“Moana 2” Rides Powerful Wave to New Thanksgiving Box Office Record

Thanksgiving 2024 ended up being a good one for theatres as people decided to watch Moana 2, Wicked, and Gladiator 2 during the holidays. As expected, Disney’s Moana 2 set a new record!

The much-anticipated Moana 2 took over 2019’s Frozen 2 ($125 million) to create the latest five-day holiday Thanksgiving record with an impressive $221 million. Not only that, but the latest Disney offering is also the biggest five-day debut in Hollywood history as it was able to overtake Universal’s 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($206 million).

As someone who is a fan of 2016’s Moana, I was worried when certain critics began sharing their disappointment near the sequel’s release date. Apparantly, the new songs weren’t as good as the original (Lin-Manuel Miranda didn’t return to work on the project) and it was easy to tell that it was meant to be an episodic series on the Disney+ streaming service before being reworked as a theatrical movie.

But yeah, the numbers don’t lie. Even though the current Critic Score on Rotten Tomatoes stands at 65%, the Audience Score for Moana 2 is 87%, accompanied by the record-shattering debut. As of writing this post, the global haul stands north of $386 million.

I liked how the Polynesian animated family adventure movie continued to expand the worldbuilding and allowed Moana to grow as a character. When it comes to the iconic Disney Princesses IP, Moana of Motunui is in a league of her own. I hope we get a third installment soon. There’s still so much story to tell.

As for the rest of the box office, Wicked came in second place with approximately $80 million, and Gladiator 2 took third place with an estimated $30.7 million. Glicked wasn’t the Barbenheimer 2 studios hoped for but it was still respectable.

Surprisingly, another Dwayne Johnson-starring movie Red One only fell 2% and came in at fourth place with approx. $12.8 million.

Top 10 Box Office Chart (November 29-December 1, 2024)

1. Moana 2 – $135.5 million
2. Wicked – $80 million
3. Gladiator 2 – $30.7 million
4. Red One – $12.8 million
5. Best Christmas Pageant – $3.2 million
6. Bonhoeffer – $2.4 million
7. Venom 3 – $2.2 million
8. Heretic – $0.956 million
9. The Wild Robot – $0.670 million
10. A Real Pain – $0.665 million

Have you watched Moana 2? What did you think of it’s box office performance?

Let us know.

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(via Variety, Beyond the Trailer)

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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