Disney’s Moana 2 started breaking records in its first night at the box office and hasn’t showed any signs of slowing down since. The highly anticipated sequel just dominated Thanksgiving weekend, bringing in a whopping $221 million domestically and $386 million around the globe. That’s good for the second-biggest opening of the entire year (behind Deadpool & Wolverine), but it’s also enough to shatter an impressive record that was set just last year.
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie was one of the biggest theatrical hits of 2023, and it set the record for the biggest five-day opening in domestic box office history with a haul of $204.6 million. It took about 18 months for that record to be broken by Moana 2‘s $221 million opening.
Both Moana 2 and the Mario Bros. Movie feel like films that were perceived as sure-thing successes. Illumination partnered with Nintendo to bring the most beloved video game character in history to the big screen as an animated character for the first time (the original live-action adaptation didn’t fare as well). Moana 2 is a follow-up to the most-watched film in all of streaming over the past couple of years.
There was no way either of this movies was going to lose money, but both outperformed even the loftiest expectations and set new records in the process. The Super Mario Bros. Movie went on to make more than $1.36 billion at the global box office, likely launching a major theatrical franchise for Illumination and Nintendo in the process.
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Given the massive love of the Moana character, and the rise of theater-going habits around the holidays, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Moana 2 ends up conquering Mario‘s total performance. So far, 2024 has only produced two billion-dollar movies, both of which came from Disney. Inside Out 2 is the biggest film of the entire year, followed by Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine. Illumination’s Despicable Me 4 came close to the $1 billion threshold, falling just short with $969 million.
Moana 2 will likely join Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine in the exclusive box office club at some point over the next few weeks. What helps Moana 2 in that regard is the excellent performance overseas, in addition to its big numbers here in North America. Wicked, one of the other major hits to come out of the Thanksgiving holiday, doesn’t have the same international legs.
And it’s always worth mentioning that Disney had originally planned on giving away a Moana sequel for free as a streaming series on Disney+.