Thanksgiving Frame hits record high of 2 million, led by Moana 2, Wicked

The Thanksgiving period produces an unprecedented and estimated result $422 million at the domestic box office.

AMC Theaters CEO Adam Aron says this weekend is “a national phenomenon” when it comes to moviegoing.

That Wednesday through Sunday number for all films breaks the previous Thanksgiving record for all 2018 titles Ralph breaks the internet brought the market to a total of $315.6 million.

Distribution sources always believed that we were in for a huge box office revival in the post-Covid post-strikes era, fueled by the huge interest from Disney’s Moana 2, and Universal’s second weekends Bad and Paramount’s Gladiator 2. For those keeping track, the 10-day checkout since Friday, November 22 when Bad And Gladiator 2 opened will undoubtedly generate a huge gross profit $681.5 million.

As we told you, Moana 2 sets a five-day opening and Thanksgiving record of $215 million-$220 million, Bad became the highest-grossing film based on a Broadway musical ($263 million) and will have the third-best five-day take ($118 million) over Thanksgiving as Paramount’s destination for adult moviegoers Gladiator II sees $45 million.

What is quite clear is that tentpole counterprogramming works on any given weekend and should not be avoided. When tent poles are good quality, all boats rise, and here we have three films with very good Rotten Tomatoes audience scores: Bad (96%), Moana 2 (87%) and Gladiator II (83%) over-indexing. It’s funny, even after experiencing such a peak at the box office, especially before the pandemic, you would think that the major studios would continue to program big movies year after year during a busy moviegoing period like this, but sometimes they get on the cram. shortage of product or fear of another big fish on the marquee. Studios should view this year’s success as a come-to-Jesus: leave no stone unturned when it comes to booking big movies; the marquee can be shared with a Disney animated film. Post-Covid, the best movies during Thanksgiving (5 days) were down quite a bit compared to what’s going on this year; The 2021 audience was clearly still skittish: There was Disney’s Encanto debut in 2021 ($40.5 million), the remainder of Disney/Marvel Studios Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($63.8 million) and the remainder of Lionsgate’s from last year The Hunger Games: The ballad of songbirds and snakes ($42.2 million).

That will be the case next year Bad: Part 2 on pre-Thanksgiving Friday, as well as Edgar Wright’s Paramount reboot The running man starring Glen Powell and Josh Brolin, an untitled Warner Bros/New Line film, and the animated film from Angel Studios David. They will be joined by Disney’s Zooptopia 2 on Thanksgiving evening. The more, the merrier.

All figures will be finalized on Monday.