After November started off with three lackluster premiere weekends (yes, even Red One), it concluded with absolute bangers. It started with the Glicked combo last week, giving the box office the best weekend since the opening of Deadpool & Wolverine. This week theaters were overrun on Thanksgiving and continued into the third $200+ million weekend of 2024. This year has certainly had its ups and downs and Chicken Little moments in regards to theatrical attendance, but when it counted, audiences showed up to generate the best weekend since the pandemic.
King of the Crop: Moana 2 Sails to Record-Breaking Thanksgiving Haul
Disney was planning to release Moana: The Series on Disney+. Somewhere along the way, someone remembered that Moana: The Movie was a huge success both domestically ($248.7 million) and worldwide ($643.3 million), numbers that an original Disney animated film (not from Pixar) hasn’t seen since. And if the box office has taught us anything, making sequels to those types of movies are usually gold mines. So out with the episodic Moana and in with the refashioning into a feature film. While the results have not exactly enraptured critics, families and fans of Moana gave Thanksgiving its best box office weekend ever.
Back in 2013, the high bar was set with another sequel, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which finished the five-day holiday with $109.9 million, besting the $82.3 million earned back in 2001 by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Even more impressive, both of those films were in their second weekend. Catching Fire also edged out a little film opening that weekend called Frozen ($93.5 million). That original Disney animated film got its revenge in 2019 when its sequel ended its second weekend with $125 million over the five-day stretch and became the biggest Thanksgiving No. 1 of all time. Moana 2 said “hold my kava” and opened with $135.5 million, just from Friday to Sunday; the five-day stretch is estimated at $221 million.
Not only is that a new Thanksgiving record, but it’s also the 13th-best five-day start for a film ever behind Incredibles 2 ($233.3 million) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ($227 million), and ahead of Avengers: Age of Ultron ($217.6 million) and Barbie ($214.1 million). Among the 23 films to open with $200+ million in their first five days, only one of them, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, finished below $400 million with $381 million, and only five more finished with less than half a billion domestic (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Avengers: Age of Ultron). Only Transformers, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange from that list also missed the billion-dollar mark worldwide. Moana 2 is already at $386 million and hoping to join Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine on that list for 2024.
The Top 10 and Beyond: Wicked Remains Popular, Gladiator II Continues to Slay
Don’t worry, Wicked fans, we know you’re out there and crushing it as well. To Sing Or Not To Sing, Wicked made another $117.5 million over the five-day holiday, with $80 million coming over the weekend, just 29% off from its opening. That brings its 10-day total up to $262.4 million. Those aren’t quite Moana 2 numbers (it has already globally passed Wicked), but we are still talking the 33rd-best 10-day total in history, just behind Captain Marvel ($264.8 million) and just ahead of Avatar: The Way of Water ($261.0 million). It is also a top five stretch for a November opening, a list that will soon include Moana 2 but also, more importantly, three other films that grossed over $400 million. That is the number that Wicked has its eyes on. Only four films out of 37 (Batman v Superman, Furious 7, Jurassic World: Dominion, and the final Harry Potter) have ever made $250+ million in their first 10 days and failed to reach that milestone. So, even though it may currently be about $25 million off the pace of Wakanda Forever, it did beat that film’s second weekend of $66.4 million handily. Wakanda didn’t hit Thanksgiving until its third week, but the numbers are still promising for Wicked, as it appears poised to hold better throughout the remainder of the holiday season. Globally the film is over $359 million and will enter the worldwide top 10 this week.
That brings us to Gladiator II, which expanded its theatrical attendance over the holiday to the tune of an estimated $44 million ($30.7 million on the weekend) to bring its total to $111.2 million. That is much further down the chart than Moana or Wicked, but still a position that could end up seeing its domestic total in the $175 million range. The film is slightly ahead the $108+ million of past November releases Quantum of Solace and disaster flick 2012, as well as their second weekend paces of $26.7 million and $26.4 million, respectively. Those films finished with $168.3 million and $166.1 million and were both successes with international audiences chipping in an additional $400+ million each. Gladiator II is over $320 million worldwide combined right now, but it has to, again conservatively, stretch itself to well over $500 million globally to turn a theatrical profit. That is with the budget estimated at $210 million and not the $250 million or higher reported in some circles.
