Disney is set to dominate the Thanksgiving holiday box-office with both the third weekend of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and the animated adventure “Strange World” expected to take the top spots, whilst “Disenchanted” should perform well on the streaming front.
That said, it’s expected to be a fairly rough Thanksgiving box-office overall, with levels still below that of the pre-pandemic era. ‘Wakanda Forever’ is expected to pull in at least $40 million from Wednesday through Sunday, whilst “Strange World” is on track for a $30+ million five-day opening.
That’s a decent but not great start and not far behind musical fantasy “Encanto” which made $40.3 million over the same period last year, but also considerably down on the five-day openings of the likes of “Frozen II” ($123m) and “Ralph Breaks the Internet” ($85M) in pre-pandemic times.
Boasting a considerable budget of $180 million, “Strange World” faces some hurdles for Disney and won’t open in the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia, where it won’t pass censorship regulations, and Disney won’t make edits as it would impact the storytelling.
Also opening are the Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell-led aerial war drama “Devotion” which is targeting only $7-8 million, along with wider releases of Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All” at anywhere from $6-8 million, and Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” which is going wide but is only on track to earn $5 million. That’s half the opening of the poor $10 million his “West Side Story” debuted with last year and not good for a $40 million movie.
Netflix will bring “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” to cinemas for a one-week run, but the streamer doesn’t plan to report grosses. Rivals are estimating it will bring in $6-8 million across the entire week.
Source: Variety
