Ariana DeBose stars as Asha in Disney’s recent animated film “Wish.”
Disney
Disney is hoping on a shooting star this week, hoping that its celebratory a hundredth anniversary film “Wish” will mark a turning point for its beleaguered animation division and jumpstart the Thanksgiving box office.
The House of Mouse posted its biggest 12 months ever theatrically in 2019 — with a whopping seven movies surpassing $1 billion in global ticket sales — but has yet to recapture that magic even after relaxed Covid restrictions brought moviegoers back to cinemas.
Its Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have been hit-or-miss with audiences, with “The Marvels” most recently opening to an all-time franchise low. But Disney’s animation arm, which has ruled the box office for many years, has had more rotten eggs than golden ones within the last three years.
Much of Disney’s troubles have stemmed from executive decisions to pad its fledgling streaming service Disney+ with content, stretching its creative teams thin, and sending theatrical movies through the pandemic straight to digital.
This has been particularly apparent with Disney’s animated features, each from its Walt Disney Animation studio and from Pixar. Parents, confused about when and where animated movies from the studio were being released, didn’t show as much as theaters. And the movies that were released weren’t all well-received by critics or audiences.
This has had a direct impact on the important thing Thanksgiving holiday, which Disney has long dominated on the box office.
Disney declined to comment for this story.
Feast or famine
The week of Thanksgiving is usually a sturdy time on the box office, a practice for a lot of families who gather during prolonged day without work from school and work.
Within the last decade, not counting 2020, 2021 and 2022, the five-day Thanksgiving spread — from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through Sunday — has resulted in greater than $250 million in ticket sales annually.
A lot of those weekends were fueled by Disney animation hits in addition to Lionsgate’s Hunger Games movies.
Nevertheless, within the wake of the Covid pandemic, the box office has struggled to regain its foothold on the Thanksgiving holiday.
“Thanksgiving as a vacation moviegoing corridor has diminished in its revenue-generating horsepower within the post-Pandemic era and which means a minimum of for now, the percentages are against any film becoming a large breakout hit over the five-day frame,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Thanksgiving movies on this movie marketplace must rely more heavily on December moviegoing to find out their ultimate box office fate.”
Box office analysts often disregard 2020’s $21.4 million Thanksgiving haul, as few theaters were open and there have been few movies to observe. But, 2021 and 2022 had more titles available and neither reached $150 million in domestic ticket sales for the five-day period.
Early ticket sales suggest “Wish” could secure as much as $55 million for the Wednesday-to-Sunday period including Thanksgiving. That trails previous Thanksgiving openers from Disney including “Ralph Breaks the Web,” “Coco,” “The Good Dinosaur” and “Tangled” but is higher than the $18.9 million brought in by “Strange World” last 12 months and the $40.6 million from “Encanto” in 2021, in line with data from Comscore.
Yet, if “Wish” does reach that $55 million mark, it could be the seventh-biggest Thanksgiving opening of all time.
Add in second-week sales from Universal’s “Trolls Band Together,” Lionsgate’s “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” and TriStar’s Eli Roth slasher flick “Thanksgiving,” in addition to recent entrants corresponding to Apple’s “Napoleon,” and box office analysts foresee a haul of between $150 million and $160 million for the five-day spread.
“That is shaping as much as be a really crowded Thanksgiving on the multiplex,” said Dergarabedian. “And ‘Wish’ could have to hope that the opposite recent PG-rated animated family movies on screens, like ‘Trolls Band Together,’ is not going to siphon off a larger-than-expected share of the audience.”
Not to say, box office expectations haven’t been particularly accurate this 12 months. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film, Disney’s “The Marvels” and “Ballad” all delivered opening weekends that were shy of expectations.
Trouble within the Magic Kingdom
“Wish” has rather a lot riding on its opening weekend, as Disney looks to rebound from a slew of box office letdowns.
“After the misfire of ‘Strange World’ last 12 months and the lingering impact of short-lived streaming strategies, it is important for ‘Wish’ to bring back a much bigger portion of their core audience now that other studios and animated franchises have performed so well during the last 18 months,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com.
Universal’s animated movies, specifically, have excelled. In 2022, “Minions: The Rise of Gru” snared $942.5 million at the worldwide box office, and earlier this 12 months “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” tallied greater than $1.35 billion globally. Similarly, Sony saw great success with “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” generating $684.9 million globally.
Meanwhile, Disney has yet to secure greater than $500 million worldwide from an animated feature since 2019.
“Elemental,” released over the summer, managed to gather $479.8 million. The last time a Pixar film grossed lower than $500 million was 2017’s “Cars 3,” which drew $383.5 million in ticket sales. On the Walt Disney Animation side, the last film to fall wanting the $500 million mark before 2020 was 2014’s “Planes: Fire and Rescue,” which racked up $151.4 million globally.
Whether “Wish” wins over audiences is up within the air. It hasn’t inspired critics. The day before its opening, the film was hovering under 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, which translates to a “rotten” rating. Still, other Disney movies corresponding to “Pocahontas,” “Robin Hood,” “Oliver and Company,” “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” and “Brother Bear” all hold a rating under 60% on the review aggregator but are fan-favorite movies for a lot of.
So, even when “Wish” doesn’t have an immediately strong box office, it could find life on Disney+. In spite of everything, that is what happened for Disney’s “Encanto.”
Released in 2021 for the Thanksgiving holiday, “Encanto” generated $40.6 million from the five-day Thanksgiving weekend domestically and went on to tally $257.5 million globally during its run. In the house market, the film continued to capture the eye of youngsters and adults alike with catchy tunes corresponding to “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and “Surface Pressure.”
“‘Wish’ comes at an opportune time since the market has been starved for family content since summer ended,” said Robbins.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor of “Trolls Band Together,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” NBCUniversal also owns Rotten Tomatoes.
– CNBC’s Gabriel Cortés contributed to this text.