Disney’s “Moana 2” breaks the Thanksgiving box office record with $221 million

Walt Disney Co.’s animated sequel “Moana 2” made it to No. 1 at the box office with a record-breaking Thanksgiving weekend debut, a remarkable achievement considering that Motunui return to the big screen almost didn’t happen .

Led by actors Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson, “Moana 2” grossed $221 million domestically over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, with a worldwide gross of $386.3 million, according to Sunday Studio estimates. This significantly exceeded the previous Thanksgiving record holder, Disney’s 2019 blockbuster “Frozen 2”.

The stellar numbers put “Moana 2” ahead of Universal Pictures’ heavily marketed musical “Wicked,” which grossed an impressive $117.5 million in its second weekend, bringing its domestic total to date to $262.4 million . Paramount Pictures’ “Gladiator II” came in third with $44 million, bringing its total to $111.2 million.

The sequel to “Moana,” the 2016 animated adventure story, was originally intended as a series for the Disney+ streaming service. But the company changed course and announced the move in February during its first-quarter earnings call.

“We were impressed by what we saw and we knew it deserved a theatrical release,” executive Bob Iger said during the call.

The change in strategy signaled Disney’s optimism in the theatrical market and its ability to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, as well as its role in driving subscriber growth and retention for Disney+ – a key metric for the company as it continues to expand the streaming service’s financial strength.

“They have to make movies and get them into theaters because that’s their business,” said Joe Rosenberg, director of industry relations at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. “This idea that they were going to go after Netflix and win with their strategy, I think, has proven to be a strategy for all companies that hasn’t quite worked.”

The original “Moana” was hugely successful, grossing more than $643 million at the worldwide box office. The film’s soundtrack featured several hits, including the anthem “How Far I’ll Go,” which has become a popular part of family road trips, continuing a generation-long tradition of famous Disney songs. (In addition to the animated sequel, a live-action “Moana” movie is also in the works.)

Reviews for the sequel are far more mixed, but that isn’t stopping families from rushing in for the holidays. The reported budget for the film was $150 million.

The move to release “Moana 2” in theaters instead of sending it straight to streaming is a reversal from the strategy Disney previously used in building its service.

After Disney+ launched at a bargain price in 2019, the company scrambled to produce dozens of shows specifically for the streamer to boost subscriber interest and loyalty. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney, under then-CEO Bob Chapek, sent a handful of Pixar films directly to Disney+, including the acclaimed “Turning Red.”

But that proved expensive, costing Disney billions of dollars in box office revenue that was left over. Upon returning as the company’s CEO in 2022, Iger announced a multibillion-dollar cost-cutting plan that resulted in thousands of layoffs, with the intention of refocusing Disney on content quality rather than quantity.

The delivery of “Moana 2” to theaters is a sign of Disney’s confidence in the project, Rosenberg said. Although the cinema market is still recovering from the effects of the pandemic, Disney has already struck gold twice this year with the billion-dollar box office titles “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine”.

“When you look at movies like ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ and others where people actually went to the movies and enjoyed the experience, you realize: Wait a minute, movies are good business,” Rosenberg said. “We can make a lot of money from the right films that we release theatrically first, and then streaming becomes the second window after the theatrical release.”

That means Disney can double-dip — not only will the company make money from the theatrical release, but the buzz around “Moana 2” may also drive interest in watching it on Disney+ later. Company executives have previously said that new theatrical releases also spur interest in previous installments of a franchise, such as a surge in Disney+ sign-ups for 2015’s “Inside Out” as well as earlier “Deadpool” and “Planet of the Apes.” -Films.

Higher-quality content on the streaming service can boost subscriber growth, reduce churn and justify price increases, said Laurent Yoon, senior analyst at Bernstein.

Disney raised prices on its streaming service in October, shortly after “Inside Out 2” became available on the platform and about a month before “Deadpool & Wolverine” arrived there.

“Ultimately the business model is to maximize revenue from that content investment,” he said.