‘Moana 2’ “Could Eclipse” ‘Inside Out 2’ At The Box Office: What AMC Boss Adam Aron Heard

Anthony D'Alessandro

Thu, November 7, 2024 at 12:08 AM UTC

2 min read

Disney's Moana 2 is projected to potentially outshine the success of Inside Out 2 at the box office, with early forecasts predicting a $100 million-plus opening during the Thanksgiving holiday frame.
AMC Entertainment plans major upgrades to movie theaters as the box office shows signs of recovery, with recent Q3 earnings exceeding Wall Street expectations despite a decrease in total revenue compared to the previous year.
Other upcoming films like Universal's Wicked and Paramount's Gladiator II are also expected to have strong openings, with Wicked projected to debut with $80 million and Gladiator II with $65 million.

Despite the sluggishness of the fall box office with the bombing of Joker: Folie à Deux and the flat-footed start of Venom: The Last Dance , the holiday frames are coming up roses. Specifically Disney’s Moana 2 could help fuel the year along with Wicked and Mufasa: The Lion King to nearly $9 billion. This is all per AMC CEO Adam Aron on this afternoon’s Q3 earnings call.

“Some people in the know are telling me that Moana 2 could eclipse and outshine even the success of Inside Out 2 ,” he beamed. By the way, Inside Out 2 is the highest-grossing movie YTD stateside with $652.9M. The Pixar sequel opened to $154.2M, the second-highest opening of the year behind Disney’s own Deadpool & Wolverine from Marvel Studios ($211.4M).

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Recent six-week-in-advance projections from tracking service Quorum put Moana 2 at $100 million-plus during the five-day Thanksgiving Wednesday-Sunday frame and $75M-$82M over Friday-Sunday. The first Moana in 2016 opened to $82M over five days, ultimately grossing $248.7M stateside.

Disney owns the five-day Thanksgiving stretch record for a No. 1 movie with 2019’s Frozen 2, which did $125M. Tomorrow we’ll have the opening forecast for Moana 2 from tracking firm NRG. Already, Universal’s Wicked is looking at an $80M opening in the weekend prior to Thanksgiving followed by Paramount rival, Gladiator II, with $65M.

AMC’s Q3 figures bested Wall Street expectations, with the circuit swinging to an adjusted loss per share of 4 cents from a profit of 8 cents in the year-earlier period. Total revenue of $1.35 billion was down from $1.4B a year ago despite July-to-September hits including Deadpool & Wolverine and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

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