Disregard The Corporate Noise: Disney Will Dominate Thanksgiving Box Office With ‘Wakanda Forever’ & ‘Strange World’
deadline.comCall it a holiday tradition as common as sweet potatoes on the Thanksgiving table, but Disney is going to rule the five-day holiday stretch again after wins in 2016 (Moana), 2017 (Coco), 2018 (Ralph Breaks the Internet), 2019 (Frozen 2) and last year (Encanto), as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s third weekend looks to do $40M over Wednesday-Sunday and Disney Animation’s Strange World hopes to squeeze out $30M+. All of this occurs as Bob Iger is re-installed as the CEO of Disney and the studio’s distribution czar Kareem Daniel exits.
That’s not exactly the best result for a Disney family film launching over the 5-day frame, a figure that’s under last year’s Encanto which did $40.5M.
Part of the dilemma with Strange World is the fact that it’s original animation, which is also a tough sell. The movie follows a family of explorers, the Clades, as they venture into an uncharted, treacherous land alongside a motley crew which includes a mischievous blob, a three-legged dog and a slew of ravenous creatures.
While Disney has been criticized for not being woke enough, with Chapek running into his own imbroglio with the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the studio has fully embraced an LGBTQ+ plot point here with Strange World whereby character Ethan (voiced by Jaboukie Young-White), has a crush on another boy in the movie.
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