The Thanksgiving stretch is delivering an unprecedented estimated $422M at the domestic box office.
AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron says that this weekend is “a national phenomenon” when it comes to moviegoing.
That Wednesday through Sunday tally for all movies breaks the previous Thanksgiving record for all titles from 2018 when Ralph Breaks the Internet drove the marketplace to a $315.6M total.
Distribution sources always felt we were in for an enormous moviegoing rebound in the post Covid-post strikes era fueled by the massive want-to-see of Disney’s Moana 2, and the second weekends of Universal’s Wicked and Paramount’s Gladiator 2. For those keeping track, the 10-day box office since Friday, Nov. 22 when Wicked and Gladiator 2 opened is bound to gross a huge $681.5M.
As we told you, Moana 2 is setting a five-day opening and Thanksgiving record of $215M-$220M, Wicked became the highest grossing movie based on a Broadway musical ($263M) and will have the third best five-day take ($118M) over Thanksgiving while Paramount’s adult moviegoer destination Gladiator II is seeing $45M.
What’s quite clear is that counterprogramming of tentpoles works in a given weekend, and should not be avoided. When tentpoles are of a great quality, all boats rise, and here we have three movies with very good Rotten Tomatoes audience scores: Wicked (96%), Moana 2 (87%) and Gladiator II (83%) over-indexing. It’s funny, even after experiencing a high point like this at the box office, especially pre-pandemic, you’d think the major studios would continue to program big movies over a heavy moviegoing period like this year after year, but they sometimes come up short on product or get scared of another big fish on the marquee. Studios should take this year’s success as a come-to-Jesus: leave no stone unturned when it comes to booking big films; the marquee can be shared with a Disney animated movie. Post Covid, the top movies over Thanksgiving (five-day) were quite less next to what’s going on this year; clearly, 2021 audiences were still skittish: There was Disney’s Encanto debut in 2021 ($40.5M), Disney/Marvel Studios’ holdover of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($63.8M) and last year’s holdover of Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes ($42.2M).
Next year, there’s Wicked: Part 2 on the pre-Thanksgiving Friday, as well as Paramount’s Edgar Wright reboot of The Running Man with Glen Powell and Josh Brolin, an untitled Warner Bros/New Line movie, and Angel Studios’ animated David. They’ll be joined by Disney’s Zooptopia 2 on Thanksgiving eve. The more, the merrier.
All figures will become final on Monday.