Moana 2 Might Pull An Inside Out 2 At The Box Office

It's been a quiet month or so at the box office, with stuff like "Red One" helping to hold theaters over until "Wicked" and "Gladiator II" arrive. That dueling set of blockbusters figures to potentially deliver another Barbenheimer situation, which will help usher in the holiday season with a bang. To help further make this Thanksgiving one to remember, Disney's "Moana 2" hits theaters right before Turkey Day, meaning it will have an extended, five-day window to deliver the goods across a long holiday weekend. And it looks like the animated sequel is indeed going to deliver the goods.

Disney's "Moana 2" is currently expected to pull in between $125 and $135 million across that five-day, Wednesday to Sunday stretch according to early tracking, per The Hollywood Reporter. That falls right in line with more recent projections, which have the film pulling in between $77 and $89 million over the usual Friday to Sunday stretch, with a give-or-take $130 million haul across the full five days, per Box Office Theory.

That would easily give us one of the biggest opening weekends of the year. Remarkably though, those estimates might be on the conservative end. We could — strong emphasis on could — be looking at a movie that rivals "Inside Out 2," which shattered records by opening to nearly $155 million domestically back in June before becoming the biggest movie of the year overall globally.

"Some people in the know are telling me that 'Moana 2' could eclipse and outshine even the success of 'Inside Out 2,'" AMC CEO Adam Aron recently said during a quarterly earnings call (via Deadline). Granted, Aron is motivated to convince investors that the outlook for the future is good but, even so, hearing that from the CEO of the world's largest theater chain is one heck of a vote of confidence.

"Moana 2" reunites Moana and Maui three years after the events of the first film. After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must set off on a new journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters alongside a crew of unlikely seafarers. Auli'i Cravalho and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson both return as Moana and Maui, respectively. David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller co-directed the film.

"Moana 2" was announced in February and it was originally supposed to be a Disney+ series, with the studio shifting gears at the 11th hour to turn it into a feature film instead. Based on these early numbers, that appears to have been a very, very good decision. It's worth noting that 2016's "Moana" is the most-streamed movie on Disney+, as revealed in a recent Bloomberg report. That's hugely impressive and suggests the audience for this sequel is massive.

2016's "Moana" opened to $56.6 million (also in November) before earning $686 million worldwide. It's one of Johnson's biggest movies ever and, frankly, after the lackluster results posted by films like "Jungle Cruise" and "Black Adam," he could use a surefire hit. His new holiday movie "Red One" might be a complicated, qualified success at best, but this animated sequel is going to be an out-and-out monster.

As for the "Inside Out 2" comparisons, that movie finished with nearly $1.7 billion worldwide, dethroning "Frozen 2" and 2016's "The Lion King" to become the unquestioned biggest animated movie of all time. Now Aron is suggesting "Moana 2" could do similar business, which is wild. At the very least, the film could follow a similar trajectory, with the sequel making a whole lot more than its predecessor (much like the original "Inside Out" made $859 million worldwide, only for "Inside Out 2" to essentially double its take). Not to get too ahead of ourselves, but if Disney's latest sequel is headed down an identical path, the 2024 box office is going to finish very strong.

"Moana 2" hits theaters on November 27, 2024.