’Moana 2’ sails to a record $221 million opening as Hollywood celebrates a moviegoing feast

Christmas came early at the box office this year.

Moana 2 brought in a tidal wave of moviegoers over the Thanksgiving Day weekend, setting records with $221 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. That, combined with Wicked and Gladiator II, made for an unprecedented weekend in cinemas and a confluence of blockbusters more like what’s often found in late December.

Expectations were high for Walt Disney Co.’s Moana 2, but the film — originally planned as a series for Disney+ before it was redirected to the big screen — blew predictions out of the water. 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 added $165.3 million internationally; with $386 million worldwide, it’s 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 brought in $117.5 million over the five-day weekend, pushing its two-week global total to $359.2 million. Not accounting for inflation, Wicked is now the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation over Grease. (That 1978 film grossed $190 million, but factoring in inflation would put it past $900 million.)

Gladiator II, meanwhile, also held well, dipping 44% from its opening weekend. Ridley Scott’s sequel to his Oscar-winning best picture original collected $44 million in its second weekend. While its steep price tag of $250 million will make profitability challenging, Gladiator II has swiftly gathered $320 million worldwide.

Those three films drove the overall box office to a record $420 million in overall Thanksgiving weekend ticket sales, according to Comscore — more than $100 million more than ever before. For an industry that has been battered in recent years by the pandemic, work stoppages and the upheaval caused by streaming, it was a triumphant weekend that showed the still-potent power of Hollywood’s blockbuster machine. Before Wicked,Moana 2 and Gladiator II arrived in theatres, ticket sales were running about 25% behind pre-pandemic levels.

Michael O’Leary, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners, said the weekend showed what’s possible when “all the pieces of the puzzle come together” in compelling big-budget movies with marketing muscle.

“We’re very optimistic that this weekend is the start of what we believe is a full-on charge into the future,” he said. “The remaining quarter of this year looks very promising and then on into 2025 and 2026. We’re hoping next year is the first kind of normal year this industry has had in a long time.”

This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Paul Mescal, left, and Peter Mensah in a scene from ‘Gladiator II’
| Photo Credit:
Aidan Monaghan

Like the last time such anticipated movies collided on the release calendar — 2023’s much-ballyhooed “Barbenheimer” — the movie industry again could see evidence of a rising moviegoing tide lifting all blockbusters. In recent years, studios have typically tried to space out most of their biggest releases. Earlier this fall, Venom: The Last Dance, for example, was the No. 1 film for three straight weeks, despite not being particularly successful.

“For a long, long time in Hollywood, there’s been a belief that you don’t put big blockbuster movies up against each other,” said O’Leary. “But the truth of the matter is that competition is good. It’s good for the movies. It’s good for the studios. It’s good for the theatre owners. But it’s particularly good for the moviegoing public.”

Moana 2 was the nexus of a strategy shift for Disney. When it first began development, it was fashioned as a series for streaming. But when Bob Iger returned as chief executive, he reconsidered the balance between theatrical and streaming. The original Moana, after all, was the most streamed movie on Disney+ in 2023, with the added benefit of $680 million at the box office in 2016. Only in February this year did Iger announce 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 and small screens are not adversarial. They can be complementary and additive,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “Whoever made that decision to go big screen globally with Moana 2, that was one of the greatest decisions ever.”

And it helped lead a resurgence for Walt Disney Co., whose last two animated November releases — Strange World and Wish — fizzled in theatres. Moana 2 may become the third $1 billion-grossing movie for the studio in 2024, along with Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. Though reviews for Moana 2 have only been 65% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences gave it an “A-” CinemaScore.

Moana 2 is also part of a major rebound for family moviegoing. According to David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter for Franchise Entertainment, family moviegoing in 2024 is going to account for approximately $6.8 billion in ticket sales, roughly the sums of 2022 and 2023, combined.

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Ariana Grande in a scene from the film ‘Wicked’
| Photo Credit:
UNIVERSAL PICTURES

After such large debuts, Moana 2 and Wicked are likely to continue to drive moviegoing through December. The only question will be if this year’s Christmas movies — historically a much bigger holiday period for theatres — can come anywhere near the Thanksgiving lineup. Among the movies aiming for that holiday corridor are Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King, Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Searchlight’s A Complete Unknown, with Timothée Chalamet as a young Bob Dylan.

Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theatres, 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