If Wish is a financial success, I suspect it will be more of a slow build over the holidays vs a massive opening weekend.
Yeah, even in the supposed "Renaissance era" it was not a given that a Disney animated feature would post a huge opening weekend.
The Little Mermaid and
Beauty and the Beast both opened in third place but ran until the following spring because word of mouth was just that good.
Aladdin opened in second place behind the second weekend of
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, but again, it hung on a while. Modern Disney films being gigantic box office events from the get-go weren't a thing until
The Lion King, and even that was a bit of an anomaly (after
Pocahontas badly derailed audience goodwill, none of the remaining '90s films - discounting Pixar's of course - had a Number One opening weekend besides
Tarzan).
I think part of this was that the prime-years Disney films were not just interesting for family audiences but adults were willing to see them
by themselves, which was NOT a thing for many decades in the West. Nowadays, aside from Disney Adults (which are different from adult-adults
) I think these films appeal to families only, and with a lot more competition for the family dollar now, in the post-pandemic years that's been hurting the bottom line against those gigantic budgets.
Given how other films have fared this year... I think
Wish's long-term prospects are rosy - as I've noted before, once that opens there's no wide, mainstream theatrical release coming along until
Wonka on December 15th unless you count the Beyonce concert film -
if the movie is way better than all the released material so far suggests (to me anyway) it is, and it gets the kind of word of mouth that
Elemental managed.
Elemental's strong holds weren't enough to make it profitable long-term because the opening was so weak, but
Wish has seen far more of a promotional push - Disney practically threw
The Marvels away for it - and isn't opening in as competitive a market, so it will likely get a more robust opening, and thus make more in subsequent weekends with strong holds. But if the movie really is the "Pureflix
Shrek, and way sappier" that it looks to me to be (I've read some of the tie-in books and know all the major plot points), then it pretty much rises and falls on whether kids go nuts for it the way they did
Super Mario Bros. It may well be able to make back the budget, but it may not end up the holiday champ if
Wonka or
Migration get the upper hand. (If
Sing could outdo
Moana domesticallly...it's not impossible.)
