Thanksgiving weekend movie releases

Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally a huge weekend for movies. This year, the film adaptation of “Wicked!” will be in theaters along with “Gladiator 2” and “Moana 2.” There are also plenty of choices on Netflix and TV.

Bill Goodykoontz, a Media Columnist who writes for “The Arizona Republic” and azcentral.com, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss what new movies are worth seeing and which ones to skip out on this holiday season.

“There is “Wicked” and then there is “Gladiator 2”. They’re trying to recreate some of the ‘Barbenheimer’ magic by calling it ‘Glicked’, but “Wicked” is going to be the big one, and it is by far the better movie,” Goodykoontz said.

Another large film coming out this season is “Red One,” which Goodykoontz gave the “Arizona Horizon” audience a warning about. “‘Red One,’ in addition to apparently being a [box office] flop, is terrible. It is a horrible movie.”

As Goodykoontz pointed out, incredibly popular movies have been released on Thanksgiving weekend, and this weekend is historically huge for family movies specifically. Popular movies that have come out during prior Thanksgiving weekends include “Back to the Future 2” in 1989, “Toy Story 2” in 1999, “Tangled” in 2010, “The Muppets” in 2011, “Frozen” in 2013, “Moana” in 2016, “101 Dalmatians” in 1996 and “Coco” in 2017.

“Holidays in general are pretty big for movies, but I think Thanksgiving is a time when people come home, and they’re with relatives they haven’t seen in weeks, months, maybe years, and after a day or two you realize, ‘There is a reason I didn’t see them in weeks or months or years,'” Goodykoontz said.