Zootopia 2 got off to a strong start at the box office, earning $39.5 million in its first full day of release.
And Disney’s animated sequels aren’t the only sequel movies to hit the Thanksgiving box office. “Wicked: For Good” grossed $17.2 million, bringing the state box office total to $194.6 million. Unsurprisingly, Universal, which brought the Broadway musical to the big screen, has said it wants to expand the series and find a way to make more films about Oz. “Wicked: For Good” should increase its box office gross by more than $90 million, bringing its domestic gross to nearly $270 million.
“Zootopia 2,” a buddy cop movie that pits anthropomorphic animals against each other, is expected to top the box office with $125 million to $150 million over the Thanksgiving weekend.
It’s a massive opening, although it probably won’t match the records set by 2024’s Moana 2, which grossed $139 million over a traditional weekend and $225 million over five days. Other Thanksgiving all-stars include Disney’s 2019 sequel “Frozen II” ($125 million in five days) and 2013’s “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” ($109 million in five days). But for exhibitors who’ve endured a tough slump filled with flops like Smashing Machines and Tron: Ares, the arrival of a new Zootopia and more Elphaba and Glindas finally gives them a reason to be thankful.
The second film, Zootopia, also dominated the international box office, grossing $41.6 million and will take its worldwide box office total to $81.1 million. It is expected to collect an additional $135 million to $145 million from overseas markets in the first five days of release. The film was released in China on Wednesday, and it also made a big splash in South Korea, where Zootopialand recently debuted at Shanghai Disneyland. In China, “Zootopia 2” achieved the 10th highest opening day box office gross of $33.7 million for a U.S. release, making it one of the few Hollywood films to make a splash at the Chinese box office since the coronavirus outbreak. Since the pandemic, the country’s local-language films have been far more popular than U.S.-backed films.
Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, Zootopia 2 follows a rabbit police officer (Ginnifer Goodwin) and a con artist fox (Jason Bateman) who reunite to hunt down a mysterious new reptilian resident (Kay Hui Quan). Variety magazine’s chief film critic Peter DeBruge praised Zootopia 2 as a “worthy successor,” and most critics agreed, giving the film an astounding 94% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Elsewhere, A24’s Eternity, a romantic comedy set in the afterlife starring Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller and Callum Turner, opened with $1.4 million on 1,348 screens, and Focus Features’ Hamnet, a William Shakespeare drama about personal tragedy, opened with $330,000 on 160 screens. “Hamnet” is considered an Oscar frontrunner, with critics lavishing praise on the film, directed by Chloé Zhao and starring Jesse Buckley and Paul Mescal.
Ticket sales should be lower on Thanksgiving as people celebrate with family or stream “Stranger Things,” but audiences tend to flock to multiplexes from Black Friday through the weekend.
