My prediction for this holiday weekend’s box office was wrong as Moana easily won the box office after bringing in $55.5 million over the weekend and brought in a total of $81.1 million domestically over the five-day Thanksgiving opening.
Moana had the second largest Thanksgiving debut ever only behind 2013’s Frozen which made $93.6 million over the five days reports Box Office Mojo.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them fell to second place after only a 39% drop and brought in $65.8 million over the five day weekend and raised its total domestic gross to $156.2 million after only ten days. Doctor Strange came in third place with $18.9 million over the weekend and passed $200 million domestically. This makes it the tenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to gross at least $200 million domestically.
Brad Pitt’s new film Allied came in fourth place with $18 million over the weekend which was slightly under expectations. Arrival rounds out the top five with $15.6 million. The other new releases of the week had much smaller openings. Bad Santa 2 came in seventh place with $9 million and Rules Don’t Apply had the worst opening of 2016 only bringing in $2.2 million and finishing in 12th place.
I was wrong last week but I’m confident that Moana will repeat as box office champion considering the only wide release next week is the horror thriller Incarnate starring Aaron Eckhart and Gotham’s David Mazouz.
Weekend Gross by Distributor:
Disney: $69.1 million (+51.5 percent)
Warner Bros.: $46.2 million (-30.9 percent)
Paramount Pictures: $24.6 million (+11.8 percent)
20th Century Fox: $12.1 million (-6 percent)
Broad Green Pictures: $6.2 million (n/a)
Universal: $6.1 million (-2 percent)
Lionsgate: $6.1 million (-2.1 percent)
STX Entertainment: $3 million (-1.8 percent)
Next week’s openings: Incarnate