Long-term forecast: MOANA 2 builds blockbuster buzz in advance sales

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Long-term forecast – November 27, 2024

Moana 2 | Walt Disney pictures

Domestic opening weekend range (5 days): $120M – $150M

Disney is back and celebrating another Thanksgiving weekend Moana 2hits theaters the Wednesday before the holidays, competing with Universal's second weekend Bad part 1.

Although Moana (totaling $248.7 million domestically) was only the fourth-highest-grossing Disney animated film released in 2016 – trailing March's Zootopia ($341.2 million domestic total), the live-action/animated hybrid in April The Jungle Book (Totaled $364 million domestically)and December Find Dory (totaling $486.2 million domestic) – it arguably had the biggest cultural impact of the set, driven largely by its catchy soundtrack (it was the fifth best-selling album of the year in the US and received an Oscar nomination for the best original). song) and the enduring popularity of its main character, now part of the lucrative “Disney Princesses” canon.

It was so popular that Disney greenlit a live-action remake (scheduled for summer 2026) and a Disney+ TV sequel series… And then, in February of this year, Disney announced that the series would be adapted into a film and would hit theaters about nine months later. Since there are no reviews circulating yet, it's hard to say to what extent Moana 2The episodic origins can be seen in the final product… but even if the film should Without a strong, cohesive central storyline, it should have no problem outperforming its predecessor, which dominated Thanksgiving weekend in 2016 (with a three-day domestic opening worth $56.6 million and a five-day domestic opening worth $82 million -Dollar). In fact, this has become the norm among Disney animated titles in 2019 Frozen 2 (Domestic opening: $130.2 million, total domestic: $477.3 million), 2024 Inside Out 2 (Domestic opening: $154.2 million, total domestic: $652.9 million), 2018 Incredible 2 (Domestic opening: $182.6 million, total domestic: $608.5 million), 2019 Toy Story 4 (Domestic opening: $120.9 million, total domestic: $434 million), 2016 Find Dory (Domestic opening: $135 million, total domestic: $486.2 million) and 2018 Ralph is breaking the internet ($56.2 million domestic opening, $201 million domestic total) surpass all previous films in their respective series in the domestic market.

Disney could certainly use a win for its Walt Disney Animation Studios division. After the 2019 release Frozen 2 the weekend before By Thanksgiving, no Walt Disney Animation release has grossed more than $100 million domestically. Three of them also came out on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving: 2021 Encanto ($27.2 million three-day domestic opening, $40.5 million five-day domestic opening, $96 million domestic total), 2022 Strange world ($12.1 million three-day domestic opening, $18.8 million five-day domestic opening, $37.9 million domestic total) and last year's Wish ($19.6 million three-day domestic opening, $31.6 million five-day domestic opening, $63.9 million total). (The other, March 2021 Raya and the Last Dragonopened daily in theaters and on Disney+, opening to $8.5 million and peaking at $54.7 million domestically.

Strong pre-sales point the way to a potential five-day opening weekend exceeding $150 million Moana 2which has benefited from a lack of widely available family titles since late September The wild robot ($35.7 million domestic opening) and Transformers One ($24.6 million opening domestically). Moana 2 will need more than $652.9 million over its lifetime to displace this year's spot Inside Out 2 as the most successful animated film of all time.

Tracking updates (as of November 1st)

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