‘Moana’ sails to number one at the U.S. box-office

Moana box office: The latest Disney animated movie becomes the second largest Thanksgiving opener ever.

More on the huge Moana box office below.

Moana may not be in UK cinemas until this Friday, but the latest Disney film has already managed to score big at the US box-office over the big Thanksgiving weekend. The film managed to score $81.1m over the five-day opening weekend, making it the second largest Thanksgiving opener ever, just behind Frozen ($93m five-day) but more than the huge Toy Story 2 ($80m five-day).

The film follows an adventurous teenager who sails out on a daring mission to save her people, has been getting rave reviews from critics and is also proving a big hit with cinema goers who have given the film a Cinemascore of ‘A’ in the US and a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 98%. We’re yet to post our review, but let’s just say that it is very positive indeed.

The news of the Moana box office numbers tops an outstanding year for Walt Disney Animation Studios, as the critically acclaimed Zootropolis debuted in March and went on to become one of the top animated films of all time with $1.023B. The two films continue Disney Animation’s streak of hits beginning with Tangled and including Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Big Hero 6. The average Rotten Tomatoes scores for these films is over 90% and their average global box office gross is over $800M.

As of November 20th, so this doesn’t include the Moana box office, Disney has made over $2.3 billion from the 2016 box-office, a huge amount that will grow even more with Moana and the forthcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story number still to be added in.

Moana releases in the UK from Friday 2nd December. Keep it THN this week for more coverage, including our review and an interview with the film’s legendary Disney directors Ron Clements and John Musker.