#‘Croods 2’ rakes in $14 million to top struggling Thanksgiving box office

“The Croods: A New Age” topped Thanksgiving box office expectations with a five-day holiday debut of $14 million, despite facing one of the most challenging periods in movie history.

Universal Pictures’ animated sequel about a prehistoric family raked in $38 million globally since it debuted last Wednesday, bringing in $17 million in domestic sales and $21 million in international sales, according to ticket sales tracker Box Office Mojo.

That means that the kids flick, which features the voices of Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone and Nicolas Cage, had the biggest opening with a three-day haul of $10 million during the pandemic since theaters re-opened. It even beat out Warner Bros.’ spy thriller “Tenet”, which debuted during Labor Day weekend with just over $9 million in sales.

“This shows that even with a difficult theatrical landscape, people want to come out and get together,” Universal’s distribution chief Jim Orr told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday.

The film, which is playing at 2,211 theaters, will hit streaming services for an additional cost in time for Christmas.

Despite the relatively strong showing, these are some of the worst numbers ever recorded for the lucrative Thanksgiving weekend period in box office history. Last year, Disney and Pixar’s “Frozen 2” set the record for the highest-grossing weekend in Thanksgiving history with $124 million domestically over the five-day holiday weekend.

This year, the pandemic has shuttered roughly 60 percent of the 6,000 movie theaters in the US and Canada. Cinemas are closed in major money-making markets like New York and Los Angeles, and of the movie houses open, they are operating at limited capacity.