Another miss from Disney at the box office — the studio’s latest original animated movie bombed with moviegoers over the holiday break … marking just the latest flop for ’em.
Of course, we’re talking about “Wish” … with Ariana DeBose as the main character and Chris Pine as the big bad and a bunch of other cute side characters. Unfortunately, none of them were enough … ’cause “Wish” only made $31.7 million through the 5-day “weekend.”
Ticket sales were getting counted as early as Wednesday, but come Sunday … “Wish” had underperformed by a lot. Projections had it pegged at $45-$50 mil over the same 5 days.
It didn’t do great internationally either, pulling in just $17.3M overseas … bringing its total worldwide haul to about $49 million. In layman’s terms, the film flopped — and it ended up coming in third place behind ‘Napoleon’ (#2) and the ‘Hunger Games’ prequel (#1, again).
This is not good news for the Mouse House … which usually dominates the Thanksgiving window. Up until last year — when their other original animated feature “Strange World” performed abysmally — Disney had put out hits around this time of the year … including “Encanto,” “Coco” and others, all of which made a crap ton of money right out the gate.
What’s strange is that “Wish” actually got good reviews and great audience reception … so it’s unclear what exactly the problem was. It’s possible the SAG strike hindered promotion of this movie … but it also ended well before its release date, so it’s a bit of a mystery.
Mind you, this is just the latest fizzle for Disney this year — others include the last ‘Indiana Jones’ movie, “The Haunted Mansion,” “The Marvels” and others. Rough year, indeed.
