'Toy Story 2' Breaks Thanksgiving Records
Toy Story 2 is poised to squish the Thanksgiving weekend record set by A Bug's Life. It already broke the opening Thanksgiving Wednesday record yesterday by grossing $9.5 million. The previous record holder was 1989's Back to the Future Part II with $7.2 million. Last year A Bug's Life faced off with The Rugrats Movie and Babe: Pig in the City and scored the five-day record with $45.7 million. With just the fading Pokemon to contend with, Toy Story 2 has it much better. Bug's Life opened at 2,686 theaters, while Toy Story 2 opened at a whopping 3,236 theaters, the widest November has ever seen. It also is benefiting from being the sequel to the much loved Toy Story, which opened to $39.1 million over the five days in 1995 and went on to gross $191.8 million total.
End of Days is poised to have an underwhelming opening. It grossed $5.2 million its first day, just $350,000 more than The World is Not Enough on its sixth. Making matters worse, since it's a big Arnold Schwarzenegger event picture, it is the type to have make most of its money up front. This and mixed word-of-mouth means it could burn out quickly, ultimately placing third or fourth for the weekend. Part of its problem is that it's not in the spirit of the holiday. Toy Story 2 is for the family of course, James Bond is a franchise and sort of traditional in that it is the third in a row to come out this time of year, and Sleepy Hollow, while gruesome, is kind of festive with its famous story and colonial setting. People don't want to see brainless gloom and doom, millenium or not. The ad campaign is also to blame. Instead of pushing the Arnold vs. Satan hook, it has tried to be more of a lame heavy metal video. Universal may have anticipated lackluster numbers as they opened it at 2,575 theaters. Now that is very wide, but it pales in comparison to the 3,000+ launches of the other event pictures out now.
Flawless was among the pictures the troubled MGM wrote-off earlier this year. Its 478 theater release is a pittance and only because of the presence of Robert DeNiro. It grossed just $171,000 on its opening day, a blip as expected.
The World is Not Enough grossed $4.8 million Wednesday, and looks like it's headed to the low 30's for the five days, close to what it did last weekend. Goldeneye also made about the same amount over Thanksgiving as it did the weekend before back in 1995. Sleepy Hollow looks like it will take a bit of dip, but still perform respectably in the mid-to-low 20's. Warner Bros. plans to again give away Pokemon trading cards, so that may inflate it more than the quickly wilting cartoon would otherwise make. The trading card giveaway played a big part in the $50.8 million it made its first five days.
Overall this looks to be the biggest Thanksgiving weekend ever, breaking last year's $182 million record.
