‘Moana 2’ breaks box office records with $300 million debut

After a Disney animated best of $13.8 million from domestic previews on Thursday and a record-breaking $28 million on Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., Moana 2 is riding a wave of audience love, reaching nearly $110 million through Friday. Opening weekend global box office is expected to top $300 million, a staggering total that portends a strong holiday season at the box office.

Word of mouth for “Moana 2”

Moana 2 The “A-” rating from audiences via Cinemascore indicates strong word of mouth over the holiday season.

Combined with an equally impressive 87% Popcorn Meter rating from verified viewers on Rotten Tomatoes, where 65% of critics rate the film as “Fresh” (but only about half of the expected reviews are in so far, so the Tomatometer will increase in the coming years will probably change in days). ), Moana 2 It looks like it’s a smooth ride ahead.

Families are, of course, the key demographic here and Universal’s equally impressive and record-breaking second weekend Evil proves that there’s plenty of room for more than one blockbuster player over the holidays, as long as you give the audience what they want and deliver on the promise of the premise.

And judging by the turnout, both Moana 2 And Evil do exactly that. Besides the $300 million+ bug in “Moana 2” Evil is expected to make another $100 million-plus this weekend, with about $320 million in play worldwide through Sunday.

This summer, Disney-Pixar experienced its biggest box office success of the year with the highest-grossing animated release of all time. Inside Out 2. At $1.69 billion, this film was also the eighth-biggest film – animated or live-action – of all time.

Christmas competition for “Moana 2”

Manufacturing Moana 2 The Thanksgiving debut is even more auspicious given that multiplexes will be running offshore until mid-December, when holiday box office hopefuls arrive in town with visions of blockbuster glory in their heads.

New Line and Warner Bros. Discovery’s The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim and Sony’s villain origin film Spider-Man Universe (SSU). Kraven the HunterI arrive on December 13th.

I expect Kraven suffer the same sad fate as the rest of Sony’s recent superhero releases. It was a story of diminishing returns from the start – Poison SSU launched in 2018 with $856 million, but the sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage in 2021 and fell to $506.8 million this year Venom: The Last Dance If you’re lucky, you might be aiming for a worldwide total of $475 million.

Morbius In 2022, it lost a measly $167 million due to terrible reviews and low viewership, and that was earlier this year Madam Web reached a new low of $100 million. These are global totals, mind you. I expect that Kraven to miss out on the hunt for Christmas bonuses, with perhaps $400 million (if not less) if Santa brings some seasonal boost.

On the other hand, The War of the Rohirrim features the powerful branding of Lord of the rings at the box office. The Lord of the Rings and prequel The Hobbit The franchise has grossed a combined $5.933 billion in worldwide box office, including the animated film The Hobbit film in 1978.

So an output of just $67 million The War of the Rohirrim would push the franchise into the $6 billion mark, and even without the 1978 animated ticket sales, the series is still less than $100 million away from that $6 billion mark. And the two live-action trilogies alone total $5.9 billion, with an average of $983 million per film. But can the new feature release expect the same number of visitors?

Warner set the stage with the remastered 4K re-release of The Lord of the Rings trilogy this summer, which grossed a total of $18.5 million worldwide despite each film only having three release days (each film was released consecutively on Saturday, Sunday and Monday for three weeks in a row).

The added element of animation could help increase participation in family vacations (even with the PG-13 MPAA rating), or alternatively could result in suppressing broader mainstream adult viewing, due in part to a ( (unfortunately mistaken) bias against serious dramatic animation in domestic markets. How much of a factor this is or not will likely depend on how the rest of the competition performs.

On December 20th, the first real contender, Paramount, will hit the market and will capture a large portion of Moana 2’s target demo Sonic the Hedgehog 3 to the cinemas. The first two sound The films cost a combined $725 million, the second $405 million, so the holiday season will bring additional riches to the third chapter, at least over $500 million but probably significantly higher given the tremendous buzz so far.

That is, Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King The prequel is expected to be the true king of the holiday season, and it’s never wise to bet against the House of Mouse, especially a chapter in one of its most lucrative series. The original from 1994 The Lion King is over $980 million, while 2019’s “live action” (actually photorealistic CGI animation) The Lion King rose to a massive $1.66 billion.

Disney’s success with these modern remakes of classic blockbusters has been hugely successful for the most part, although they’ve definitely taken a hit in the Covid era. I don’t expect such a decline to manifest itself for a long time Mufasaespecially with a cozy holiday calendar date, but don’t count it out Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Coming out of the race it should perform above average and fight for early pre-Christmas cash.

Dark Horse candidate and Bob Dylan biopic A complete unknown hits theaters on Christmas Day and could be a breakout performer and Oscar season favorite, not to mention Timothée Chalamet’s draw. Parents could bring their children to see it sound And Mufasa while the adults go to the Dylan flick – and the teenagers maybe join in.

Can “Moana 2” take the crown?

But Moana 2 will build a big lead at the box office over the next two weeks and should see another rise come Christmas. Even with the expected weekly declines and the rise of competition affecting the target audience, there are many films that receive moderate or lower play, leaving enough money left over Moana 2 to capitalize even as new arrivals dominate weekend sales.

Keep in mind that despite competition at the summer box office, which includes major animated sequels and billion-dollar Marvel films, Inside Out 2 still remained strong and achieved its best animation sales ever.

Moana 2 seems to open even larger than Inside Out 2So while it’s not a direct comparison, there’s reason to believe we could have a new contender for the biggest box office hit of 2024 come Christmas Day.

While 2024 has had more than its share of stumbling blocks and the year will end in the red overall, Moana 2 is exactly what audiences have been waiting for to start the holiday season in style – a big and beautiful family film with built-in nostalgia, music, star power and an easy entry point for new kid viewers.