Disney’s New Animated Movie Breaks A Trailer Viewership Record For The Decade

Wish has broken a trailer viewership record for Disney. The upcoming movie is the 62nd movie in the official Walt Disney Animation Studios canon, with its release coinciding with the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company. The movie follows a teenage girl named Asha (Ariana DeBose) who makes a wish to help save her kingdom from its corrupt ruler (Chris Pine) and must team up with a wishing star named Star to make it come true.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, the movie is already breaking a 2020s record ahead of the official Wish release date on November 22. The official trailer, which premiered on September 27, has been viewed 66.5 million times across various platforms. In addition to becoming the most-viewed Disney trailer ever on TikTok, it is their most-viewed trailer since 2019’s Frozen II, giving it the highest cviewership of the decade so far.

Wish Could Put Disney’s 2020s Output Back On the Right Track

This outpouring of interest in the Wish trailer could be a prelude to a huge box office gross for the 100th-anniversary release. If that’s the case, Wish could be a watershed moment for Disney releases in the 2020s in addition to breaking this trailer viewership record. Since the release of Frozen II, Disney’s theatrical output in the 2020s has been somewhat shaky.

This was kicked off by the 2021 release of Raya and the Last Dragon, which had its Disney+ streaming premiere on the same day, meaning that the $100 million movie only grossed $130 million. Their 2021 follow-up Encanto performed better, making $256.8 million off its roughly $150 million budget. However, it – and its viral song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” – didn’t become a huge hit until its Disney+ release later in the year. Disney’s third animated movie of the 2020s, 2022’s Strange World, was an unmitigated flop, earning $73.6 million despite an estimated budget between $135 and $180 million.

This interest in the new movie is probably being driven by the 100th-anniversary buzz, the nostalgic wishing star that hearkens back to 1940’s Pinocchio, and the star-studded Wish cast, which also includes Alan Tudyk, Victor Garber, Natasha Rothwell, Evan Peters, Harvey Guillén, and Ramy Youssef. It remains to be seen if these strong early numbers will hold. However, Wish has the opportunity to prove that Disney in the 2020s can be as much of a box office juggernaut as it was in the 2010s with movies including Frozen II (which earned $1.453 billion).