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There was much to be thankful for at the box office this weekend. After “Wickediator” proved to be a success on a huge pre-Thanksgiving weekend, the good fortune continued with Moana 2’s release on the 2024 movie calendar. That’s actually an understatement, because while the Auli?i Cravalho-led Disney animated sequel exceeded expectations and broke several records with its $221 million five-day opening, it also combined with Wicked and Gladiator II to set the highest-ever domestic box office total for a Thanksgiving weekend.
That means audiences weren’t split too much over which of the three behemoths to attend, as Part 1 of the aforementioned Broadway adaptation experienced an impressively small weekend-over-weekend decrease, adding a cool $80 million in its second Friday-to-Sunday frame, per The Numbers, and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel also continued to earn ticket sales with a three-day total of $30.7 million. Check out the chart below, then we’ll break everything down.
With five-day domestic earnings of $221 million, Moana 2 beat out the previous record-holder for an extended debut in 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($205.6 million). It wasn’t just the long weekend that made the premiere so impressive, though. The sequel’s Friday-to-Sunday total of $135.5 million is the best opening ever for a Walt Disney animated film, Variety reports, sneaking past the previous record-holder, Frozen II ($130.2 million). This was way better than estimated, as experts predicted Moana 2 would earn between $125 million and $135 million over the entire five-day span — not just the final three.
That’s not even to mention the windfall that came from the combination of its ticket sales with the other top movies. Together, Moana 2, Wicked and Gladiator II earned the lion’s share of what was the best five-day Thanksgiving period on record with $422 million.
To put into perspective how much that actually is, the previous benchmark came pre-pandemic in 2018, when moviegoers brought in $315 million over five days in November to see films including Ralph Breaks the Internet, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald and Creed II. It’s certainly better than last year's disappointing Thanksgiving, when the top-earning trio of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Napoleon and Wish failed to crack $200M.
Early reactions to Moana 2 had critics pleased with the movie overall, even if the songs lacked the catchiness of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work on the first film. Our own Corey Chichizola gave the sequel 3.5 stars out of 5, and many of the other reviews seemed to also carry the “I enjoyed Moana 2, BUT…” sentiment. On Rotten Tomatoes, it earned just 65% from the experts, but none of that seems to be deterring fans. They’ve deemed the movie a much-more-palatable 87% on the Popcornmeter, as well as graded it an A- on CinemaScore.
International numbers are mirroring what we’re seeing in the U.S. and Canada, with an impressive $165.3 million combining with the domestic earnings for a global opening weekend of $386.3 million. That makes it the 11th-highest-earning movie of the year — already better than Wicked, which had $359.3 million at the end of the weekend, per Box Office Mojo — and it’s close to breaking into 2024’s Top 10, which it will do when it surpasses Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which sits at $397.4 million.
When looking at how the sequel performed in comparison to the first movie, Moana was also released over Thanksgiving back in 2016, where it earned $82 million domestically for the five-day weekend. It went on to gross $687 million globally during its theatrical run.
There may have been some concern that Moana 2 and Wicked would be competing for the same audience, with both being musicals geared more toward women, and both being family friendly (unlike the R-rated Gladiator II). Those worries were put firmly to bed over Wicked’s sophomore weekend, as the film fell just 29% from the last cycle to this one, earning another $80 million from Friday to Sunday and $117.5 million over the full five-day holiday.
Gladiator II meanwhile, fell 44% with the $30.7 million weekend total ($44 million when you add Wednesday and Thursday back in). Ridley Scott’s film continues to be an international success, earning a total $320 million worldwide to date. It will likely continue to climb in the 2024 rankings, where it sits at No. 17 — just behind The Wild Robot ($321.6 million), It Ends with Us ($350.1 million) and Alien: Romulus ($350.9 million).
Rounding out the top 5 are two holiday offerings, with Red One and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever bringing in significantly less than the Top 3 but nearly identical numbers to the previous week. Looks like now that Thanksgiving has passed, people are starting to seek out those Christmas flicks.
Next week brings a handful of new wide releases, including Nightbitch, The Order, The Return, Werewolves and Y2K. Which of those, if any, will be strong enough to break into the Top 3? Only time will tell, so join us back here at CinemaBlend next week for all the box office breakdown you need.
