Moana 2has had a record-breaking opening weekend. The new Disney animated movie is a sequel to their 2016 smash hit and follows the title character (Auliʻi Cravalho) teaming up once again with the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) for a brand-new musical adventure with songs by Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear rather than the original’s Lin-Manuel Miranda. TheMoana 2releasekicked off midweek, the day before Thanksgiving, after breaking the record for the most first-day pre-sales of any 2024 animated movie.
PerDisney, as of Sunday morning,Moana 2is projected to close out its opening weekend witha 3-day gross of $135.5 million and a 5-day total of $221 million at the domestic box officeon its way to a projected $368 million worldwide debut. This domestic debut smashes a variety of records, including the highest-grossing Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday day, 3-day Thanksgiving weekend, and 5-day Thanksgiving weekend of all time, beating 2019’sFrozen II, which was the previous record-holder on all counts, as well asThe Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which had already overtaken byFrozen II.
Moana 2has also broken the record for the biggest 5-day opening weekend of all time(beatingThe Super Mario Bros. Movie), the biggest Thanksgiving debut ever (beatingFrozen), and the biggest Walt Disney Animation Studios debut of all time (beatingFrozen II).
What This Means For Moana 2
Its Success Is Mind-Boggling
With this record-breaking opening, theMoana 2box officecould very well been routeto becoming the highest-grossing Walt Disney Animated Studios movie of all time. In fact, with its $368 million global opening weekend projections, it is already set to becomethe company’s 12th highest-grossing movie of all time within just five days of its run, beating out the entire worldwide grosses of previous classics includingThe Hunchback of Notre Dame($325.5 million),Bambi($268 million), andMulan($304.3 million).
At the time of writing, Walt Disney Animation Studios has released 63 movies.
However, it remains to be seen if itbeats theInside Out 2box officeto become the highest-grossing animated movie of all time in general. The Pixar release had a domestic opening weekend of $154.2 million,beatingMoana 2’s 3-day gross by more than $18 million. While its 5-day total of $205.4 million fell roughly $15 million below that of the newer release, it did not debut on a holiday weekend, so it did not get an extra midweek boost and thus can’t be properly compared.
There Is Nowhere To Go But Up
Custom Image by Milica Djordjevic
Even though the movie may not end up being the highest-grossing animated movie of all time,it can already be considered a sterling success. Outgrossing the original movie by a huge margin and earning more than $1 billion seem entirely within the realm of possibility. This could especially be the case in the wake of solidMoana 2reviewsearning it a Rotten Tomatoes score of 65% with an even better audience score of 87%.
Moana 2
Cast
Moana 2 is the sequel to the 2016 animated film Moana. Directed by David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller, the film continues the journey of Moana as she embarks on new adventures, exploring the vast Pacific Ocean while encountering new characters and challenges along the way.
