Disney is here to save the November box office which is at a four-year low thanks to underperforming openers such as Terminator: Dark Fate, Doctor Sleep & Charlie’s Angels. Being that Disney has dominated pretty much the whole calendar year in 2019, it’s no surprise that they’re our savior this weekend. Disney is bringing out the big funs with Frozen 2, the highly-anticipated sequel to the biggest animated film of all-time ($1.27 billion worldwide).
Disney picked a great weekend for Frozen 2 since it’s launching the weekend before Thanksgiving and it’ll gain momentum before likely dominating that holiday as well. Family audiences haven’t had much since Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which underperformed but still put up numbers Disney will ultimately be ok with. Playing With Fire is in play but Frozen 2 is an event for the entire family and is a follow-up to a Disney film that captivated a new generation of kids in the same way that Aladdin or The Lion King did for that generation. It’s one thing to have a successful animated film but an entirely different beast to have one that breaks through the pop culture barrier. The original Frozen did that in a big way so the sequel is hoping to replicate some of that success.
Frozen opened to $93.9 million over the 5-day Thanksgiving frame back in 2013 and remains the biggest Thanksgiving opener of all-time. Some think that since the sequel is launching a weekend ahead of the holiday, when a lot of the target audience is still in school, at least early Friday, that it will stall the opening a bit but judging from the Thursday night preview audience I saw, the day of the week this film came out is a non-factor. There were kids dressed up, some along with their parents, and that’s something that is bound to surge as the weekend progresses. Advance ticket sales for the film among theater circuits like AMC are posting records for an animated movie, well ahead of Toy Story 4 and Incredibles 2 and those films opened to $120.9 million and $182.6 million respectively. The caveat here is that those film did launch during the summer but what kids want, the kids will get and they want Frozen 2 BAD! Reviews are good at 77% fresh although it’s down a bit from the 90% fresh rating of the original. That being said, this one should be a hit with the kids this weekend so I’m predicting a start of $125-130 million.
Aiming for the older adult crowd is A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers himself. Neighborhood has been an awards player since it blew out of the gate at TIFF with a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a level it has stayed at since that premiere. The film doesn’t need to start out huge opening weekend because the hope is that the film will leg out and play strongly into December, especially if it picks up some award nominations along the way. The film cost $25 million to make so I think there is a hit in the making here so I’m predicting a launch of about $16-17 million this weekend.
Chadwick Boseman’s 21 Bridges is finally opening after its trailer has played in multiplexes for what feels like ten years. STX Entertainment shuffled this film around a bit on the schedule and it finally landed here, which means I’ll finally stop seeing that trailer. Hell, I practically feel like I’ve seen the film now. In the film, Boseman stars as an embattled NYPD detective who is on a manhunt for two cop killers and must close all 21 bridges in and out of Manhattan. Even though the film is rotten at 36%, there is a chance that the film catches on with the young male demo in the same way that such films as Den of Thieves ($15.2 million), End of Watch ($13.1 million) and Widows ($12.3 million) all did, at least on their opening weekends. I’m calling an opening of about $10-12 million.
