This week, Disney is aiming for the stars, hoping that the Thanksgiving box office will soar and its centennial celebration film “Wish” will signal a turning point for the company’s struggling animation division.
Even after loosened Covid restrictions encouraged moviegoers to return to theaters in 2019, The House of Mouse experienced its greatest year ever in the theater business, with seven films surpassing $1 billion in global ticket sales. However, the company has not yet been able to recreate that magic.
Audience response to its Marvel Cinematic Universe films has been erratic; the most recent installment, “The Marvels,” opened to an all-time franchise low. However, in the last three years, Disney’s animation division—which has dominated the box office for decades—has produced more bad films than good ones.
Disney’s problems have largely been caused by executive decisions to send theatrical films straight to digital platforms during the pandemic, overwork its creative teams, and stuff its inexperienced streaming service Disney+ with content.
This has been especially noticeable with Disney’s animated films, produced by Pixar and its Walt Disney Animation studio. Parents failed to show up at theaters because they were unsure of the release dates and locations of the studio’s animated films. Furthermore, not all of the released films were well-received by reviewers or viewers.
Disney has long dominated the box office over Thanksgiving, a major holiday that has been directly impacted by this.
For this story, Disney declined to comment.
Famine or Feast
Thanksgiving week is usually a busy one at the box office, as it’s a time when many families get together over long breaks from work and education.
The five-day Thanksgiving spread, which runs from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through Sunday, has generated more than $250 million in ticket sales annually over the past ten years, excluding 2020, 2021, and 2022.
Lionsgate’s Hunger Games movies and Disney animation hits powered many of those weekends.
But since the Covid pandemic, the box office has had trouble regaining its momentum around Thanksgiving.
According to Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, “Thanksgiving as a holiday moviegoing corridor has diminished in its revenue-generating horsepower in the post-Pandemic era and this means that at least for now, the odds are against any film becoming a massive breakout hit over the five-day frame.” “In this movie market, Thanksgiving films must depend more on December moviegoers to decide their ultimate fate at the box office.”
Box office analysts tend to overlook 2020’s $21.4 million Thanksgiving haul because there weren’t many theaters open and not many movies to choose from. However, 2021 and 2022 had more titles available, and during the five days, neither movie sold $150 million worth of domestic tickets.
According to early ticket sales, “Wish” may be able to raise up to $55 million for the Wednesday through Sunday run, which includes Thanksgiving. This Thanksgiving opening performance is less than previous Disney films, such as “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” “Coco,” “The Good Dinosaur,” and “Tangled,” but it is still more than the $18.9 million earned by “Strange World” in the previous year and the $40.6 million from “Encanto” in 2021, according to Comscore data.
However, “Wish” would be the seventh-biggest Thanksgiving opening ever if it were to cross the $55 million mark.
Box office analysts predict a haul of between $150 million and $160 million for the five-day spread when they factor in second-week sales from Universal’s “Trolls Band Together,” Lionsgate’s “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” TriStar’s Eli Roth slasher film “Thanksgiving,” as well as newcomers like Apple’s “Napoleon.”
According to Dergarabedian, “this is going to be a very crowded Thanksgiving at the multiplex.” “And Wish will have to hope that a larger-than-expected portion of the target audience won’t be drawn away by other new PG-rated animated family films like Trolls Band Together that are currently showing on screens.”
Not to add, this year’s box office predictions have not been very accurate. Disney’s “The Marvels,” Taylor Swift’s concert film from her Eras Tour, and “Ballad” all had underwhelming opening weekends.
Difficulties at the Magic Kingdom
With Disney hoping to bounce back from a string of disappointing box office results, “Wish” has a lot riding on its opening weekend.
Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com, stated that “it’s important for ‘Wish’ to bring back a bigger portion of their core audience now that other studios and animated franchises have performed so well over the last 18 months.” Robbins was speaking about the failure of ‘Strange World’ last year and the lasting effects of transient streaming strategies.
Especially the animated films from Universal have been excellent. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” brought in more than $1.35 billion worldwide earlier this year, and “Minions: The Rise of /” took home $942.5 million at the box office worldwide in 2022. Similar to this, Sony made $684.9 million worldwide from “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” which was a huge hit.
Disney, meanwhile, has not yet earned more than $500 million globally from an animated film since 2019.
“Elemental,” which was released in the summer, brought in $479.8 million. The previous Pixar movie to gross less than $500 million was “Cars 3” from 2017, which brought in $383.5 million from ticket sales. The last Walt Disney Animation picture to miss the $500 million milestone before 2020 was “Planes: Fire and Rescue,” released in 2014. The movie brought in $151.4 million worldwide.
It’s unclear if “Wish” will succeed in winning over viewers. Critics aren’t impressed by it. The movie had a “rotten” (or less than 60%) rating the day before it opened on Rotten Tomatoes. Nevertheless, despite being beloved by many, several Disney movies, including “Pocahontas,” “Robin Hood,” “Oliver and Company,” “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” and “Brother Bear,” have lower than 60% ratings on the review aggregator.
Thus, even if “Wish” doesn’t start off well at the box office, it might still be successful on Disney+. That is, after all, what transpired with Disney’s “Encanto.”
“Encanto,” which was released in 2021 in time for Thanksgiving, made $40.6 million during the five-day holiday weekend in the United States and ended up making $257.5 million worldwide. With catchy songs like “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and “Surface Pressure,” the movie managed to hold the interest of both adults and children in the home market.
“Wish” is a welcome addition to the family content market, which has been lacking since the end of the summer, according to Robbins.
