Exhibitors can finally stop holding their breath. The fall was brutal. Thanksgiving is delivering.
Zootopia 2 is tracking toward a $140M five-day opening at 4,000 theaters, giving Disney nine of the top ten Thanksgiving openings in box office history. The $39M Wednesday—including $10.2M from Tuesday previews—marks the second-best Wednesday opening for the holiday frame, trailing only last year’s Moana 2 at $57.8M.
Meanwhile, Wicked: For Good continues its remarkable hold, projecting $90M for the five-day stretch and pushing its running total to $267.4M by Sunday. The Jon M. Chu sequel dropped 59% for its three-day but that’s expected for a film sharing premium screens with Disney’s animated juggernaut.
The numbers tell a clear story: the theatrical business isn’t dead. It was just waiting for product worth showing up for.
The Disney Thanksgiving Machine
The studio’s holiday dominance has become so predictable it barely registers as news anymore. Nine of ten all-time Thanksgiving openings. The pattern repeats because families need somewhere to go after dinner, and Disney consistently provides the destination.
Zootopia 2‘s preview performance places it second among Walt Disney Animation Studios titles—behind Moana 2 ($13.8M) but ahead of Frozen II ($8.5M). That’s significant positioning for a sequel arriving nine years after its predecessor. The original Zootopia wasn’t a franchise launcher by design; it was a standalone success that earned $341M domestic and over $1 billion worldwide. Disney waited nearly a decade to return.
The Friday-Sunday portion projects between $88M-$90M, with Black Friday expected to provide the usual surge. Business always dips on Thanksgiving itself—families actually eat dinner—before exploding Friday through the weekend.
Worth noting: Disney holds premium large format screens but shares IMAX with Universal’s Wicked: For Good for evening showtimes. That arrangement speaks to the unusual strength of both titles. Neither studio wanted to cede the format entirely.
Wicked’s Remarkable Legs
Wicked: For Good opened to extraordinary numbers and has held better than most sequels in the modern marketplace. The $90M five-day projection against a running total approaching $270M suggests the film will cruise past $300M domestic—exceptional for a movie musical in an era when the genre rarely performs at this level.
The 59% three-day drop looks steep on paper but context matters. The first Wicked dropped only 28% in its second weekend because it opened to massive front-loading. This sequel faces holiday competition from a Disney animated tentpole specifically designed to dominate the frame. Under those circumstances, maintaining $60M+ for the weekend represents genuine strength.
Universal positioned the sequel brilliantly—close enough to the original to maintain momentum, far enough to avoid audience fatigue. The Thanksgiving placement allows families who saw the first film to make the sequel a holiday tradition. Smart.
The Rest of the Field
The holdovers tell their own stories.
Predator: Badlands will cross $84M by Sunday, officially making it the highest-grossing installment in the 38-year-old franchise at the domestic box office. It overtakes 2004’s Alien vs. Predator which finished at $80.2M. Not bad for a film released into an increasingly crowded marketplace. Disney/20th Century’s faith in the property continues paying dividends.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is holding respectably at $48.7M cumulative after a $9.25M five-day. Lionsgate’s magic franchise has always performed modestly but consistently—the kind of mid-budget success that keeps studios solvent between tentpoles.
Running Man adds $5.88M for the stretch, reaching $34.5M total. Paramount’s action remake hasn’t broken out but hasn’t collapsed either. It’s just… there.
The interesting outlier: A24’s Eternity at 1,348 locations. The Elizabeth Olsen-Miles Teller afterlife romance is projecting north of $3M for the four-day against a 76% Rotten Tomatoes score. For A24’s typical platform approach, that’s solid. They’re not trying to compete with Disney—they’re cultivating their audience in the margins.
What This Frame Actually Means
After months of underperformance—films opening below expectations, legs evaporating by week two, exhibitors wondering if the model was permanently broken—Thanksgiving provides evidence that audiences still want the theatrical experience. They just need a reason.
Zootopia 2 and Wicked: For Good represent that reason. Family animation and prestige musical, both executed at high levels, both benefiting from release timing that matches their target demographics’ availability.
The industry spent the fall worrying. Now they’ll spend December counting money. That’s how it usually works—the narrative swings between crisis and recovery depending on which films are currently in theaters.
Black Friday remains the variable. The projections assume strong Saturday follows Friday’s traditional surge. If family audiences turn out in expected numbers, these estimates hold or improve. If they don’t, the recalibration happens Sunday.
Either way, the Thanksgiving frame delivered what exhibition desperately needed: proof of concept that the business still functions when the product justifies the trip.
Thanksgiving Box Office Key Takeaways
- Disney’s holiday dominance continues — Nine of ten all-time Thanksgiving openings now belong to the studio. The machine works.
- Zootopia 2 previews signal strength — Second-best WDAS preview ever positions the sequel for potential $140M+ stretch.
- Wicked holds against direct competition — Sharing IMAX screens with a Disney animated film and still projecting $90M demonstrates genuine audience demand.
- Predator franchise hits milestone — Badlands becomes highest-grossing domestic entry in 38-year history, validating continued investment.
- A24 plays its own game — Eternity’s modest expansion shows the distributor isn’t competing for the same audience.
FAQ
Why does Disney dominate Thanksgiving box office so consistently?
Because they’ve engineered releases specifically for the frame. Families gather, need activities, and Disney provides reliable four-quadrant entertainment year after year. It’s not luck—it’s calendar strategy refined over decades. Other studios occasionally try to compete; Disney consistently wins.
Does Wicked: For Good’s 59% drop indicate problems for the sequel?
No. Second-weekend drops always look worse during holiday frames because the comparison is inflated opening. Against direct competition from a Disney animated tentpole and while sharing IMAX screens, holding $60M+ represents strength. The film will clear $300M domestic comfortably.
What does Predator: Badlands becoming the franchise’s biggest hit mean?
That the brand has more value than Hollywood assumed. After years of diminishing returns and failed crossovers, a straightforward Predator film outperforming everything that came before proves audiences wanted the premise—they just needed competent execution.
The fall was a wasteland. Thanksgiving is a rescue. That’s the story this frame tells—not that theatrical is back permanently, but that it never left. The business requires product worth leaving home for. When studios provide that product, audiences respond. When they don’t, everyone panics. Disney understood the assignment. Universal understood the assignment. The films that struggled this fall mostly didn’t. There’s no grand narrative about theatrical survival or streaming dominance here. Just the oldest truth in exhibition: give people a reason to show up, and they will.
