‘Moana 2’ sets box office record after Disney abandons streaming

“Moana 2” drew a flood of moviegoers over Thanksgiving weekend and set records with $221 million in ticket sales Sunday, according to studio estimates. Combined with “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” this made for an unprecedented weekend at the movies and a gathering of blockbusters more typically found at the end of December.

Expectations were high for Walt Disney Co.’s “Moana 2,” but the film – originally planned as a series for Disney+ before hitting the big screen – exceeded all expectations. The five-day opening set a new record for Thanksgiving moviegoing. (The previous high was $125 million for “Frozen 2” in its second week of release in 2019.) “Moana 2” grossed $165.3 million internationally; With $386 million worldwide, it is the second-best global launch of the year.

At the same time, the sensation of “Wicked” 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. Without accounting for inflation, “Wicked” is now the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation over “Grease.” (This 1978 film grossed $190 million, but accounting for inflation it would top $900 million.)

“Gladiator II” also held up well, losing 44% compared to its opening weekend. Ridley Scott’s sequel to his Oscar-winning original film grossed $44 million in its second weekend. While the high price tag of $250 million will make profitability difficult, “Gladiator II” quickly racked up $320 million worldwide.

According to Comscore, these three films drove total box office receipts to a record $420 million in total ticket sales for Thanksgiving weekend – more than $100 million more than ever before. For an industry reeling from the pandemic, work stoppages and streaming-induced upheaval in recent years, 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 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’s possible when “all the pieces of the puzzle come together” and create compelling films with big budgets and marketing power.

“We are very optimistic that this weekend is the start of what we believe is a full dawn of the future,” he said. “The remaining quarter of this year looks very promising and then we go into 2025 and 2026. We hope that next year will be the first normal year in a long time for this industry.”

Like the last time such highly anticipated films collided on the release calendar – the much-hyped Barbenheimer in 2023 – the film industry could once again see signs of a rising tide of moviegoers that made all blockbusters a success. In recent years, studios have typically tried to push back most of their biggest releases. For example, earlier this fall, “Venom: The Last Dance” was the No. 1 movie for three weeks, even though it wasn’t particularly successful.

“For a long, long time there was a belief in Hollywood that you couldn’t pit big blockbuster films against each other,” O’Leary said. “But the truth is that competition is good. It’s good for the cinema. It’s good for the studios. This is good for the theater owners. But it’s especially good for movie audiences.”

“Moana 2” was the starting point for a change in strategy for Disney. When development began, it was conceived as a streaming series. But when Bob Iger returned as CEO, he reconsidered the balance between cinema and streaming. After all, the original “Moana” was the most streamed film on Disney+ in 2023, with the added benefit of grossing $680 million at the box office in 2016. Just in February of this year, Iger announced 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 the small screen are not opposites. They can complement and complement each other,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Whoever made the decision to bring Moana 2 to screens worldwide was one of the greatest decisions of all time.”

And it contributed to the resurgence of the Walt Disney Co., whose last two animated November releases — “Strange World” and “Wish” — fizzled in theaters. “Moana 2” could become the third $1 billion film for the studio in 2024, joining “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Although reviews for “Moana 2” were only 65% ​​fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences gave the film an “A-” grade.

“Moana 2” is also part of a major recreation for family moviegoing. According to David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a franchise entertainment newsletter, family moviegoing will account for about $6.8 billion in ticket sales in 2024, roughly equal to the totals from 2022 and 2023 combined.

After such big debuts, “Moana 2” and “Wicked” should continue to drive moviegoers through December. The only question will be whether this year’s Christmas movies — historically a much bigger holiday season for movie theaters — can come anywhere close to the Thanksgiving schedule. Films targeting this holiday corridor 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.

The final domestic figures will be published on Monday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. 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. 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.