and the confluence of blockbusters that is often seen in late December.
expectations were high The Walt Disney Company’s “Moana 2,” But the film – which was originally planned as a series for Disney+ before being redirected to the big screen – defied predictions.
Its five-day opening set a new record for Thanksgiving moviegoing. (The previous best was $125 million for “Frozen 2” in its second week of release in 2019.)
“Moana 2” made $165.3 million internationally; With $386 million worldwide, it is the second-best global launch of the year.
at the same time, Feeling “evil” Shows no signs of slowing down. The Universal Pictures musical earned $117.5 million over the five-day weekend, bringing its two-week global total to $359.2 million.
Not accounting for inflation, “Wicked” is now the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation of all time, surpassing “Grease.” (That 1978 film grossed $190 million, but accounting for inflation that would be more than $900 million.)
“Gladiator II,” Meanwhile, it is also performing well, with a 44% decline from its opening weekend. The sequel to Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning Best Picture original grossed $44 million in its second weekend.
While its hefty price tag of $250 million will make profitability challenging, “Gladiator II” has quickly collected $320 million worldwide.
According to comScore, those three films brought in a record $420 million in total Thanksgiving weekend ticket sales at the box office — more than $100 million more than ever before.
For an industry that has struggled in recent years with the pandemic, work stoppages and streaming disruptions, it was a triumphant weekend that showed the still-powerful power of Hollywood’s blockbuster machine.
Before “Wicked,” “Moana 2” and “Gladiator II” hit theaters, ticket sales were lagging about 25% behind pre-pandemic levels.
Michael O’Leary, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners, said the weekend showed what is possible when “all the pieces of the puzzle come together” in big-budget films with marketing muscle.
“We’re very optimistic that this weekend is the beginning of what we see as a fully charged future,” he said. “The remaining quarters of this year look very promising and then into 2025 and 2026. We are expecting next year to be the first normal year in a long time for this industry.”
Like the last time such anticipated films hit the release calendar – 2023’s much-discussed “Barbenheimer” – the film industry may again be seeing evidence of a rising tide in the film industry to ditch all the blockbuster movies.
In recent years, studios have generally tried to keep most of their major releases separate.
Earlier this autumn, “Venom: The Last Dance,” For example, despite not being particularly successful, it was the number 1 film for three consecutive weeks.
“There’s been a long-standing belief in Hollywood that you don’t make big blockbuster movies against each other,” O’Leary said. “But the truth of the matter is that competition is good. It is good for films. It’s good for the studio. This is good for theater owners. But it’s especially good for the movie-going public.
“Moana 2” marked a change in strategy for Disney. When it first began development, it was produced as a series for streaming.
But when Bob Iger returned as chief executive, he reconsidered the balance between theatrical and streaming.
After all, the original “Moana” was the most-streamed film on Disney+ in 2023, raking in an additional $680 million at the box office in 2016.
Earlier this year in February, Iger announced the release of “Moana 2”, with Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson returning as the voices of Moana and Maui.
“It shows you that the big screen and the small screen are not antithetical to each other. They can be complementary and additive,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. “Whoever decided to go to the big screen globally with ‘Moana 2’ was one of the greatest decisions ever.”
And it helped revive the Walt Disney Company, whose previous two animated November releases – “Strange World” and “Wish” – flopped in theaters.
“Moana 2” could become the third film to gross $1 billion for the studio in 2024, along with “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
Although “Moana 2″ reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are only 65% ”Fresh”, audiences have given it an “A-” CinemaScore.
“Moana 2” is also part of a major comeback for family filmmaking. David A., a film consultant who publishes a newsletter for franchise entertainment. According to Gross, family moviegoing is set to account for about $6.8 billion in ticket sales in 2024, roughly the same total as 2022 and 2023.
After such a big opening, “Moana 2” and “Wicked” are likely to continue filming through December.
The only question will be whether this year’s Christmas movies — historically a huge holiday period for theaters — can even come close to the Thanksgiving lineup.
Movies targeting that holiday season include 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.
Final domestic figures will be released Monday. Estimated ticket sales from Friday to Sunday at 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 Pageant Ever,” $3.3 million.
6. “Bonhoeffer: Pastor.” detective. Killer,” $2.4 million.
7. “Venom: The Last Dance,” $2.2 million.
8. “Heretic,” $956,797.
9. “The Wild Robot,” $670,000.
10. “A Real Pain,” $665,000.
