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RECORD SETTING PREVIEWS! Well done, Moana!

posted 8 years ago by Zaphenzo
5 replies | jump to latest

Per Deadline:

...But Beasts didn’t stop Walt Disney from beating preview records with its holiday release of Moana, which drew $2.6M last night from shows starting at 7 PM. Moana‘s moola outstrips previous feature toon preview nights including Zootopia‘s Thursday night ($1.7M), Big Hero Six ($1.4M), The Good Dinosaur (which had a Tuesday night preview record of $1.3M) as well as Frozen ($1.2M). The latter ice sister princess movie remains the five-day Thanksgiving champ with $93.59M (with a $67.4M 3-day). This year, Disney hit opening records with Pixar’s Finding Dory notching a $135M domestic debut, the best ever for an animated movie, as well as Zootopia clocking $75.1M in its first weekend, which is a record for an original Disney Animation title.

Moana will bow in 3,80o theaters today with 80% of its locations providing 3D. The film, directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, features songs by multi-Tony-winning Hamilton star and creator Lin-Manual Miranda, and tells the story about a Pacific Island girl who in an effort to reverse the bad luck that has fallen on her Oceania village seeks out the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) so that they might right the wrongs that he has done by angering the gods.

Tracking is split; some are giving the edge to Moana to take the 3- and 5-day No. 1 run (never underestimate Disney) with as much as $75M-$80M, but there’s also a scenario where over five days Rowling’s monsters could tip over Disney’s surfer girl. Moana currently has a 99% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score...

http://deadline.com/2016/11/moana-fantastic-beasts-tuesday-box-office-thanksgiving-1201859220/

[–] troyplafond 8 years ago

Well done indeed. Double of Good Dinosaur's previews with much better reviews could mean it's on for an opening 5-day around 100 million.

[–] QueenFanUSA 8 years ago

Deadline seems to be saying that FB may very well take the 5-day. That will definitely be an upset victory over Moana.

[–] Hold_the_door 8 years ago

Not impossible but seems a lot unlikely. Moana is looking for $60M over the 3-day and $80M plus over the 5-day weekend. FB is looking for $40M and $60M respectively.

[–] Zaphenzo 8 years ago

Deadline seems to be saying that FB may very well take the 5-day. That will definitely be an upset victory over Moana.

Deadline's projections are normally pretty terrible. I look to them for the facts, and ignore all their opininos. I very highly doubt FB will take the 5-day. Not impossible, but very highly unlikely. FB's second weekend against Moana's first, with FB almost definitely a heavily front loaded movie.

[–] troyplafond 8 years ago

It's important to make the distinction that, in most cases, Deadline doesn't actually make these projections. These projections come straight from the studio. However, these articles also must cone out as quickly as possible. So they don't have time to get a new quote from the studio on the opening weekend prospects based on the preview number. Therefore, the projection from the studio stays the same regardless of the preview number.

Additionally, studios intentionally under-project their movies so they can claim success even at a merely okay level, or claim that it met expectations when it actually disappointed/bombed. Deadline is still saying that it's on course for 70 million over the 5 day, but now we have Variety saying 88 million. Forbes has 75 million as a worst case, and up to 110 million.

Also, as I'm nearly done writing this, Deadline has now updated Moana to a 77 million five-day, which still feels conservative. It also has it beating Fantastic Beasts which has an estimated 60 million, which is incredibly optimistic based on how frontloaded Harry Potter is.

We'll see how the weekend goes, but I bet Disney will be celebrating more than just Thanksgiving.