Box Office: Hollywood Cooking Up Record-Breaking Thanksgiving Feast

As Ridley Scott and his high-profile Gladiator II cast — including Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal and Connie Nielsen — walked the red carpet during the Nov. 18 Los Angeles premiere, a makeshift wall prevented them from seeing an enormous Christmas tree perched at the entrance of the Ovation Hollywood mall adjacent to the TCL Chinese Theatre. 

Consider it a symbol of Christmas coming early this year for all of Hollywood as November tentpoles Gladiator II, the musical Wicked and the animated juggernaut Moana 2 hit the big screen timed to Turkey Day. “For the first time in a long time, there will be something for everyone at movie theaters this Thanksgiving,” notes one top studio executive. “When there are great choices, the business hums.”

By all accounts, the three films are expected to fuel the biggest Thanksgiving weekend in history in terms of overall revenue, a rare bright spot in the post-pandemic era. The boost will help narrow a worrisome year-over-year gap in domestic box office earnings due to a lack of product resulting from the lengthy 2023 labor strikes and ongoing COVID-related delays.

Thanksgiving 2018 holds the record for generating the most revenue in terms of overall ticket sales for the five-day holiday corridor, which runs from the Wednesday before the holiday through Sunday, according to Comscore. That year, led by Ralph Breaks the Internet ($84.7 million), Creed II ($56 million) and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald ($42.3 million), revenue reached $315.6 million over the five days, the only time it’s cracked $300 million, according to Comscore.

Get ready for that record to be broken.

Walt Disney Animation’s music-infused adventure Moana 2 lands Wednesday, Nov. 27, and is tracking to open to a massive $125 million to $150 million for the five days (some think it could climb even higher), hence the moniker “Moanapocalypse.”

If tracking proves correct, Moana 2 will score a top five-day Thanksgiving debut domestically and the biggest five-day Thanksgiving gross of all time, not adjusted for inflation. Frozen 2 (2019), which opened the weekend before the holiday, as opposed to midweek, holds the record with $125 million in ticket sales. The first Moana opened to $82.1 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday in 2016 on its way to becoming a cult classic to the point that it was the most streamed film in 2023, according to Nielsen.

Universal’s Wicked, based on the smash hit Broadway play, is likewise looking to sing and dance its way to eye-popping numbers. Like Gladiator II, it will debut Friday, Nov. 22, to get a jump on the holiday and provide some distance from the Moana sequel. The Jon M. Chu-directed film is tracking to open with $85 million — again, exhibitors think it could come in higher, perhaps north of $100 million.

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, from Paramount, also appears to be in fine fighting form, culminating with Paramount dropping the final trailer simultaneously across various platforms reaching 300 million viewers globally (the studio says it’s the biggest mass media roadblock in history). Opening a quarter of a century after the original Gladiator won the Oscar for best picture, it’s tracking to debut to $65 million or more during the Nov. 22-24 frame. (Between the two live-action crowd-pleasers, box office pundits are hoping for a “Wickiator” or “Glicked” phenomenon à la Barbenheimer.)

Movies opening the weekend before Thanksgiving, rather than midweek on Wednesday, can often come close to repeating their opening number during the official five-day holiday weekend — if they click, that is — explaining why most are betting on overall revenue besting the 2018 Thanksgiving number. It might seem counterintuitive to open three tentpoles so closely together, but it’s proved again and again that for certain times of the year — whether summer or the year-end holidays — the marketplace can support multiple titles if they feed their target demos.

Gladiator II’s target audience is older and younger men, but women are expressing interest as well, according to tracking data shared with The Hollywood Reporter. And Wicked is leaning heavily female, but polling shows that boyfriends could turn up. And both could get parents and their older and adult kids. Moana 2 is clearly the biggest family play but could also attract teenagers and younger adults. 

Adds a rival executive, “movies can work simultaneously, and this will be record Thanksgiving.”

Record or not, Thanksgiving can’t close the year-over-year gap in box office revenue. It could, however, play a key role in narrowing the divide, says Comscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergaragedian. Very early projections show domestic revenue for 2024 coming in at between $8.3 billion and $8.6 billion, which would lower the gap to 6 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

Says Dergarabedian, “The ingredients for what could be one of the most important and essential Thanksgiving holiday corridors in box office history are being combined to serve up a veritable feast of high calorie cinematic treats to a hungry moviegoing public that will finally bring some excitement to what has been a rather disappointing post-Labor Day moviegoing marketplace.”