Walt Disney’s Frozen II opened with $41.8 million yesterday, including $8.5 million in Thursday previews, for the biggest single day gross for a non-summer toon. We can expect an opening weekend of around $110-$125 million for the Kristen Bell/Idina Menzel sequel, making it the first animated feature to open above $100 million outside of summer. Even if that number seems low(ish) compared to the $110 million-$135 million openings of Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3, Minions, Toy Story 4, Shrek the Third and Finding Dory, I wouldn’t be shocked if it played like The Grinch (a $55 million opening in November of 2000 followed by a $52 million second Fri-Sun weekend and a $137 million ten-day cume) by the end of the holiday weekend. Frozen, six years ago, went wide on Thanksgiving weekend for a $93 million Wed-Sun opening. In that respect, Frozen II’s opening seems… whelming.

Yes, Frozen II is going to open above $100 million, with $100 million worldwide already, and yes it’ll end a minor box office slump over the last six weeks or so. But said slump was less about Terminator: Dark Fate and Charlie’s Angels bombing and more about the presumed November titans, Wonder Woman 1984 and No Time to Die (and, I suppose, Sonic the Hedgehog) moving to 2020. Comparatively speaking, Frozen 2 had a prime release date and its biggest potential competition removed from the 2019 calendar. That said, it’s entirely possible that Disney chose this weekend (as opposed to Thanksgiving) in the hopes that the Jennifer Lee/Chris Buck-directed sequel would have essentially a ten-day opening weekend, akin to Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle opening just before Christmas in 2017. Again, comparisons to The Grinch and The Phantom Menace ($64 million opening/$52 million second weekend) may be in play.

Conversely, this merely “very good” opening may signal that the era of the breakout sequel, especially for sequels to big openers, may essentially be extinct outside of the MCU. That’s what made John Wick: Chapter 3 such a shocker. It opened ($56 million) as a breakout sequel to John Wick: Chapter 2 which opened ($30 million) as a breakout sequel to John Wick ($14 million). I wouldn’t be surprised, with the marketplace being what it is, if Wonder Woman 1984 or Venom 2 open lower than their predecessors despite audience goodwill. So many “originals” are so pre-sold and fan-driven that the first movies essentially play like hyped sequels in the first place. It’s Star Trek Into Darkness all over again. In a different time, I could have easily seen Frozen 2 opening on par with The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($158 million in 2013). 

Because Frozen, which was the surprise super smash of 2013, fit the variables to a tee. It earned rave reviews, superb audience scores and a good-to-great opening followed by exceptionally long legs. Sure, part of that was a lack of competition. The other big Thanksgiving/Christmas movies were either adult-skewing (Saving Mr. Banks, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, etc.) or ultra-violent PG-13 actioners (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug). But, to state the obvious, paying consumers and critics loved Frozen and specifically loved Frozen for the characters of Anna, Elsa, Olaf and Kristoff. And even if they grew sick of “Let It Go” over the last six years, they still like the movie and the Walt Disney Animation brand has only grown stronger since then. So, on paper, Frozen seemed like a prime “breakout sequel” contender.

There still may be other “breakout sequels” in the future, but they may be confined, save for the MCU (for now), among the exceedingly rare “opened small but legged out” likes of John Wick: Chapter 2 or Pitch Perfect 2. Part of this is the mere fact that fewer people go to the movies just to go to the movies, and the very folks who might “discover” Frozen or Star Trek on DVD or VOD may be perfectly content to catch the respective sequel at home as well. While I still think that the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (opening April 8, 2022) fits the bill but otherwise, I think studios are going to have to come to terms with the notion that, like it was in the 1980’s and most of the 1990’s, most franchises will (domestically) peak on the first movie.

We’re still talking about a pre-Thanksgiving opener that is going to open with over $100 million and, unlike Justice League, didn’t cost $300 million to produce. It’s likely going to earn strong buzz (it earned an A- grade from Cinemascore) and decent legs, even if it gets dinged by Jumanji 3, Cats, Rise of Skywalker, Little Women and Spies in Disguise starting on December 13. One of the things that made Frozen unique, that it was a super-duper event movie by/for women and girls, is now slightly less of a rarity. Come what may, if Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them can earn $234 million from a $75 million launch against Moana, Sing and Rogue One, then Frozen 2 (which won’t face competition until weekend four) should be at least as leggy as a Hunger Games sequel (2.7x its opening weekend).

While history is on its side in terms of legs (both Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4 topped $415 million with similar $110 million/$120 million openings), it’s not yet a guarantee. We could see a scenario where the animated sequel opens with $120 million and is “only” as leggy as Fantastic Beasts 1 and ends up just under the domestic total of Joker. The reviews have been strong without being superlative, with demerits going to the painfully generic (and convoluted) story, redundant songs, an unwillingness to take creative risks and the grim feeling that it only exists, and is hamstrung by, financial considerations. That goes, no spoilers, both to the artistic choices that were made as well as the ones which were not. It looks lovely and is well-acted/sung, but it also often seems scared of its own cultural shadow.

Nonetheless, whether you loved it or not, Frozen II IS, after three weeks of franchise flops (Terminator: Dark Fate, Doctor Sleep and Charlie’s Angels) is a sequel to a film that audiences (recently) liked and whose fandom is rooted in the specific characters. It’s the difference between Angel Has Fallen and Rambo: Last Blood, or the difference between a hit and a miss. Whether it ends up grossing closer to New Moon ($296 million), Mockingjay Part I ($337 million) or Catching Fire ($424 million), Frozen II is a likely smash hit, with the strong possibility that it’ll meet/exceed the first film’s $876 million overseas number. Frozen earned $48 million in China, a figure that Frozen II may surpass by Sunday night (it has earned $35 million in two days). Frozen earned a jaw-dropping $247 million in Japan, so that market is the one to watch tomorrow morning.  

If I seem ambivalent this morning, it’s because the first Frozen was a celebratory affirmation of Disney’s legacy as a place for high-quality female-centric animated myths. Frozen II is just another notch on Disney’s proverbial Infinity Gauntlet. Disney is passing $3 billion domestic for the year as the very kinds of diverse/inclusive films that Frozen seemed to promise now play to mostly empty theaters as audiences only go to theaters for Marvel/DC flicks and Disney nostalgia plays. That’s not the movie’s fault, and nobody forced audiences to stop seeing “regular movies” in theaters. Disney’s win this weekend is the earned pay-off for the initial legacy-redefining triumph six years ago. But it’s harder to be “excited” for Frozen II than it was to be excited for Frozen in 2013, for mostly due to how Disney has used (or might use) the power that first film helped them accumulate.