Elemental (Pixar - June 2023)

[Disstevefan1]

Toy Story 3 & 4 were billion dollar films and both made more than 1 & 2.

Avengers 3 & 4 were 2 billion dollar films.

Good point. Let's hope Disney's future movie tries do this well because as we are seeing, several of the recent movies did not do well.

 

[Disney Analyst]

 

[TsWade2]

Oh goody! Hooray! But sadly, people considered it a flop.

 

[erasure fan1]

Oh goody! Hooray! But sadly, people considered it a flop.

Unfortunately it has a long way to go. It sits at only $124mil ish. It is going to need some extremely long legs to keep it out of the major flop category.

 

[TsWade2]

Unfortunately it has a long way to go. It sits at only $124mil ish. It is going to need some extremely long legs to keep it out of the major flop category.

Sadly, you’re right. I blame Bob Chapek for this.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Let's see how it looks once it opens in some major markets, like the UK.

It seems to have legs, right now.

 

[TP2000]

Let's see how it looks once it opens in some major markets, like the UK.

It seems to have legs, right now.

I'm surprised people are excited about the very low ticket sales for Elemental. It seems to have legs because it's competing against the mega-flop The Flash and several other month old movies.

Elemental is basically the only decent and new movie now playing in theaters. That changes this Friday.

Elemental is still trending below Lightyear, which was considered a flop and had the same $200 Million budget as Elemental. This is where Elemental stands vs. Lightyear as of yesterday's box office...

 

[TP2000]

As a reminder on how bad Lightyear was for Pixar, doing the 60/40 box office math on domestic/overseas ticket sales, Lightyear lost $189 Million dollars for Pixar and The Walt Disney Company.

Production/Marketing Budget = $300 Million
60% Domestic Ticket Sales = $71 Million
40% Overseas Ticket Sales = $40 Million
Lightyear Net Loss to Studio = $189 Million

If Elemental continues on its current trajectory (with legs), it will still incur a net loss of over $200 Million to Pixar.

We can talk about legs against The Flash all we want, but this business model is not sustainable. This isn't fine.

 

[TP2000]

Let's see how it looks once it opens in some major markets, like the UK.

I checked, and Lightyear had a total run UK box office of $14.7 Million last summer. Assuming Elemental even out-performs Lightyear at the UK box office this summer, it's not going to do much.

Same with the three other remaining countries that haven't yet released Elemental; Japan, Spain and The Netherlands.

Lightyear (2022) - Financial Information

Financial analysis of Lightyear (2022) including budget, domestic and international box office gross, DVD and Blu-ray sales reports, total earnings and profitability.

www.the-numbers.com

 

[Disney Irish]

I'm surprised people are excited about the very low ticket sales for Elemental. It seems to have legs because it's competing against the mega-flop The Flash and several other month old movies.

Elemental is basically the only decent and new movie now playing in theaters. That changes this Friday.

Elemental is still trending below Lightyear, which was considered a flop and had the same $200 Million budget as Elemental. This is where Elemental stands vs. Lightyear as of yesterday's box office...

View attachment 727173

I think the point is that except for Ruby Gillman (which is expected to do less than what Elemental has to date) there is no other family friendly animated film coming out until at least August.

Which means Elemental potentially can keep bringing in more box office over the rest of the summer.

 

[TP2000]

I think the point is that except for Ruby Gillman (which is expected to do less than what Elemental has to date) there is no other family friendly animated film coming out until at least August.

Which means Elemental potentially can keep bringing in more box office over the rest of the summer.

It will certainly be fun to track with hard facts and solid data, won't it?

 

[Disney Irish]

It will certainly be fun to track with hard facts and solid data, won't it?

We'll see where it ends up, but it clear its finding an audience.

 

[Ghost93]

As a reminder on how bad Lightyear was for Pixar, doing the 60/40 box office math on domestic/overseas ticket sales, Lightyear lost $189 Million dollars for Pixar and The Walt Disney Company.

Production/Marketing Budget = $300 Million
60% Domestic Ticket Sales = $71 Million
40% Overseas Ticket Sales = $40 Million
Lightyear Net Loss to Studio = $189 Million

If Elemental continues on its current trajectory (with legs), it will still incur a net loss of over $200 Million to Pixar.

We can talk about legs against The Flash all we want, but this business model is not sustainable. This isn't fine.

I don't think anyone is calling Elemental a financial success. HOWEVER, suppose Elemental continues to leg out well and continues to be well received in theaters and on Disney Plus. In that case, it may help repair the Pixar brand in the eyes of of the public after the damage caused to the brand by the mediocre Lightyear and polarizing Turning Red (I liked it, but you can't deny many hate it). While Elemental may pay for the sins of Lightyear, Elio might financially benefit from the goodwill brought in by Elemental.

 

[TP2000]

I don't think anyone is calling Elemental a financial success. HOWEVER, suppose Elemental continues to leg out well and continues to be well received in theaters and on Disney Plus. In that case, it may help repair the Pixar brand in the eyes of of the public after the damage caused to the brand by the mediocre Lightyear and polarizing Turning Red (I liked it, but you can't deny many hate it). While Elemental may pay for the sins of Lightyear, Elio might financially benefit from the goodwill brought in by Elemental.

That's an optimistic scenario that is commendable.

But I don't think the way to fix Pixar's woes is to make an expensive movie that very few people see and fails financially.

I think the way to fix Pixar's woes is to return to making expensive movies that American families in huge numbers want to see and thus succeeds financially.

Obviously they can't go on making Toy Story 5 and such forever, but so much has changed for Pixar in just 5 short years. How much longer can they go on spending $200 Million on one film per year and stay in business?

The trajectory graph lines on these three movies shown below (adjusted for 2023 inflation from the zero inflation late 2010's) are even more illustrative than the hard financial data. Pixar movies used to BLAST OFF at the box office on opening weekend as American families flooded the theaters for the Pixar brand instinctively.

That doesn't happen any more for Pixar. They've gotten themselves into a very tough spot culturally and financially.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Hey, if Ruby Gillman opens to about a third of what Elemental made in its first weekend, do we all declare that Universal is doomed? I mean, Fast X didn't do great and Mario was a co-production so it doesn't count.

 

[Disney Analyst]

So Flash and Transformers may not even make it in the top 5??

 

[TsWade2]

So Flash and Transformers may not even make it in the top 5??

No surprise there.

 

[Disney Analyst]

 

[TsWade2]

Well, I’m still not convinced it’ll do well at the box office, but this is indeed positive news.

 

[TP2000]

Well, I’m still not convinced it’ll do well at the box office, but this is indeed positive news.

Elemental won't make as much as Lightyear, but now at least it will be much closer to Lightyear and can't be compared to Strange World.

So that's a win. For somebody.