Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Encanto” introduces Mirabel, a 15-year-old who lives with her family in the mountains of Colombia in a magical house, in a vibrant town, in a wondrous, charmed place called an Encanto. Mirabel, a kind and humble teenager who puts the ordinary in extraordinary, struggles to fit in a family that’s blessed with magical powers. Featuring the voice of Stephanie Beatriz as Mirabel, “Encanto” opens in theaters on Nov. 24, 2021. © 2021 Disney. All Rights Reserved.
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Walt Disney’s Encanto is the first Disney animated feature to get an exclusive theatrical release, with no super-duper early (even by accident) VOD or concurrent Premier Access availability since Frozen II (which opened the weekend before Thanksgiving and ended up being both the big youth-skewing fantasy biggie *and* the holiday animated option) exactly two years ago. The original Columbian folktale, featuring songs by Lin-Manual Miranda, earned $1.5 million in Tuesday previews yesterday. That compares to $3.8 million for Ralph Breaks the Internet in 2018, $2.3 million for Coco in 2017, $2.6 million for Moana in 2016 and $1.3 million for The Good Dinosaur in 2015.
Yes, on a Covid curve, Encanto could be viewed as a relative success if it “only” earns grosses on par with Pixar’s infamous The Good Dinosaur over the holiday weekend. To wit, the Pixar flop ($332 million worldwide) grossed $39 million over the Fri-Sun portion of a $55 million Wed-Sun weekend. To be fair, the film flatlined after its opening, so the problem was less the size of the opening and more the strength of its post-debut legs. Even so, Encanto merely legging it like The Good Dinosaur over the holiday would give it a good-enough $45 million Fri-Sun/$63.5 million Wed-Sun frame.
If it was good enough for Tangled ($47 million/$67 million) in 2010, it’ll be good enough for Encanto in 2021. However, the “danger” is that The Good Dinosaur was actually leggier than recent Thanksgiving Disney toons. While I’d argue Encanto is both a better film and a more crowdpleasing offering (although Good Dinosaur is, box office aside, a perfectly solid Pixar toon), we could see Tuesday-to-weekend legs closer to Moana ($82 million Wed-Sun from a $2.6 million Tuesday preview gross) or Coco ($73 million Wed-Sun/$2.3 million Tuesday). That would give Encanto “just” $33 million over its Fri-Sun debut and $48 million over the holiday.
The “doomsday” scenario, again relatively speaking, would be legs on par with Ralph Breaks the Internet, which earned just 21x its $3.8 million preview gross, a figure that would give Encanto $33.5 million over the whole Wed-Sun debut. That seems unlikely since Encanto isn’t a sequel and (I’d presume) will get better word-of-mouth since it’s a much better picture. Assuming we’re looking at something closer to $45 million over the Wed-Sun frame than $65 million, it’ll still be a matter of legs. This will be the first time since, uh, 2012, whereby Disney doesn’t have a very important Christmas season tentpole coming up the rear.
Yes, West Side Story is their big Oscar contender, but it’s not the same as a Star Wars flick or even something like Mary Poppins Returns, Saving Mr. Banks or Into the Woods. In terms of conventional Disney tentpoles, Encanto is it for the year. Yes, the film is arriving on Disney+ on Christmas Eve after a 31 day window, but A) the likes of Free Guy, Shang-Chi and Jungle Cruise were still leggy as hell and B) it’s still, I’d argue, in Disney’s interest to retain their “king of the box office” narrative even if Chapek and friends are clearly prioritizing Disney+ at least in the short-term.
