Disney ended up ruling the Thanksgiving Day box office with a one-two finish, but not quite as resoundingly as it would have hoped. For Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, it was business as usual, but the Mouse House’s latest animated title, Strange World, bombed with barely a whimper. Wakanda Forever posted a chart-topping $8.1 million on Thursday, pushing its running domestic total to $321 million in nearly two weeks, but Strange World could only muster a measly $2.4 million on its second day of release in over 4,100 nationwide theaters.
Wakanda Forever is looking at an extended third weekend of around $60 million, which should comfortably take it past the $350 million mark domestically. Worldwide, the film has made over $550 million and should soar past the $600 million mark by Sunday. Produced on a reported budget of $250 million, the well-received Marvel sequel has a high bar for success. The first Black Panther, released in 2018, made $700 million domestically and finished its global run with $1.3 billion.
While Wakanda Forever will likely not hit those numbers, it is expected to outperform both previous MCU releases of 2022 — Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($955 million worldwide) and Thor: Love and Thunder ($760 million worldwide).
Like Love and Thunder, Strange World has received unenthusiastic reviews from audiences. The film scored a B CinemaScore from opening day crowds with a reported $180 million budget. But with a projected $26 million across its extended five-day opening, recovering that kind of money theatrically seems like an impossibility at this point. The adventure film, featuring the voices of Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal, among others, was initially projected to make around $40 million in its extended opening. That would have put it at par with last year’s Encanto, which was made available on the Disney+ streaming service within a month of its theatrical release. The studio is aiming for a similar streaming rollout for Strange World, as well.
The film’s subpar opening is made all the more disappointing when you take into consideration how well Disney Animation titles have performed during the Thanksgiving holidays over the last few years. Frozen II delivered a $123 million opening in 2019, while Ralph Breaks the Internet made $84 million in its opening back in 2018, though both of those titles did have the added boost of being sequels to well-established hits.
Expansions such as Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans and Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All also underperformed. Speilberg’s semi-autobiographical drama made $480,000 on Thursday and is looking at a $3 million five-day finish from a little over 600 theaters. Guadagnino’s cannibal romance starring Timothée Chalamet made $430,000 on Thursday and is projected to make around $3.5 million from around 2,700 theaters in its extended opening. The week’s sole major newcomer, the Korean War drama Devotion brought in $1.2 million on Thanksgiving Day and is looking at a mediocre $8.5 million five-day finish.
Meanwhile, Netflix’s unprecedented nationwide release of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is biting into The Menu’s audience, with a projected $10 million-plus five-day finish from a little over 600 theaters. The Menu is estimated to make around $7 million in the same frame. Expect Wakanda Forever to continue forging ahead, at least until director James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water arrives next month. You can watch our interview with Glass Onion director Rian Johnson and star Daniel Craig here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.