Sunday, December 1, 2013

"Frozen" Opens With Biggest Debut For Disney Animated Film Since "The Lion King"

But when adjusted for inflation, the 1994 hand-drawn classic bests the latest film from Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Frozen

Disney

In the 1990s, the Walt Disney Company was king of animated movies. Starting with The Little Mermaid in 1989, the studio enjoyed a renaissance of artistic ambition and financial reward, re-establishing feature animation as a top-tier moviegoing medium, hitting a high watermark with 1994's The Lion King.

Great success, of course, begets more competition, and by the start of the 2000s, Pixar Animation Studios' and DreamWorks Animation Studios' embrace of 3D computer animation helped both companies surpass Disney's animated fare at the box office — and, frankly, they both made better movies. (Disney eventually purchased Pixar outright, but the two animation studios remain independent operations.)

Over the past few years, however, as Walt Disney Animation has made its own 3D computer animated films, its enjoyed yet another re-birth, with films like 2008's Bolt, 2010's Tangled, and 2012's Wreck-It Ralph.

And now the studio is poised to have its biggest hit in decades with Frozen, which just broke Toy Story 2's 14-year-old record for the biggest Thanksgiving box office debut of all time, with $93.3 million over the five-day weekend, and $66.7 million from Friday through Sunday. Amazingly, this was only the second best box office take of the holiday — The Hunger Games: Catching Fire pulled in $74.5 million for the 3-day weekend and $110.2 million for the 5-day weekend, also a new Thanksgiving record. But it isn't exactly a shock that the sequel to one of last year's biggest films is itself a monster hit. Meanwhile, adjusting for inflation, Frozen had the best opening weekend for any Walt Disney Animation Studios film since The Lion King. Coupled with an A+ CinemaScore and zero family film competition until the Christmas season, Frozen could be a monster hit on its own.

To put Frozen's fabulous box office debut in perspective, here are all the Walt Disney Animation Studios films since The Little Mermaid, ranked by opening weekend from best to worst (and adjusted for inflation).

The Lion King (1994)

Domestic opening weekend box office (adjusted for inflation): $78,744,000

Domestic total box office (adjusted for inflation, and in initial release): $600,726,200

Disney / Via impawards.com