Box Office: ‘Moana’ Scores Huge $81M Thanksgiving Win; ‘Rules Don’t Apply’ Bombs With $2.2M
Brad Pitt-starrer ‘Allied’ and Billy Bob Thornton’s ‘Bad Santa 2’ also opened over the long Thanksgiving holiday frame to mixed returns.
The 2016 Thanksgiving holiday box-office frame was a tale of feast or famine.
In another huge win for animated films — and Disney — Moana scored one of the best five-day Thanksgiving showings of all time with $81.1 million from 3,875 theaters, enough to conquer holdover Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which placed No. 2 in its second outing with $65.8 million from 4,144 theaters for a domestic total of $156.2 million.
Overseas, Fantastic Beasts topped the chart with a pleasing $132 million for a $317.5 million cume and global haul of $473.7 million. Moana is rolling out slowly abroad, where it took in $16.3 million over the weekend from its first handful of territories, including $12.3 million in China, where it was trounced by Fantastic Beasts‘ $41.1 million start.
If the $81.1 million domestic estimate holds, Moana will boast the No. 2 Thanksgiving launch of all time behind fellow Disney title Frozen ($93.6 million), not accounting for inflation. (Currently, Toy Story 2 is No. 2 with $80.1 million). Among all films, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire remains the five-day Thanksgiving record holder with $109.9 million.
Moana has everything going for it: glowing reviews; an A CinemaScore; Dwayne Johnson, who voices a demigod enlisted by a fierce young Polynesian princess; and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the music with Opetaia Foa’i and Mark Mancina. Newcomer Auli’i Cravalho voices the title character. Disney scored a second victory over Thanksgiving as Doctor Strange crossed $616 million globally, including a third-place finish domestically with a five-day gross of $18.9 million.
At the other end of the spectrum, Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply bombed with a five-day gross of $2.2 million from 2,382 theaters, one of the worst starts ever for a title going out in more than 2,000 theaters. New Regency backed…
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