After just one week in theaters, Moana 2 will have surpassed the first film’s entire unadjusted-for-inflation domestic box office gross. That’s wildly impressive, but it’s just one of many victories the Walt Disney Animation Studios sequel already has under its belt. We’re going to dive into every record Moana 2 has shattered thus far, but it’s hard not to expect more to come down the line.
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We’re going to go into domestic records as well as worldwide records. This includes daily tallies and weekend tallies. The question is, will the movie continue to perform well enough to possess highest of all-time tallies? It certainly looks likely but, for now, we’re going to look at the film’s domestic weekend records.
Five-Day Openings & Thanksgiving Grosses
Plenty of movies open on Wednesdays. One might expect every big blockbuster to kick off its run on a Friday, but five-day openings actually tend to do exceedingly well, particularly when it comes to movies geared toward kids. In fact, the previous record-holder for highest five-day opening was The Super Mario Bros. movie with almost $205 million. Moana 2 has now surpassed that figure by over $20 million.
In terms of Thanksgiving three-day weekend grosses, 2019’s Frozen II held the record with just under $86 million. Even more impressively, that was its second Friday through Sunday of play. The film debuted Friday, November 22nd, and by the time Sunday, November 24th had wrapped up, the fellow Disney sequel had amassed $130.3 million.
Yet, Moana 2 has blown the second Frozen flick out of the water. Furthermore, not only has Moana‘s $139.8 million three-day weekend set the record, Frozen II nearly went down the roster two spaces. Why? Wicked‘s second weekend of play was only about $5 million below the Anna and Elsa blockbuster.
The disparity is even greater when it comes to Thanksgiving five-day grosses. For the three-day, Moana 2 won by nearly $54 million. For the five-day period? Make that just over $100 million ($225.4 million vs. $125 million). Next, let’s get a bit more specific.
Thanksgiving Debuts, Thanksgiving Day, and Black Friday
As far as general three-day domestic openings go, Avengers: Endgame‘s $357.1 million haul looks safe for a long, long time. However, when it comes to films that debuted the week of Thanksgiving, Moana 2 is the new winner by a country mile. 2013’s Frozen held the record with $67 million and $94 million for three-day and five-day grosses, respectively (Not counting its first few days playing in a single theater).
As for Thanksgiving Day, Moana 2 has just about doubled the $15 million gross of the second Frozen movie with $27.8 million. It also beat Anna and Elsa’s Black Friday gross of $34.2 million with $54.4 million.
[RELATED: Biggest Box Offices for A Disney Animated Film & Sequel, Ranked (Including Moana 2)]
Walt Disney Animation Records & Worldwide Records
As mentioned, Frozen II opened to $130.3 million while Moana 2 has skyrocketed to $225.4 million. That makes it Walt Disney Animation’s biggest opening ever. It also now holds the best preview figure for a Walt Disney Animation with $13.8 million against Frozen II‘s $8.5 million. It even beat the Pixar smash hit Inside Out 2‘s preview gross of $13 million.
Now, onto Moana 2‘s newly set worldwide record. As far as worldwide opening weekends for an animated film go, 2023’s aforementioned The Super Mario Bros. Movie held a pretty firm grip on the title with $377 million. Yet now that Moana 2‘s final figures have rolled in, it’s jumped to the number one spot with $389 million. It also has another worldwide record under its belt, as it opened above Barbie and 2017’s Beauty and the Beast to hold the title for largest global opening for a musical.
In short, Moana 2 has done extremely well throughout its first five days, and the sky appears to be the limit on what it will accomplish next.