When it comes to new movies opening over Thanksgiving, this timeframe belongs to animated Disney fare. All seven of the current (pre-Moana 2) biggest movies to ever open over Thanksgiving are animated features released by Disney. The only non-Disney features (animated and live-action) amongst the top 16 openers are two Creed installments and Four Christmases. Starting with Oliver & Company in 1988, Walt Disney Pictures has typically released its homegrown animated films (plus a smattering of Pixar titles) around Thanksgiving, leading the studio to dominate the timeframe.
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Other lucrative Thanksgiving openers largely include Oscar-friendly fare like Life of Pi or House of Gucci, inspirational sports movies like Rocky IV, or Christmas-themed comedies. There’s a very rigid style of motion picture that launches over Thanksgiving, which makes it extra puzzling when something decidedly unusual debuts over this holiday timeframe. Frozen and Rocky movies are typical sights at your multiplex over Thanksgiving weekend. Much less expected are this collection of oddball genre fare.
Thanksgiving Action Movies That Went Nowhere
A weird historical trend over the Thanksgiving timeframe are attempts to launch action movies over Turkey Day festivities. The point is to provide adrenaline-fueled counterprogramming to family-friendly fare opening over Thanksgiving. Christmas has tons of “feel-bad” options that have launched over the years, like The Wolf of Wall Street or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, after all. However, December holidays offer people more time off from work, which allows those grimier features wiggle room to establish legs. Plus, Thanksgiving action films are often directly competing with even bigger action tentpoles launching early in November, such as James Bond entries Skyfall and Spectre.
Thus, many of the most inexplicable Thanksgiving openers in history have been action-heavy features like 2018’s Robin Hood. That Lionsgate box office bomb could only hit $9.16 million over its three-day opening, an embarrassing debut. Eight years earlier, Dwayne Johnson returned to R-rated action movies with Faster, a forgotten CBS Films dud that only opened to $8.5 million. Not even reliable box-office draw Jason Statham could turn Homefront into a hit over Thanksgiving 2013 as it opened just a hair beneath $7 million over its three-day premiere.
Audiences keep telling Hollywood loud and clear that action movies just aren’t what they want over this timeframe. A smattering of horror/action hybrids have also gone belly-up over this timeframe. Thanksgiving 2021 bestowed multiplexes with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, a perplexing scheduling move for many reasons but especially since it was far from the September launchpad most previous Resident Evil movies debuted in. Meanwhile, B-movie classic Robot Jox debuted in 333 theaters over this timeframe. The holiday season was far from optimal timing for schlocky cinema.
A Horrible Piece of Thanksgiving Schedule
One of the most infamous head-scratcher Thanksgiving releases in history was launching Horrible Bosses 2 over Thanksgiving weekend 2014. Though the original movie debuted in early July 2011, this follow-up went out over the holiday season. It was already questionable whether or not there was going to be demand for more Horrible Bosses adventures beyond the first film. Launching it in the holiday season didn’t help its case. Horrible Bosses 2 failed to make even half of the first movie’s domestic gross.
Horrible Bosses 2 leading man Jason Bateman would flat-out admit to Marc Maron less than a year after the movie’s release that releasing it over Thanksgiving was a massive mistake. He even remarked that this box office failure reflected why studios didn’t launch more R-rated comedies over holiday weekends. At least Horrible Bosses 2 had a better opening weekend than 2012’s Red Dawn remake, which peculiarly launched over Thanksgiving 2012. Both of those titles also evaded the $13.31 million domestic bow of Ninja Assassin, which joins Robot Jox in the pantheon of Thanksgiving schlock that never took off at the box office.
On and on the examples go of bizarre Thanksgiving releases, including 20th Century Fox’s mind-boggling maneuver to drop Predator 2 over Thanksgiving 1990. For that matter, why was Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny debuting over Thanksgiving 2006 and not, say 4/20 weekend 2007? People have limited amounts of free time to spare over Thanksgiving weekend. During that timeframe, they love to go to the movies, as seen by the massive grosses generated by various Disney animated features or award season darlings.
However, Thanksgiving has also been home to a slew of titles that just didn’t scream out “holiday season event” and paid the price for it. Sorry, Ninja Assassin, not even the Thanksgiving 2009 timeframe could turn you into a gigantic moneymaker.
