According to Box Office Mojo, 20th Century Fox has changed the release date for “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” from Christmas Day to December 23rd. This is a great move.
Since Christmas is a Friday this year, chances are that “Alvin 2” would not have had a good opening day at the box office because most kids wouldn’t want to leave all their presents and fun at home to go to the theater to see a movie.
The original “Alvin” made $45M it’s first weekend back in 2007. A Christmas Day opening would have made it very difficult for the sequel to match or top that. However, since most kids get out of school for holiday vacation on the 23rd, and parents will be heading to the malls for last-minute shopping that night, “Alvin” should draw big crowds, and on Christmas Eve day as well.
Will “The Squeakquel” top the $236.1M the original film made domestically? Probably not. But it will be one of the box office hits of the holiday season and into mid-January.
Meantime, Disney’s next animated film, following next month’s “The Princess and the Frog” is “Rapunzel”, and it finally has a release date: Nov. 24, 2010. The studio used that Thanksgiving week slot last year for “Bolt” and it paid-off nicely. This year the live-action comedy “Old Dogs” is on Disney’s turkey-week menu. We’ll see how that works out.