Every child in the Madrigal family is blessed with a magic gift that is unique to them. Mirabel is the only one that is. Mirabel is determined to prove she belongs in this family. The movie "Encanto" will be released in the U.S. on November 24, 2021. All rights are reserved.
DISNEY.
Disney's Encanto took the Thanksgiving box office by storm with $5.8 million. The good news is that the number is below what Disney has come to expect. Think of films like Frozen, The Good Dinosaur, and Coco, which have a combined value of $10 million. The good news is that the toon dropped just 22.6% from Wednesday, which is a better hold than all of the others.
It is in line with the 23% drop for Rise of the Guardians in 2012 which earned $32 million from a $8.6 million two-day total. If Encanto plays from a $13.3 million Wednesday/Thurs debut, it will flirt with a $50 million debut. It will be closer to 45 million than 35 million if it stays on par with the other Disney toons.
There is some irresponsible speculative math for fun. You know what other kid-friendly toon opened soft on Wednesday and then dropped 22% on Thursday? That is who. The DWA toon earned $21 million on Wednesday and Thursday in 2004. It made a single-day record of $44 million on Saturday and a $108 million Fri-Sun debut.
17 years have passed since the blockbuster provided false hope for Wednesday openings. If it were to happen again here, Encanto would be looking at an $18 million Friday gross, $28 million Saturday and $22 million Sunday for a $68 million Fri-Sun/$ 81 million Wednesday-Sun debut. Most Wednesday-Sun openers don't pull 11 times their Wednesday grosses.
The small Thursday drop suggests that word-of-mouth will help, and that maybe family audiences will check it out at their convenience over the Fri-Sun weekend. We have seen films like A Quiet Place part II, Halloween Kills and Venom: Let There Be Carnage all year long. Since Tom & Jerry, we have seen some family films opening with relatively "as expected" debuts.
If Encanto only gets 50% of what is expected for a Disney toon over the weekend, that is not just a Covid problem. We haven't had a blockbuster original toon since Coco on Thanksgiving 2017, and most of the toons were compromised during the pandemic. The world shut down before Onward bombed.
It was possible that the marketplace for non-sequel/non-ip theatrical flicks had become less lazada for animated films as they were for everything else. It is not like anyone showed up for the films Abominable and Laika in late 2019. We will never know if Soul and Raya would have been good hits in conventional times.
If a new big-budget theatrical original stumbles theatrically, it is important that a new boss prioritize the streaming platform. The worst thing that could happen for animation is for Encanto and Seeing Red to be a flop in the theaters, and only for Lightyear to be Pixar's first blockbuster since Toy Story 4. A Rise of the Guardians-level multiplier is what this is hoping for, but it is unlikely. We are waiting on a miracle.
