Thanks largely to immense turnout in the United States and historic turnout in China, Disney’s “Zootopia 2” has earned a staggering 5-day global opening weekend of $556 million, blowing past the $378 million record set by “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” for the largest extended opening weekend ever for an animated film.
In the U.S. and Canada, the film has earned a 5-day launch of $156 million, second only to the $225 million of last year’s “Moana 2” on the all-time Thanksgiving weekend charts.
Meanwhile, in China, “Zootopia 2” passed “Avengers: Endgame” for the highest single day total ever for a Hollywood film and second highest behind “Detective Chinatown 3” for any film with $104 million on Saturday. With a 5-day opening of $272 million, the film is now tracking for a $500 million-plus Chinese run with a chance to pass the $632 million of “Endgame” for the highest Chinese total ever for a Hollywood film.
While “Moana 2” reached $1 billion last year and the 2021 film “Encanto” became a streaming hit, “Zootopia 2” is the first Disney film to win over critics and audiences worldwide as well as enjoy incredible financial success. Reception is sky high across the board with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 91% critics and 95% audience as well as an A on CinemaScore and 9.7/10 on Chinese film site Maoyan.
It’s a thunderous box office victory for Disney reminiscent of its 2010s heyday and uplifts a 2025 that prior to this weekend had yielded a $1 billion-plus hit with the remake of “Lilo & Stitch,” but also brought bombs like “Snow White” and “Tron: Ares” as well as the middling runs of Marvel films like “Thunderbolts*” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”
And despite the up-and-down nature of Disney’s year, “Zootopia 2,” combined with “Lilo” and the upcoming “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” will alone give Disney more than $4 billion in global grosses, enough to once again make it Hollywood’s top studio at the box office by year’s end.
In second place on the charts this weekend is Universal’s “Wicked: For Good,” which added $93 million over the 5-day weekend to bring its total to $270 million domestic and $393 million worldwide.
For comparison, the first “Wicked” earned $263 million domestic through two weekends after earning $118 million over the Thanksgiving period. This suggests that a portion of moviegoers who discovered “Wicked” over Thanksgiving last year made “For Good” a must-see watch on opening weekend, contributing to the follow-up’s Broadway adaptation record $147 million opening but leading to a relatively lower Thanksgiving figure.
However the numbers move around, “Wicked: For Good” remains on pace to match or slightly exceed its predecessor’s $758.7 million global run and should be Universal’s second highest grossing film this year behind “Jurassic World: Rebirth” with $868.9 million.
In third is Lionsgate’s “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” with a 5-day third weekend total of $10 million for a total of $49.6 million domestic and $137 million worldwide. It’s a good result for Lionsgate, which should see this threequel pass the John Wick spinoff “Ballerina” to become the studio’s highest grossing film of the past two years in the coming week.
But for theaters, the fact that $10 million is enough to get the No. 3 spot on Thanksgiving weekend shows how much “Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good” are carrying the load this weekend as they drive overall totals to $293 million. By comparison, the No. 3 film during last Thanksgiving’s record $424.5 million weekend, Paramount’s “Gladiator II,” earned $44.2 million over the holiday period while Amazon’s “Red One” took in $18.5 million.
More to come…
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