The film competing with Gladiator II for the most expensive production of the year is Amazon/MGM’s Red One. The $250 million production is still hoping not to join the exclusive list of films with $200+ million budgets that failed to gross $100 million domestically. The holiday gave it as big a boost, as it is estimated to have grossed $12.9 million over the weekend ($18.7 million over the holiday), bringing its 17-day total to just $76 million. Its not unheard of that a November release with that total got itself into nine digits. It is right now barely ahead of Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, which had a $74.3 million 17-day total. That film, which got itself to $102 million thanks to word-of-mouth and small drops, fell 4.6% to a $13.1 million total over Thanksgiving weekend, while Red One’s drop was just 2%. Worldwide, Red One has made just $150 million. During the pandemic, Disney’s Jungle Cruise still made $220.8 million globally. Red One still hasn’t matched Baywatch’s worldwide haul of $177.8 million.
The top five was rounded out by The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which earned $3.2 million over the weekend (and $4.8 million over the holiday). That brings its 24-day total to $32 million, in position to become Lionsgate’s highest-grossing film of the year. It only needs $35.1 million to best The Strangers: Chapter 1. The studio that gave us the aforementioned chart-topping The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (not to mention last year’s successful Hunger Games prequel) has had a rough patch in 2024 and is banking on some franchise returns to Saw, Now You See Me, and Ballerina in the John Wick universe next year.
In sixth place we have Angel Studios’ Bonhoeffer with $2.4 million ($3.4 million over the holiday). It has made $9.7 million in 10 days of release. Seventh goes Venom: The Last Dance with $2.2 million over the weekend ($3.1 million over the holiday) to bring its total to $137 million domestic and $468 million worldwide. Seventh place Heretic was down to 660 theaters this week and it grossed $957,000 over the weekend. It has grossed $26.8 million to date. Also from A24 this week was Luca Gudagnino’s new film, Queer, based on the Williams S. Burroughs novel and starring Daniel Craig, which opened to $189,000 over the weekend (and $296,000 since Wednesday). The film is in seven theaters before expanding in a couple weeks, and its per-theater average was an estimated $27,000, the 14th best for a limited release of 2024. Ninth place went to Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot, which made an estimated million over the holiday. The Universal release is now over $142 million. Rounding out the top 10, Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain made $665,000 over the weekend (and $900,000 since Wednesday) in just 505 theaters, down from 1,185 last weekend. The Searchlight release has grossed $6.1 million.
Outside of the top 10, Edward Berger’s Conclave has crossed $30 million domestic for Focus with $580,000 over the weekend (and $800,000 over the holiday). Sean Baker’s Anora made $360,000 over the weekend (and $502,000 over the 5-day) to bring its total to $12.7 million. The wordless animated film Flow made $28,900 over the weekend (and $39,196 over the holiday) to bring its total to $98,887 from a pair of theaters in NY and LA.
On the Vine: Y2K and Limited Releases Try to Steal Some of Moana’s Thunder
Next week, A24 goes wide with Kyle Mooney’s directorial debut Y2K. The horror comedy, which premiered at SXSW in March, currently sits at 61% Tomatometer. Briarcliff is also releasing the Frank Grillo action film Werewolves. Then, its limited release season, starting with Marielle Heller’s latest film, Nightbitch, with Amy Adams as a mom who may be turning into a dog. Joshua Oppenheimer’s apocalyptic musical The End arrives from Neon, and Paul Schrader’s latest, Oh, Canada, arrives from Kino Lorber, but the best reviewed of the bunch is Justin Kurzel’s The Order (currently Certified Fresh at 87%) with Jude Law in the true story of the FBI’s takedown of a white supremacist organization. There is also the horror comedy Get Away with Nick Frost, about a family vacationing at the site of a horrific tradition.
Full List of Box Office Results: November 29 – December 1, 2024
-
65%
87%
Moana 2
(2024)
– $135.5 million (3-day), $221 million (5-day); $221 Million Total
-
89%
96%
Wicked
(2024)
– $80 million (3-day), $117.5 million (5-day); $262.4 Million Total
-
71%
82%
Gladiator II
(2024)
– $30.7 million (3-day), $44 million (5-day); $111.2 Million Total
-
30%
90%
Red One
(2024)
– $12.9 million (3-day), $18.7 million (5-day); $76 Million Total
-
91%
97%
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
(2024)
– $3.2 million (3-day), $4.8 million (5-day); $32 Million Total
-
62%
93%
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.
(2024)
– $2.4 million (3-day), $3.4 million (5-day); $9.7 Million Total
-
41%
81%
Venom: The Last Dance
(2024)
– $2.2 million (3-day), $3.1 million (5-day); $137.8 Million Total
-
91%
77%
Heretic
(2024)
– $956,000 (3-day), $1.5 million (5-day); $24.7 Million Total
-
97%
98%
The Wild Robot
(2024)
– $670,000 (3-day), $1 million (5-day); $142.4 Million Total
-
96%
80%
A Real Pain
(2024)
– $665,000 (3-day), $900,000 (5-day); $6.1 Million Total
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
[box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by ©Universal Pictures
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