Disney and Uni's Moanageddon Game of Release-Date Chicken
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Shootout on Thanksgiving Weekend
In the pageant of showbiz, as much as we all snipe and mutter under our breath about each other, there are not too many places where our great entertainment providers come into direct conflict. (Yes, the occasional bidding war can get ugly.) If only Oscar rules allowed negative campaigning, we could have a lot more fun. But by and large, everyone is sort of playing their own game. Parallel play, as they call it in the preschool yard.
Which is why when two studios come into direct conflict over a release date, life can get very interesting, with enormous consequences for all involved.
When the same two studios are locked into a staredown over two different dates, you can feel the animus bubbling over.
Especially when the two studios are Disney, the long-time box-office title holder, and its neighbor down Alameda, Universal, which just usurped that spot to become the new reigning champion.
On the table are two of each studio’s biggest titles of this year and next.
First up, a showdown over nothing less than Thanksgiving weekend — the window that if it goes right kicks off a long holiday run. As dates go, the day before Thanksgiving is about as big as it gets. Recent releases on this date: The Hunger Games prequel (’23), Wakanda Forever (’22), Encanto (’21), Frozen 2, (’19, pre-Covid), Ralph Breaks the Internet (’18), Coco (’17), Moana (’16), Hunger Games Part 3, Part 2 (’15), Hunger Games Part 3, Part I (’14), Hunger Games Catching Fire (’13), Twilight Part 3, Part 2 (’12) Twilight Part 3, Part 1 (’11), Harry Potter Part 7, Part 1 (’10).
You get the idea. The day is a launch pad for an almost unbroken dynasty of monster hits, particularly of the family or youth-oriented variety, encompassing some of our biggest franchises and many of the great Pixar titles . . . running back to the brick wall Starship Troopers in 1997 (which I am personally prepared to defend as a work of genius anytime).
If you look at the recent history of the weekend, you can see why Disney would almost feel that Thanksgiving was its personal corporate property.
So things are starting to get a little tense as the company eyes its plans for Moana 2 — perhaps its most promising title of the year — coming out on the weekend its predecessor launched eight years ago. And what does it see across the turkey trot? Wicked (or the first half of Wicked) slated for release on the very same day. These are two movies for . . . everyone, but mostly families, on the very same day.
Obviously they are both risking disaster with their two biggest properties of the year, so one of them has to move, but the question is, first of all, which of them would that be? I don’t see any volunteers to be the one who backs down in the face of their archrival at the moment.