Moana, Disney’s new animation, is set to dominate the US box office over the Thanksgiving holiday. The film, which features the voices of Dwayne Johnson and newcomer Auli’i Cravalho, with music by Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda, is predicted to take $88m (£70.6m) over the five-day period, with some pundits suggesting it might top Frozen’s 2013 $93.4m total.
The Polynesia-set animated film is the studio’s third critically-acclaimed cartoon to be released in 2016, following Finding Dory and Zootropolis, both of which made more than $1bn.
Other new openers vying for holiday period trade include the Brad Pitt/Marion Cottilard spy thriller Allied, Billy Bob Thornton returning with Bad Santa 2 and Warren Beatty’s screwball Howard Hughes movie Rules Don’t Apply. The first two are tracking well, reports Variety, but the third is not expected to make a substantial profit.
Also hoping to increase its coffers is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Warner Brothers’ extension of the Harry Potter universe, which topped the US box office on its first week of release, but did markedly less well in North America than the rest of the world.
Doctor Strange and Trolls continue to be fixtures in the Top 10.
