Three blockbuster films are helping boost theaters this holiday season. “Moana 2,” “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” drove a record $420 million in overall Thanksgiving weekend ticket sales, according to Comscore.

“It’s really nice to see lots of good movies lately,” said Natalie Hahn, who brought her four-year-old daughter Oaklyn to see “Moana 2” at The Edina Mann Theater on Friday evening.

It’s the first time Oaklyn has been to the movies. Hahn recently saw “Wicked” as well.

“I haven’t seen movies in four years and now I’ve seen two in a week,” she said.

The excitement is overflowing for an industry that took a big hit during the pandemic.

“At Edina and many other of our locations, we were sold out for four, five, six days in a row, all show times,” said Michelle Mann, about “Moana 2” and “Wicked” in particular hitting the big screen. “What a wonderful problem to have.”

She explained all three movies together are attracting a wide-range of customers.

“What’s great about these films coming out is you have all these different demographics that want to see it,” said Mann. “Women, men, families, children, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles.”

Last summer’s “Barbie”-“Oppenheimer” duo seemed to kick-start the blockbuster resurgence.

“We’ve just been riding it since then,” said Mann. “It’s so exciting.”

The movies are having a global impact at the box office and from a production standpoint. “Wicked” was filmed in the United Kingdom, as were parts of “Gladiator II,” which also had other overseas locations.

“There has been over the last year, or the last two years, a slowdown in production in the United States,” said Melodie Bahan, the deputy director of Explore Minnesota Film, the state’s new film office. “A lot of those big productions have been going to Europe and Canada just because the U.S. is so much more expensive to shoot in right now.”

She recently visited Los Angeles to advocate for Minnesota as a premier film location. Bahan believes there are opportunities in the state, which was a film production hotspot in the 1980s and 1990s.

Minnesota’s new competitive tax credit program has already drawn 12 projects to the state, according to the program’s website.

Incentives are what drives the decision-making, it’s all about the economics,” said Bahan. “Minnesota has been seeing an uptick in production over the last couple of years.”

She added, “I’m very optimistic for 2025.”

Mann, meanwhile, is expecting the momentum at theaters to continue.

She said, “2023 was an incredible year, 2024 is also going to be an incredible year and then the 2025 and 2026 slates are unbelievable, so we are so excited about the next two years to  come.”