Early Holiday Box Office Unwraps Lump of Coal

The pressure is on for the December box office after an unusual Thanksgiving feast. An epic historical drama catering to older adults and running nearly two hours and 40 minutes fed more moviegoers than a new family offering from Disney’s animation empire, which for years dominated the November holiday. (Remember that little blockbuster called Frozen, or Frozen 2, which ranks as the top Thanksgiving opener of all time?)

Heading into Thanksgiving, Disney’s original music-infused Wish — an ode to Walt Disney’s trademark “wish upon a star” mantra — was widely expected to be the peak performer with a projected North American debut of $45 million to $50 million for the Nov. 22-26 corridor. Instead, it became the latest misfire from Hollywood’s once-invincible film empire, opening to a tepid $31.6 million.

Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French military commander, narrowly conquered Wish with a five-day launch of $32.8 million despite getting downgraded by audiences with a B- Cinemacore and so-so exits. Topping both films was Lionsgate’s prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which stayed atop the chart with an OK five-day haul of $42.2 million. (Many of the previous Hunger Games films opened over Thanksgiving as well, albeit to far bigger numbers.)

While Thanksgiving revenue of $173.1 million was up a hefty 41 percent over 2022, it still pales in comparison to the pre-pandemic era, when holiday ticket sales for the Wednesday-through-Sunday stretch shot past $250 million every year since 2015, culminating in a record $315 million in 2018. A year later, Thanksgiving revenue hit $263 million, led by Disney’s Frozen 2, more than 34 percent ahead of this year. The common denominator of the boon: films that could play to families looking for an escape. “The era of the $250 million-plus Thanksgiving frame is a fond memory at this point, and the December box office will have to deliver big if the $9 billion annual domestic revenue mark is to have a hope of becoming a reality for the industry,” says Comscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. (For the film industry, $9 billion would be an important psychological victory, even if it doesn’t come close to the $11 billion collected in a handful of years before COVID-19.)

David Herrin of box office tracking firm the The Quorum says the underwhelming performance of Wish is nothing short of startling, considering that family films — and particularly Disney titles — have always dominated Thanksgiving. “It’s becoming increasingly apparent that post-pandemic behaviors toward animated films are more entrenched than we would have liked. We always knew there would be some residual damage done by releasing multiple Pixar films on Disney+ during COVID, but we had hoped that behaviors would revert back once theaters reopened,” Herrin says. “But the fact that not a single original IP animated film has opened above $30 million [in a three-day weekend; Wish’s three-day total was $19.7 million] since the pandemic shows that this audience is willing to wait to see these films at home.”

Last Thanksgiving was even worse. Disney Animation’s Strange World was a total box office turkey in opening to $18.9 million for the five days on its way to topping out at $37.9 million domestically. Studio insiders are hopeful that Wish, which earned an A CinemaScore and glowing exit scores versus a B for Strange World, will follow in the footsteps of 2021 Thanksgiving offering Encanto, which started off with a ho-hum $40.6 million for the five days on its way to becoming a successful player at the box office and a streaming sensation, or spring 2023 release Elemental, which opened to a tepid $27.2 million domestically but then held on (Disney chief Bob Iger recently said such fare has helped grow Disney+).

Nor is it just a Disney problem. DreamWorks Animation and Universal’s Trolls Band Together debuted to exactly $30 million the weekend before Thanksgiving, and Herrin says tracking so far isn’t great for Illumination and Universal’s Christmas original film Migration, which opens Dec. 22.

All eyes are hence on Warner Bros. family film Wonka, which stars Timothée Chalamet and opens in mid-December, along with the wild card DC Comics sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and The Color Purple, both from Warner Bros. “The year will have a hard time getting beyond $8.8 billion to $8.9 billion unless something breaks out more than expected,” says Wall Street analyst Eric Handler of MKM Partners. “Maybe Wonka does $300 million domestically instead of $100 million. I think it looks like a really good movie.” 

This story first appeared in the Nov. 29 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.