It's the time you unpack holiday decorations, hound kids to finish school projects and do all the shopping you were supposed to finish last Friday. For good reason, this coming weekend has long been considered a moviegoing abyss.
Can Disney's hit romantic comedy "Enchanted" buck that trend?
The studios live in such fear of two specific weekends -- the one after Labor Day and the one following Thanksgiving weekend -- that few movies ever debut during them. This Friday, only one new film opens in wide release: "Awake," a thriller with such limited prospects that the Weinstein Co. tried (and failed) to sell it to another distributor.
That means the animation-live action hybrid "Enchanted" is a lock to win the weekend box office, but Disney's challenge is to keep the film's second weekend grosses from plummeting faster than the historical averages.
With opening three-day ticket sales of $34.3 million (and a five-day gross of $49 million), "Enchanted" surprised not only box-office prognosticators but also Disney executives.
Buoyed by consistently favorable reviews and a larger-than-expected turnout by men and boys, the fairy tale story easily surpassed four new movies in wide release.
Now the hard work begins.
Even the most popular movies, especially those aimed at families, get keelhauled the week after Thanksgiving. Part of the problem is that the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest multiplex days of the year, so the following Friday (and the weekend that goes with it) is doomed in comparison.
In 1999, Disney's "Toy Story 2" fell 52% from its Thanksgiving weekend debut to the next weekend. In 1998, "A Bug's Life" dropped 48%. Last year, Warner Bros.' "Happy Feet" (which was in its second weekend of release over Thanksgiving) tumbled 53%.
"I have been bracing myself for it," says Kevin Lima, "Enchanted's" director. "I've been forewarned."
If "Enchanted" can slip only 40%, falling to around $20 million for the coming weekend, that would be cause for a Disney celebration. And yet it's possible, because Disney is just now starting to sell "Enchanted" for what it truly is.
From the very first conversations about "Enchanted's" marketing, the studio avoided selling the film as a princess story (even though, at its heart, that's just what it is). Instead, Disney focused on the movie's unusual blend of animation and live action, preparing audiences for the mixed genres.
