Thursday Night Previews: Frozen Gets Off to a Hot Start

November 22, 2019

Frozen II

Frozen II is giving box office watchers a reason to celebrate after earning $8.5 million during its previews on Thursday, setting the record for an animated film in November. This is not as much as The Lion King ($23 million) or Toy Story 4 ($12 million) made during their previews, but those two films opened during summer holidays and family films’ performances during previews is proportional to the number of kids who are on holidays. A better comparison is Aladdin, which earned $7 million during its previews back in May before the vast majority of kids were out of school. It turned that preview into an opening weekend haul of $91 million. This film does have better reviews and I think there isn’t much difference between a sequel and a remake when it comes to legs, so that should help this film’s legs. I’m cautiously optimistic that the film will match our $125 million weekend prediction. We will know more when we get Friday’s estimates.

Frozen II also got off to a stellar start internationally with $18.6 million in 26 markets. This includes records for biggest opening day for an animated film in several markets, led by South Korea at $4.21 million on 2,343 screens. It opens in ten more markets today, including China, the U.K., Japan, Mexico, and Spain.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was way back with just $900,000 during its previews. Granted, it is aimed at a more mature target audience, one that doesn’t typically rush out to see a film as soon as it opens, while its reviews are award-worthy, so it should have great legs. That said, I was hoping for more. It is on track for $14 million over the weekend, which is on the low end of expectations.

21 Bridges was next with previews of $700,000. It has the weakest reviews of the weekend and its target audience is more likely to rush out to a movie during its opening day, so it will have the shortest legs over the weekend. On the positive side, this debut was within the margin of error of expectations, so it could still top predictions.

Filed under: Midnight Previews, Frozen II, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, 21 Bridges