NEW YORK (AP) — Christmas came early at the box office this year.
“Moana 2″ set a record with $221 million in ticket sales as moviegoers flocked to the film over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. Add to that the likes of “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” and it was an unprecedented weekend in theaters, with the kind of blockbusters typically seen in late December.
Expectations were high for Walt Disney Co.’s Moana 2, which was originally planned as a Disney+ series and then redirected to the big screen, but it completely defied expectations. During its five days of release, it set a Thanksgiving movie viewing record. (The previous highest box office gross was $125 million for “Frozen 2” in its second week of release in 2019.) “Moana 2” added $165.3 million worldwide. did. It grossed $386 million worldwide, making it the second-best global launch of the year.
At the same time, the “Wicked” craze showed no signs of slowing down. The Universal Pictures musical grossed $117.5 million over the five-day weekend, bringing its two-week worldwide box office total to $359.2 million. Not accounting for inflation, “Wicked” is currently the highest-grossing Broadway film, surpassing “Grease.” (The 1978 film grossed $190 million, which would have exceeded $900 million after accounting for inflation.)
Meanwhile, Gladiator II continued to perform well, dropping 44% from its opening weekend. Ridley Scott’s sequel to the Oscar-winning Oscar-winning film raked in $44 million in its second week of release. “Gladiator II” quickly raked in $320 million worldwide, although its hefty $250 million price tag made it difficult to turn a profit.
According to comScore, these three films generated a record-breaking total of $420 million in ticket sales over the Thanksgiving weekend, more than $100 million more than in previous years. For an industry that has been battered in recent years by the pandemic, business shutdowns and streaming disruption, it was a triumphant weekend that showed how powerful Hollywood’s blockbuster machine remains. Before “Wicked,” “Moana 2” and “Gladiator II” hit theaters, ticket sales were about 25% behind pre-pandemic levels.
Michael O’Leary, president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Theater Owners, said this weekend he will explore what’s possible when “all the pieces of the puzzle” come together in a compelling big-budget film with marketing muscle. said that it showed.
“We are very optimistic that this weekend is the beginning of a real commitment to the future,” he said. “The remaining quarters of this year are very promising and then we can look forward to 2025 and 2026. We hope that next year will be the first normal year for our industry in a while.”
Similar to the last time such highly anticipated films collided on the release calendar (2023’s much-hyped Barbenheimer), the film industry is once again seeing a rising tide of moviegoing, with all the blockbusters on the rise. We may see evidence to support this. In recent years, studios have typically tried to space out most of their big releases. For example, earlier this fall, Venom: The Last Dance was the No. 1 movie for three weeks in a row, despite not being particularly successful.
“There’s been a long-held belief in Hollywood that big movies shouldn’t be compared to each other,” O’Leary said. “But the truth of the matter is that competition is good. It’s good for movies. It’s good for studios. It’s good for theater owners. But it’s especially good for moviegoers. is.”
“Moana 2” marked a change in Disney’s strategy. When development first began, it was created 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 streamed movie on Disney+ in 2023, and grossed $680 million at the box office in 2016. It wasn’t until February of this year that Iger announced the release of Moana 2, co-starring Auli. Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson return as the voices of Moana and Maui.
“This just goes to show that big screens and small screens aren’t adversaries; they’re complementary and additive,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore. I say. “Whoever made the decision to bring Moana 2 to screens around the world, it was one of the greatest decisions ever made.”
And while it helped usher in a resurgence at the Walt Disney Co., its last two animated features, “Strange World” and “Wish,” released in November, failed in theaters. “Moana 2” could become the studio’s third movie to hit $1 billion in 2024, following “Inside Head 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Moana 2 received only 65% ”fresh” reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but received an “A-” Audience 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 ticket sales in 2024 will total about $6.8 billion, compared to 2022 and 2023. It is said that it is almost equal to the total.
After such a huge debut, “Moana 2” and “Wicked” are likely to continue to drive the box office through December. The only question is whether this year’s Christmas movies, historically a much bigger holiday period for theaters, will be anything close to the Thanksgiving lineup. Among the films aimed at that holiday corridor are Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” and Searchlight’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” starring Timothée Chalamet as a young Bob Dylan. “Complete Unknown” and others.
Final national figures will be released on Monday. According to comScore, estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday in U.S. and Canadian theaters are:
1. “Moana 2,” $135 million.
2. “Wicked,” $80 million.
3. “Gladiator II,” $30.7 million.
4. “Red One,” $12.9 million.
5. “The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever,” $3.3 million.
6. “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin,” $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.
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