'Croods 2' Wins the Thanksgiving Box Office
by EG
The Croods 2 was the highest-grossing movie in theaters over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. However, as the pandemic rages on, it was the only new major studio movie in theaters, and its gross was a tiny fraction of what movies would earn during a "normal" year. Last year, Frozen 2 earned almost 10 times as much. Read on for details.
Despite the most challenged Thanksgiving box office in modern times, The Croods: A New Age managed to come in ahead of projections with a five-day holiday debut of $14.2 million, including $9.7 million for the weekend.
Overseas, the family film launched in seven markets to $20.8 million — led by $19.2 million in China — for a global bow of $35 million.
While that's the lowest Thanksgiving chart-topper in decades, Universal and DreamWorks Animation still had reason to celebrate.
Croods 2 is the first major studio film to brave opening on the big screen since Tenet and narrowly came in ahead of Tenet ($9.3 million) for the three-day weekend to mark the top debut since the pandemic began. Also, it's better-than-expected performance shows that a family film can work during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. (According to PostTrak, 41 percent of ticket buyers were under the age of 17.)
The animated film, playing in 2,211 theaters, opened after hundreds of theaters reclosed in recent days because of a surge in COVID-19 cases. And those cinemas that remain in operation are dealing with dramatically reduced capacity and stay-at-home orders.
"This shows that even with a difficult theatrical landscape, people want to come out and get together. The film is incredibly charming," says Jim Orr, Universal's distribution chief.
Thanksgiving is normally one of the most lucrative corridors of the year. Last year, Disney and Pixar's Frozen 2 collected more than $100 million over the long four-day weekend (Thursday through Sunday). It finished the weekend with a domestic total of $288 million after opening a week earlier on Friday, Nov. 22.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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