Moana 2 and Wicked dominate a gargantuan Thanksgiving box office frame to remember

One of the best memories of my entire life is spending time in Marie’s Crisis in New York City. A gay piano bar, this domicile hinges on a pianist playing famous show tunes and everyone inside singing along. You have not lived until you’ve been in a crowded room full of queers singing “One Day More” or “How Far I’ll Go.” It’s a place to croon joyfully at the top of your lungs and recognize the queer communities past like songs about the AIDS crisis come on or the pianist regaling the place stories about how his now deceased brother first snuck him into Marie’s Crisis in the 70s. Every kind of tone exists here, just like every member of the queer community is welcome within these walls. It’s amazing what good music and bonding with others over catchy tunes can do.

Moviegoers across America felt the power of Marie’s Crisis in theaters everywhere over this staggering Thanksgiving box office weekend. This was one of the biggest domestic box office frames in history, a lucrative few days where two mega-blockbusters flourished simultaneously. You don’t see these kinds of weekends very often and you certainly don’t see such massive box office frames dominated by musicals! Queen of the crop was Moana 2, which finally brought Walt Disney Animation Studios back to dominating Thanksgiving after 2020's flops like Strange World and Wish. Over the three-day weekend alone, Moana 2 grossed $135.5 million, the second biggest North American opening weekend in history (behind only The Super Mario Bros. Movie) for a movie that burned off demand before Friday with a weekday launch.

It can’t be overemphasized how unprecedented this debut was for movies opening over Thanksgiving. Typically, the big $100+ million late November openers debut the weekend before Thanksgiving (see: various Hunger Games and Twilight sequels). Previously, the biggest three-day Thanksgiving weekend bow was Frozen’s $67.3 million debut. These titles make their money over the long haul, not necessarily over just a three-day weekend. Not so for Moana 2. Its gross was so massive that it even beat out the previous biggest three-day Thanksgiving weekend gross for ALL movies (Frozen II’s $85.9 million haul) and cracked a staggering $219.5 million after just five days of release. That’s the 13th biggest five-day haul in cinema history, narrowly behind Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Incredibles 2.

In terms of critical reception, Moana 2 didn’t eschew the troubles Walt Disney Animation Studios has constantly faced in recent years. Even its solid A- CinemaScore was right on par with Wish’s audience grade last year. However, Moana 2 exploding like this is no shock. The first Moana has become a beloved pop culture institution, as seen by it being the most streamed movie of the last eight years. Moana 2, in pure business terms, was for Disney what The Jay Leno Show was for NBC in 2009: a quick-fix relying on audience familiarity. NBC needed its 10 PM problem solved, Disney Animation needed its Thanksgiving box office track record restored.

So far, at least Moana 2 is holding way better day-to-day in box office grosses than The Jay Leno Show did in its daily ratings. However, its daily business is noticeably more frontloaded than past Disney Animation Thanksgiving titles like Coco and Encanto (Moana 2’s a sequel and opened with considerably bigger numbers, to be fair). It won’t have phenomenal holds in the weeks to come, especially with big family movie competition on the horizon like Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. However, it’s at least getting to $475 million domestically, an astonishing sum nearly double the first Moana’s North American gross.

Before this weekend, only 15 movies in history had cracked $80 million in their second weekend of domestic play. Meanwhile, 87 movies (counting Moana 2) have opened to $100+ million. It’s one thing to get a crowd when you open. It’s another to retain it. In second place; Wicked certainly did that, grossing another $80 million in its second frame. That’s just a 29% dip from its domestic opening weekend! This also makes Wicked only the second movie in history (following Top Gun: Maverick) to open beneath $130 million domestically and score an $80+ million second frame. This also makes November 29-December 1, 2024 the rare domestic frame to have two movies simultaneously gross $80+ million in North America. This really was a box office frame to remember!

Wicked is now up to $262.3 million after ten days of release, slightly ahead of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and The Hunger Games at the same point in their domestic turn. Having surpassed Wonka to become the third-biggest live-action musical in history (only behind Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin), Wicked is now on track to become only the second live-action musical ever to gross $400 million. Considering its incredible day-to-day holds, its virality online with younger viewers, and the impending December holidays, there’s really no stopping Wicked now. “Everyone deserves a chance to fly”, so the song goes, and Wicked is certainly soaring in North America.

Just Moana 2 and Wicked alone would’ve been enough to make this November 29-December 1, 2024 frame the second-biggest domestic weekend of 2024 to date. However, there are still so many more lucrative movies to discuss! In third place was Gladiator II, which dipped just 44% to gross another $30.7 million for a $111 million domestic haul. If the latest Ridley Scott directorial effort doesn’t collapse over the next two weekends, it should be able to hold onto its screens through Christmas and reach especially lofty domestic box office heights. Red One, like many Christmas-themed movies, rebounded over Thanksgiving.

