Disney is having a decent morning. Not only did Star Wars: The Last Jedi zoom past the $400 million mark in North America and the $800m mark worldwide, but Pixar's Coco has become their 13th feature (out of 19 movies, sans any inflationary considerations) to cross $500m worldwide at the global box office. Buoyed by record-crushing runs in China ($167m, or more than all previous China-released Pixar toons combined) and Mexico ($57.6m, or the biggest grossing film ever in Mexico), plus no small amount of business in North America ($167.3m and still pulling in $3m a day), this is a vital hit for Pixar after Cars 3 crashed and burned ($383m) back in June.

Of note, the success of Coco (rave reviews, a probable Oscar win for Best Animated Feature, solid box office returns, etc.) is a sign that Pixar is at its best when it doesn't necessarily play in otherwise familiar sandboxes. And it's also a sign that Pixar need not rely on sequels to its prior glories, although I won't begrudge folks who genuinely want an Incredibles 2. Yes, it's trailing Moana ($190m after 35 days) and is just ahead of Tangled ($150m at this juncture), so it might essentially crawl to $200m domestic before tapping out. It could just be that The Last Jedi is stronger competition than Rogue One, and certainly, no toon has had the clear sailing that Frozen had back in 2013, where it was essentially unopposed until The LEGO Movie in early February of 2014.

Of note, Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 will be an interesting one to watch. It will be Walt Disney's first intentional theatrical sequel to an intentional theatrical original since Fantasia 2000. Or, if you don't count that one, it's their first such sequel since The Rescuers Down Under back in 1990 (Peter Pan: Return to Neverland and The Jungle Book 2 were intended as direct-to-DVD features, as was the original Planes). To wit, it will be the first time in a few years that the big Disney Thanksgiving toon isn't dealing with a December Disney juggernaut.

The Good Dinosaur had its own issues, but opening right before The Force Awakens didn't help, while Moana had to contend with Disney's attention being pulled to Doctor Strange in one direction and Rogue One in another. Ditto Coco opening 19 days after Thor: Ragnarok and a few weeks before The Last Jedi. That all three of these biggies did well is a feather in Disney's cap, but we can't argue that the market share dominance didn't affect the comparative middle child.

While the 2018 holiday season will be as crowded as usual, the Disney offerings won't necessarily be as huge. I don't pretend to know the budgets for The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (opening on Nov. 2, 2018 against Fox's X-Men: Dark Pheonix (which may or may not be part of the Disney empire by that point) or Mary Poppins Returns (opening Christmas Day, which is a Tuesday next year). But I will argue, with much confidence, that Disney doesn't expect the Nutcracker movie to play like an MCU adventure nor does it expect Mary Poppins to play like a Star Wars movie.

So, with the added bonus of Wreck-It Ralph being a very popular movie, will the Thanksgiving Disney toon go a little farther by virtue of not being surrounded by two Disney-released 1600 lbs gorillas? We're never going to have a situation like late 2013/early 2014, where Frozen ran the tables for 2.5 months partially due to an utter lack of kid-friendly December/January fare. But, presuming that Disney doesn't move Solo to December (and they've given no indication that they need to do so), Wreck-It Ralph 2 may benefit by virtue of its biggest competition (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Aquaman, Mortal Engines, X-Men: Dark Pheonix, Illumination's Grinch Who Stole Christmas, etc.) coming from other studios as opposed to in-house.

Will that allow Wreck-It Ralph 2 to bust past the $700 million mark this time next year, or will the same overcrowding occur no matter whether the Disney toon's biggest competition comes from Disney or Warner Bros./Time Warner, Universal/Comcast Corp. and Fox? We'll see, but it'll be certainly something to watch as 2018 becomes perhaps the last year without a Disney December monster, especially if they do get Fox and Avatar 2 becomes a Disney movie.