As we told you recently, Disney‘s Moana 2 is heading to the best 5-day opening ever seen at the Thanksgiving box office. We gave the six-weekend projection from Quorum, and this morning tracking service NRG which reports 3 weekend-out forecasts is saying the Hawaiian princess movie is going to clear $135M over Wednesday-Sunday which bests the record $125M five-day (not opening) Thanksgiving haul of Frozen 2 ($125M) and the $93.5M 5-day opening of Frozen.
Pre-sales for Moana 2 are ahead of Inside Out 2 and Incredibles 2 which respectively opened to $154.2M and $182.6M (3-day). Tickets went on sale for the Dwayne Johnson and Auli‘i Cravalho sequel on Oct. 28.
Moana 2 is hot with millennials, who remember the movie fondly, as well as kids 6-11 (even boys want to see it) and general audiences 12-54. AMC CEO Adam Aron said on an earnings call that he heard the sequel could eclipse the Disney/Pixar sequel Inside Out 2, which is the highest grossing movie of 2024 at $652.9M stateside.
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The first Moana in 2016 opened to $82M over five days, ultimately grossing $248.7M stateside.
Back in February, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that Moana 2 was happening, spawned from its development as a Disney+ series. The sequel is directed by Dave Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller with music by Grammy winners Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, Grammy nominee Opetaia Foa’i, and three-time Grammy winner Mark Mancina.
We’re poised to see the biggest Thanksgiving on record over 5-days. There’s also Wicked and Gladiator II opening on the weekend before Turkey Day respectively to $80M and $65M. Both Universal and Paramount movies are expected to play strong throughout the holiday. Black Friday is also one of the highest grossing days of the year at the box office.
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