'Strange World' Flops at the Thanksgiving Box Office

Business continued to be slow at theaters over the long holiday weekend, as the Marvel sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was the only movie to draw respectable crowds (despite being in its third week of release). The week's biggest surprise was the flop of the Disney animated film Strange World, which squeaked into second place after selling far fewer tickets than expected. Read on for details.

Via Box Office Mojo.

Though the holiday season is often a box office bonanza, unfortunately the numbers over this long holiday weekend aren’t giving us much to be thankful for as the three-day cume for the entire box office came to just $92.9 million (down from last weekend’s $101 million) and the five-day cume came to $133 million. Of course we can’t expect pre-pandemic numbers (2019 had a $181 million three-day and $262 million five-day, and that was actually down from 2018), but these numbers are even worse than last year’s $96.3 million three-day and $142 million five-day back when many were still hesitant to return to the cinema. For some perspective, the last pre-pandemic Thanksgiving weekend to even fall under $100 million for the three-day was in 1994.

Yes, the top movie this weekend, which was Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with $45.9 million for the three-day and $64 million for the five-day, was higher than the top films in many of those years, including last year when the top film was Encanto with $27.2 million for the three-day and $40.6 million for the five-day. However, this weekend’s B-team was particularly not up to par with Turkey Day standards. For the three-day, last year had its second place film in the 20s and third place in the teens, while 2019 had its entire top five above $10 million. This year, just the top two even made the double-digit millions, with the second place film coming to a paltry $11.9 million.

For one of the few pieces of good news, Wakanda Forever had an impressive third weekend hold as it fell just 31%. After a somewhat disappointing second weekend drop of 63% which was much closer to the roughly 67% drops of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder than the amazing 45% second weekend drop of the first Black Panther, it leveled out better than the year’s earlier MCU outings (Doctor Strange 2 fell 48% in its third weekend and Thor 4 fell 52%). Wakanda Forever had the year’s second best opening ($181 million) after Doctor Strange 2 ($187 million) and third best post-second weekend cume ($287 million) after Doctor Strange 2 ($293 million) and Top Gun: Maverick ($295 million), but its post-third weekend cume ($368 million) shot well ahead of Multiverse of Madness’ ($343 million) to have the year’s second-best post-third weekend cume (at this point Maverick had $395 million). Black Panther 2 currently stands as the sixth-highest grosser of the year and is just days away from leaping to third, and should hit second place in the weeks ahead (though may fall back to third if Avatar: The Way of Water lives up to expectations). Worldwide it is now at $676 million.

Unfortunately, Disney’s Marvel-ous superhero numbers are met with a very disappointing opening from Walt Disney Animation Studios’ latest Strange World. The sci-fi adventure tale took second place with $11.9 million for the three-day and $18.6 million for the five-day.

Get the rest of the story at Box Office Mojo.