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Thanksgiving’s Refreshingly Old-School Box Office Battle

For the first time since ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ opened days before ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet,’ in 2018, this year’s mid-November box office slate will mimic the pattern from the prior two decades. Everyone should win.

wicked movie
By moving Wicked to the weekend before the holiday break, Universal is able to position Jon M. Chu’s $145 million musical fantasy as this year’s proverbial Hunger Games- or Twilight-sized YA blockbuster. Photo: Courtesy of Universal Pictures
Scott Mendelson
November 12, 2024

The pre-Thanksgiving trifecta of Gladiator II, Wicked: Part One, and Moana 2 provides a veritable pre-Covid-esque theatrical cornucopia that should produce pre-pandemic box office returns. As we’ve seen semi-regularly since early 2021, theatrical tentpoles are crucial to bringing the overall marketplace back. In short, if you release it, they will come.