Disney’s new animated Wish movie is bombing at the long Thanksgiving weekend five-day box office.
Initially expected to top the box office and come in at first place, there is now a possibility Wish will come in third, trailing behind Hunger Games and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon.
Blame Deadline for the fake hype who originally said Wish was going to top the Thanksgiving weekend box office but much like how the sight usually reports on the numbers — that’s all wishful thinking.
Wish went from topping the box office at $55 million or more just a week ago (some estimates had it near $90M) to being lucky to bring in $32M-$33M as of Saturday. The flick could come in lower when the actuals are reported on Monday.
Sunday update: Wish comes in third place, looking like a 3-day $19.5M and 5-day $31.7M.
Monday update: Wish brought in $31,609,340 for the five-day weekend, and $19,698,228 for the three-day weekend. Napoleon came in second with $20.6M, and at first is The Hunger Games with $29M. Trolls Band Together released a week prior came in a close fourth at $17.8M.
So what happened?
Deadline is forced to admit it themselves as the site says “families aren’t rushing out to it” and “nobody is rushing enmasse to see it.”
“They’ve seen this plug-and-play princess movie before with the silly sidekicks (a talking goat and puffy star) and they can wait for this,” states the article.
Marketing also failed (and if you think “marketing” would have helped The Marvels, guess again):
Even though Disney executed the best D-Day marketing blitzkreig during an actors strike with Wish (i.e. promo partners like McDonalds, Neiman Marcus, Verizon, Cheerios; most-viewed Disney trailer on TikTok in first 24 hours, and synergies on FX, Freeform, Disney+ and ABC with the latter’s Dancing With the Stars “Disney’s 100 Night” kicking off a Wish sweepstakes)
Apparently what also hurts the movie is that no one knows what the flick is about.
As I went over in my previous article, critics panned it, and RogertEbert.com said it has some kind of political undertones, with additional reviews offering Wish is more about celebrating Disney as a company than anything else.
What’s to celebrate?
