‘Wish’ To Rise Disney Animation’s Star Over Thanksgiving With $75M Global Opening; ‘Napoleon’ Charges For $46M WW – Box Office Preview

Disney original animation is looking at a comeback this Thanksgiving. The princess pic Wish is looking at as much as $45M-$50M over five days after the studio suffering a setback over last year’s holiday with Strange World, which did $18.8M.

With the strikes over and Thanksgiving week a primetime for moviegoing with K-12 schools off all week and colleges off Thursday and Friday, there’s a lot of hope from Hollywood for a bountiful box office. All movies combined to gross $134M during the Wednesday-Sunday period in 2022. Remember, Black Friday is one of the richest days of the year at the domestic box office.

The overseas release for Wish is a staggered approach a la Disney/Pixar’s Elemental, with only 43% of the foreign marketplace going this week including major markets UK, Spain, Mexico, China, as well as India, Benelux, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Philippines. All in, $25M is expected from abroad, where Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated, for a global opening weekend of $60M and a running worldwide total by EOD Sunday of $75M.

The movie, directed by Frozen franchise co-helmer Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, follows a young girl named Asha (voiced by West Side Story Oscar winner Ariana DeBose) who wishes on a star and gets a more direct answer than she bargained for when a trouble-making star comes down from the sky to join her. The movie is inspired by Disney’s centennial and centers on the studio’s theme of wishes coming true. Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice wrote the songs, with Disney orchestrator Dave Metzger penning the score.

Mexico will kick things off on Thursday in a rare turn. And since France isn’t going until next week, there is no offshore Wednesday market opening. The UK, Spain and the less-reliable Hollywood market China –the latter a projected $5M for the movie’s offshore launch — join Friday. We expect the top Wish openers in this early offshore frame to be a mix of UK, Mexico and China. 

RELATED: ‘Wish’ Trailer: First Look At Disney’s Animated Musical Comedy Starring Ariana DeBose And Chris Pine

If all goes well, it could be the best Friday-Sunday domestic take for an original feature toon post-pandemic with $35M, topping the at