Thanksgiving 2024 Weekend Thread | Wednesday #s - Moana 57.5, Wicked 20.4, Gladiator 6.6

[Eric Dylan]

https://deadline.com/2024/11/moana-2-wicked-gladiator-ii-box-office-tuesday-records-1236188549/

 

Quote

EXCLUSIVE: We’re not even past Thanksgiving, and the box office is already busting at the seams. Tonight, I hear that Disney’s PG-rated Moana 2, which started previews at 2PM, is heading to around $12M+ today. That’s a massive Tuesday pre-Thanksgiving preview record for the House of Mouse, beating previous champ, 2018’s Ralph Breaks the Internet by an exorbitant amount of cash (that sequel did $3.8M). Tonight’s dollars get rolled into Wednesday’s dough. The sequel is expected to rake in a Thanksgiving 5-day opening record of $125M-$135M. Disney didn’t return request for comment on tonight’s estimates. In fact, no studios did.

 

[Mickiland16]

Biggest previews for animated movies now: 

The Incredibles 2 - $18.5M 

Across the Spiderverse - $17.35M 

Inside Out 2 - $13M 

Toy Story 4 - $12M 

 

Moana 2 would be in the Top 5 if it holds 

[Eric Dylan]

Following Wish, 12M previews would take us to 165M. Obviously not the best comp, but the poor WOM for Wish probably works for something that will be way more fan-driven and frontloaded, so...that's probably where we are heading? IDK IDK IDK

 

[Cmasterclay]

Really quite good for Gladiator and certainly good for Moana too though it started at 2pm on a holiday so "previews" is total horseshit lol. I'm undecided on how good it is for Wicked - it's a lower Tuesday increase that most big pre-Thanksgiving openers have had but it's also coming off a much better Monday drop.

[Mojoguy]

Huge numbers for Moana and Wicked is holding well too which makes me happy.

 

Wicked and Wayfinder to save cinemas this weekend.

 

[Mickiland16]

13 minutes ago, Eric the Good Witch said:

Following Wish, 12M previews would take us to 165M. Obviously not the best comp, but the poor WOM for Wish probably works for something that will be way more fan-driven and frontloaded, so...that's probably where we are heading? IDK IDK IDK

 

I mean the opening weekend for Ralph Breaks the Internet was still 20x the thursday previews, not expecting Moana to do the same but perhaps WOM for Wish was just that bad idk. 

[wattage]

1 minute ago, Mickiland16 said:

I mean the opening weekend for Ralph Breaks the Internet was still 20x the thursday previews, not expecting Moana to do the same but perhaps WOM for Wish was just that bad idk. 

It did also have the Saturday fan previews wrapped in (I remember them because that's how I saw the movie before it came out 😔) which lowered the IM but yeah it was also just that terrible 

[Eric Dylan]

4 minutes ago, Mickiland16 said:

I mean the opening weekend for Ralph Breaks the Internet was still 20x the thursday previews, not expecting Moana to do the same but perhaps WOM for Wish was just that bad idk. 

Problem there is that using Ralph 2's IM gives us 268M. That's just...no.

[AniNate]

Strange World and Wish accomplished the feat of making Good Dinosaur look good by comparison

[YM!]

The power of WickedGladMoan this weekend!

[Ryan C]

At least near me, walkups weren't as strong for Moana, so $12M+ in previews is actually pretty surprising. It might actually come in just within striking distance of Inside Out 2's $13M, which would've been more impressive had previews not start an hour earlier, but I digress. 

 

Also, Wicked's strong Monday number and its supposed strong Tuesday number are signs that both word-of-mouth is great and that not everybody was buying tickets purely for the opening weekend. I actually wouldn't be surprised if a good portion of Wicked's pre-sales (though certainly not all) went to after it's first weekend. It would definitely explain why it's holding as well as it is besides stellar word-of-mouth. 

[Mickiland16]

8 minutes ago, Eric the Good Witch said:

Problem there is that using Ralph 2's IM gives us 268M. That's just...no.

I agree that Ralph 2 IM is not happening but just a comparison that being a sequel doesn't mean that it will be frontloaded enough for the IM to be like Wish. 

 

I think it does somewhere around 15x 

Edited November 27 by Mickiland16

[AniNate]

3 minutes ago, Ryan C said:

At least near me, walkups weren't as strong for Moana, so $12M+ in previews is actually pretty surprising. It might actually come in just within striking distance of Inside Out 2's $13M, which would've been more impressive had previews not start an hour earlier, but I digress. 

 

Also, Wicked's strong Monday number and its supposed strong Tuesday number are signs that both word-of-mouth is great and that not everybody was buying tickets purely for the opening weekend. I actually wouldn't be surprised if a good portion of Wicked's pre-sales (though certainly not all) went to after it's first weekend. It would definitely explain why it's holding as well as it is besides stellar word-of-mouth. 

 

Not everyone could see it opening weekend. Screenings were filled to capacity all throughout and the long runtime and having to share screens with another big new release meant there weren't as many available.

[PNF2187]

IIRC Wish's Saturday EA screenings amounted to as much as Strange World's Tuesday previews, and then Tuesday was about as much as what Encanto did.

 

$12M is BIG though. Just looking at prospective multipliers (lowest bound is Wish which had Tuesday + EA, upper bound is Strange World):

 

IM charts	$12,000,000
13.7431913	$164,918,296
14	$168,000,000
15	$180,000,000
16	$192,000,000
17	$204,000,000
18	$216,000,000
19	$228,000,000
20	$240,000,000
21	$252,000,000
22	$264,000,000
23	$276,000,000
23.568945	$282,827,340

 

Taking these charts though it most likely won't reach the top end or even the upper range (because what the heck is $282M for the 5-day that's like almost as much as Incredibles 2 just for the 3-day), but the low end seems a bit too low considering WIsh's inflated preview number. I get a feeling this is going to be very close to $200M.

 

I fully expect that Deadline is going to start throwing some ridiculous numbers tomorrow afternoon though, and said numbers will be dropping throughout the weekend. Historically Deadline usually overestimates projections midweek for Thanksgiving releases so I expect this to be set up for disappointment.

Edited November 27 by PNF2187

[Arlborn]

1 hour ago, YM! said:

The power of WickedGladMoan this weekend!

This sounds dirty somehow.

 

They’re all indeed doing awesome numbers though, this combo is finally making 2024 fine for the box office.

[Ryan C]

 

[filmlover]

Moana 2 and Wicked conquering Thanksgiving is giving Frozen/Hunger Games: Catching Fire all over again. 

[Gavin Feng]

I wonder if school are off at this point cuz it’s quite big. A success WDAS need right now.

[Mickiland16]

Fun fact: While we can agree that it's the most unnecessary giving the ending of the trilogy, Toy Story 4 is still the sequel with the best reviews from Disney or Pixar since 2010 (using the critics score in Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic). 

 

In fact, something even funnier: it has a higher score in Metacritic and all critics in Rotten Tomatoes (84 and 8.4) than every movie from both studios released this decade, Soul and Turning Red are close though. 

[Ryan C]

Just now, Mickiland16 said:

Fun fact: While we can agree that it's the most unnecessary giving the ending of the trilogy, Toy Story 4 is still the sequel with the best reviews from Disney or Pixar since 2010 (using the critics score in Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic). 

 

In fact, something even funnier: it has a higher score in Metacritic and all critics in Rotten Tomatoes (84 and 8.4) than every movie from both studios released this decade, Soul and Turning Red are close though. 

 

Unpopular internet opinion: Toy Story 4 is fantastic! 

 

No doubt unnecessary, but that was probably the best possible Toy Story 4 that could've ever been made.