Move along, Black Friday. Thanksgiving weekend belonged to Katniss Everdeen and Frozen’s Anna, who helped propel female heroines to the top of the box office. Not only did The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Frozen land on everyone’s must-see list, they shattered plenty of records along the way.
The blockbuster success of Catching Fire was a foregone conclusion, given the popularity of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy and the first film. But Catching Fire exceeded the expectations of merely earning lots of money — audiences really do want to see girls kicking ass, dammit! — to become the highest-grossing Thanksgiving release of all time. The Los Angeles Times reports that its three- and five-day earnings, $75 million and $110 million, respectively, were also record-breakers.
Somewhat more surprising were the crazy-good numbers for Frozen, an adaptation of a Hans Christen Anderson tale. Many critics have drawn favorable comparisons between the new 3-D musical and the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s, though it should be noted that Frozen gives a feminist spin to several of the princess tropes from that era. Frozen isn’t just Disney’s first film with a female director, but also follows its first woman-directed short.
Oh, and it absolutely crushed every other competitor not named Katniss. With a five-day gross of $93 million, some outlets are reporting that Frozen is Disney’s biggest weekend-opener ever.
And neither film will disappear quietly. Polls from CinemaScore suggest that both films enjoy exceptional word-of-mouth, meaning November’s heroines will be with us for awhile longer.