Dipping just 2% this weekend, it grossed another $12.89 million. Combined with its strong weekday grosses over the holiday week, Red One's now grossed $76.05 million in North America. A final gross just pennies north of $100 million should be assured. Speaking of Christmas-themed movies holding well, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever dipped just 4% for a $3.27 million fourth weekend gross. It's now grossed a good $32 million. Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin didn't rebound in its second frame, dropping 52% to gross only $2.4 million for a disappointing $9.74 million domestic haul. In 2024, making a movie like Bonhoeffer aimed at the right-wing Christian crowd condemning Nazis wasn't a wise move. Its target audience likely thought Bonhoeffer was “woke” for saying Hitler was evil!

Venom: The Last Dance actually held onto more theaters than I would have expected for an October 2024 holdover, sticking around in 1,716 multiplexes. It grossed another $2.2 million, a 43% drop from the last frame. It's now grossed $137.86 million domestically and should end its run with around $143-144 million. Heretic dipped 57% (after losing 962 theaters) to gross another $956,797 for a $26.82 million domestic total. Contending with Moana 2, The Wild Robot collapsed 68% this weekend. It still grossed another $670,000 for a fantastic $142.48 million domestic haul.

Rounding out the top ten was A Real Pain, which fell a fine 39% despite losing over half its theaters. This really exemplifies the problem with Disney owning Searchlight Pictures. Arthouse titles require slow and steady runs and A Real Pain could’ve made up lots of ground over Thanksgiving weekend. Instead, Disney is determined to get its big crowd-pleaser movies on as many screens as possible, which means Searchlight titles get rushed out of theaters. Taking in $665,000 from 505 theaters (for a $1,317 per theater average), Pain's now grossed $6.1 million. Conclave eased 49% this weekend to add another $580,000 to its fantastic domestic total now standing at $30.1 million. Anora, meanwhile, dropped 47% to gross $360,000 from 230 theaters for a $1,565 per theater average. It's now grossed $12.72 million domestically.

Happily, the limited-release box office scene was bouncing this weekend thanks to fresh titles like Queer. This feature opened to a robust $188,808 from seven locations for a $26,973 per theater average. Grossing $295,518 over its first five days of release, Queer's debut is terrific, but how will it fare when it expands into wider release in two weeks? That’s up for debate.

 In its third weekend, All We Imagine as Light grossed $65,600 (a 4% increase from last weekend) from 26 theaters for a $2,523 per theater average. After 17 days of North American play, it's grossed $237,963, making it the 13th biggest Janus Films release ever domestically. The Seed of the Sacred Fig opened to $33,337 from three locations this weekend for an $11,112 per theater average. It grossed $50,383 over its first five days of domestic release. Flow, meanwhile, dipped 43% while still playing in just two locations for an excellent $14,450 per theater average. After grossing $98,887 after just ten days of release, this one could garner some solid numbers when it expands into more theaters this coming Friday. Heavier Trip stumbled in its debut in 15 theaters, grossing $10,000 for just $667 per theater.

The top ten movies this weekend grossed a staggering $270 million, by far the biggest single domestic weekend in November in history. That’s also the 13th largest domestic frame in history in any month. These three days alone almost made half as much as the entirety of November 2023 at the domestic box office. You put movies people want to see in theaters, they’ll come out in droves. We also can’t ignore how much-marginalized audiences contributed to this success. Outlets like Deadline has reported that a little over 60% of Moana 2’s opening weekend was comprised of Black and Latinx audiences. As The Los Angeles Times astutely observed this summer, these are the demographics constantly saving and bolstering theatrical moviegoing.

Wicked and Moana 2 both, meanwhile, heavily drew in women, a demographic recent would-be tentpoles like Joker: Folie a Deux largely eschewed. Like Barbie and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in 2023, mega-hits for women draw hordes of ladies to the theater…what a concept! 2024 has now grossed $7.6 billion domestically, blazing past the $7.36 billion yearly haul of 2022. If Wicked and Moana 2 can keep chugging through New Year's, we could be in for one of the biggest Decembers in box office history since this Christmas slate of new releases (consisting of a welcome nine fresh wide releases opening between December 13 and 25) is pleasantly jam-packed.

Movie theater employees (who deserve all the kudos in the world for handling massive crowds this weekend, bravo to all of you working-class people!) can wipe some sweat off their brows. A massive frame like this one reaffirms that theatrical moviegoing has never been dead. Disney's shifting Moana 2 from a streaming show to a big theatrical film reaffirms that a theatrical cinema launch is irreplaceable for a pop culture event. Put an array of movies in theaters aimed at a wide swath of audiences, the box office will prosper. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt to play on the enduring appeal of people enjoying musical numbers together. Just ask anyone who's been to Marie’s Crisis…