UNIVERSAL PICTURES, WALT DISNEY PICTURES, LIONSGATE MOVIES, 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS, PARAMOUNT PICTURES, NCS
By Auzinea Bacon, NCS
(NCS) — Walt Disney Animation’s “Zootopia 2” and Universal’s Broadway musical adaptation “Wicked: For Good” delivered film theaters a much-needed one-two punch for the vacation weekend box office.
“Zootopia 2” debuted on Wednesday, kicking off a five-day Thanksgiving opening weekend. Its $156 million estimated gross is the second-best five-day Thanksgiving debut, behind Disney’s animated journey film “Moana 2,” which opened in 2024 to $225 million domestically.
“Disney has made it an event that comes virtually every year over the Thanksgiving holiday,” mentioned Paul Dergarabedian, head of market tendencies at Comscore. “Families just embraced (‘Zootopia 2’) in such a profound way.”
The end-of-year vacation season is as necessary to Hollywood because the extremely profitable summer time season, particularly when coming off of a traditionally dangerous October, famous Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founding father of analytics agency Box Office Theory.
Hollywood caught to its system from final yr, when a “Wicked” movie and an animated sequel from Disney drew massive audiences to theaters. Last weekend, “Wicked: For Good” beat expectations when it opened to $150 million. It raked in one other $62.8 million Friday by way of Sunday, bringing its home whole to $270.4 million.
“We’re getting spoiled by these last two years. It’s really hard to pull that off,” Robbins mentioned. “It also goes to show the power of female-skewing films at the box office, because neither of these are male-driven blockbusters.”
Together, “Wicked: For Good” and “Zootopia 2” earned a mixed $249 million domestically over the 5 days, based on Comscore knowledge. “Zootopia 2” additionally earned $400 million internationally, bringing it to an estimated $556 million globally. And “Wicked: For Good” has earned $393.25 million globally since its debut.
The two movies are extra complementary than aggressive, largely as a result of the PG-rated motion pictures appealed to household audiences and opened throughout two separate weekends, based on Dergarabedian.
“They did not really detract at all from each other … This performance was born out of having a perfectly curated, perfectly strategized release of these two movies,” he mentioned.
Lionsgate Films’ “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” got here in at No. 3, incomes $7 million Friday by way of Sunday, adopted by Disney’s “Predator: Badlands” ($4.8 million) and Paramount Pictures’ “The Running Man” ($3.7 million).
A24’s romantic comedy “Eternity” opened to a meager $5.2 million over the five-day weekend, notching the No. 6 spot general.
Romantic comedies have dwindled in reputation on the box office in recent times, based on analysts. In 2009, there have been 20 romantic comedy broad releases, in contrast with as much as 4 annual releases as we speak, based on David A. Gross, who publishes trade e-newsletter FranchiseRe.
At No. 8 this weekend was the opening of Focus Features’ “Hamnet” ($1.35 million). The historic drama detailing Shakespeare’s inspiration for the play “Hamlet” is taken into account a contender for Academy Award nominations.
Analysts are hopeful that Hollywood may rake in a whopping $9 billion on the home box office this yr. The box office is presently up 1.24% year-to-date and would want one other $1.2 billion to achieve that milestone, based on Dergarabedian.
“The strength of the schedule overall still points to $9 billion being very, very likely,” mentioned Robbins, who famous that the trade will both fall quick or barely above the $9 billion mark. It could largely rely on Disney’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which opens on December 19.
The-NCS-Wire
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