There comes a time during Thanksgiving weekend when the food has been scarfed down, the big football game is winding down, and awkward pauses begin dominating the conversation. That’s when it’s time to leave the house and figure out something else to do with the family. One go-to way to pass the time? Going to the movies. It’s no wonder Hollywood is always dropping major new films over Thanksgiving weekend or just a few days before this holiday. Titles ranging from Frozen to various Harry Potter installments to The Twilight Saga: New Moon, among many others, have thrived over this weekend.
That box office trend looks poised to continue in 2024 thanks to Wicked, Gladiator II, and Moana 2 all dropping at the end of November. The combined might of these titles is sure to make a Thanksgiving box office frame to remember. Before that triple-whammy of box office success, though, it’s important to take a step back and remember the biggest Thanksgiving domestic box office frame in history. This holiday always brings out tons of moviegoers, but one late November three-day timeframe made more money than any other in the history of the Thanksgiving box office.
The Biggest Thanksgiving Box Office Weekend Ever Is…
Currently, the $203.8 million haul of the November 23-25, 2018 weekend surpasses all other three-day Thanksgiving frames in history. Like many of the biggest domestic box office frames in history, this tremendous gross wasn’t due to just one movie. Ralph Breaks the Internet ruled the marketplace with an astonishing $56.2 million three-day opening, but Creed II also opened to a fantastic $35.5 million. Meanwhile, despite the presence of a new animated kid’s movie, The Grinch only earned 21% of this frame and grossed another $30.39 million. That made this three-day weekend alone had three movies grossing $30+ million each. Fantastic Beast: The Crimes of Grindelwald and Bohemian Rhapsody rounded out the top five with $14+ million each.
One motion picture alone cannot buoy the entire theatrical marketplace. You need a slew of lucrative titles to really get the domestic box office to major new financial heights. Thanksgiving 2018 epitomized that thanks to multiple features aimed at very different audiences drew people to their local theaters. Even adult dramas were present in this historic weekend, as Green Book and leggy holdover A Star is Born both rounded out the top ten. If there had just been both a major romantic-comedy and a sleeper horror hit in the top ten, this particular November 2018 frame would’ve contained basically every major mainstream American genre.
This Thanksgiving frame narrowly eclipsed the previous titan of this holiday weekend, the November 23-25, 2012 weekend where the final Twilight movie once again ruled the marketplace. That weekend grossed $200.4 million and benefited from Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Lincoln, Life of Pi, and Skyfall (among others) drumming up solid numbers. Again, we see that variety is the key to box office success, as combining U.S. presidents with sparkly vampires brought the three-day Thanksgiving weekend frame to $200+ million for the first time ever. Third biggest among Thanksgiving’s was another crowded frame, the November 29-December 1, 2013 weekend where The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Frozen ruled over a domestic box office landscape that amassed $194.5 million.
The 2020s Thanksgiving Box Office Blues
From 2016 to 2019, the Thanksgiving three-day weekend timeframe would reliably bring in $167-203 million to the annual box office. It was a remarkable trend one can chalk up to both audiences hunger for big blockbusters in this era and Disney’s 2010s box office hot streak. That would’ve been a tough act for the 2020s to follow under any circumstances. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and other external pressures on the theatrical marketplace have left the first Thanksgiving’s of the new decade hollow shells of the past. In 2021, for instance, Encanto ruled over a Thanksgiving three-day frame that only reached $92.7 million.
The following year, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever reigned over the marketplace for a third consecutive time while the weekend grossed just $89.7 million. Thanksgiving 2023 finally grossed $100+ million, but that three-day sum only reached $109.2 million, still a fraction of what this timeframe grossed just five years earlier. This steep decline isn’t surprising. Disney Animation’s box office struggles in the 2020s have especially impacted the Thanksgiving timeframe. In the 2010s, the Mouse House supplied massive all-ages crowdpleasers like Coco, Moana, and Frozen that drove the Thanksgiving box office to new heights.
In the earliest years of this decade, that same studio supplied Wish and Strange World, neither of which came close to hitting box office expectations. Meanwhile, pre-Thanksgiving blockbusters like The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Ghostbusters: Afterlife can’t hold a candle to the mighty hauls of 2010s November hits like Skyfall and The Grinch. If the movies just aren’t there, moviegoers will be similarly absent. It’s a simple issue that, unfortunately, Hollywood has failed to properly address over the last few years. Of course, that problem now looks poised to end thanks to the trio of movies opening over Thanksgiving 2024.
Can Thanksgiving 2024 Set a New Record?
All eyes are now on Thanksgiving 2024 as the weekend that could give the film industry its first big Thanksgiving box office weekend after COVID-19 shut down theaters in March 2020. Hype surrounding Wicked and Moana 2 especially has reached such fever-pitch levels that some have begun wondering if some records will get shattered. Will Thanksgiving 2018 finally fall as the biggest three-day Thanksgiving weekend in domestic box office history? Right now, that looks entirely feasible. Tracking suggests Moana 2 could have the biggest five-day Thanksgiving launch in history while it’s doubtful Wicked will flame out after what will surely be a big opening weekend. Throw in folks catching up on Gladiator II over this holiday timeframe and Thanksgiving 2024 sure does, at least on paper, have the kind of variety that’s fueled the biggest Thanksgiving box office frames in history.
Even just leaving the first few 2020s Thanksgiving’s in the dust, though, might be enough for the American film industry at this point. Anything to suggest that moviegoing is returning to something resembling normal. The return of Thanksgiving Walt Disney Animation Studios blockbuster hits would certainly qualify. Before a potential new Thanksgiving box office record is crafted, though, it’s important to take a look back at those lucrative frames from 2018 and 2012. Specifically, Hollywood should live and die by the big screen variety evident in those historic Thanksgiving weekends. That’s versatility is bound to remind people that going out to the movies is a great way to avoid Thanksgiving family awkwardness.
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