Frozen II has already had an epic opening weekend, but with the always lucrative Thanksgiving weekend starting today, the box office success is far from over. There is a new competitor in the ring with Rian Johnson's well regarded whodunit Knives Out debuting this weekend but don't expect it to impact the flow of money too much. The fact that Frozen II is entering its second weekend won't be enough for the newcomer to take away first place at the domestic box office.
Frozen II debuted with an impressive $130 million domestically and Deadline is reporting estimates that the movie will almost certainly break the $200 million mark by the end of Thanksgiving Day. The film is expected to bring in $84 million during the standard weekend, Friday-Sunday, and so could be knocking on the door of $300 million by the end of the long weekend.
Knives Out, on the other hand, is tracking for a debut of between $25 and $30 million, which will put it in a solid second place, but at less than half of what Frozen II is expected to do. Even if Knives Out exceeds projections, as some think it might, it's not going to be by that much.
Rian Johnson's new film has an all-star cast and is getting a lot of praise from critics. It certainly was never going to be a broad crowd-pleaser like an animated Disney musical, but it's a movie that might very well be serving the audience that isn't looking for Frozen II, and do very well in its own right.
The Thanksgiving weekend is a big movie weekend and the Friday after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday in the retail world, is an especially big movie day, because most of the country has the day off and if you're not hitting the stores, your day is usually open for things like hitting the movies.
The fact that kids are off from school on Friday makes general audience material very popular which is why Disney routinely releases a movie during this weekend. Frozen II was originally set to debut today before it was moved up to last Friday.
Considering the first Frozen made over $1 billion at the box office it's little surprise that the movie is far from done at the box office. Even if Frozen II doesn't reach the heights the original did, it's still going to put up some strong numbers and become one of the highest grossing movies of the year.
Frozen II will likely continue to own the box office for some time. The weekend after Thanksgiving is traditionally a slow one that doesn't see any major releases so the Disney sequel will probably continue to hold court. After that, Frozen II will likely be beginning to slow down and the sequel to the popular Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will be arriving to take over the box office, at least for a week until Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits town.
