Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs

[TP2000]

Now that overseas box office is in for Inside Out 2 from this past weekend, I just pulled together this nifty chart. It compares Inside Out 2 with the previous 3 Pixar sequels from the late 2010's, and I threw in Elemental and Lightyear as a recent comparison.

I find it fascinating to see how wildly successful Inside Out 2 already is compared to last summer's "hit!" Elemental that wasn't that much of a hit historically, and the global box office misery of Lightyear.

Inside Out 2 is currently tracking just below Incredibles 2 and nearly identical to Finding Dory, adjusted for inflation.

Movie Comparison: Inside Out 2 (2024) vs. Toy Story 4 (2019) vs. Incredibles 2 (2018) vs. Finding Dory (2016) vs. Lightyear (2022) vs. Elemental (2023)

Domestic box office comparison between Inside Out 2 (2024) and Toy Story 4 (2019) and Incredibles 2 (2018) and Finding Dory (2016) and Lightyear (2022) and Elemental (2023)

www.the-numbers.com

 

[TP2000]

I imagine the takeaways will be
1. Greenlight more sequels and prioritize existing franchises over original movies.
2. Lean into what people liked about the original franchise. Don't do a deconstruction (like in Indy 5 or Lightyear)
3. Don't send movies straight to Disney Plus (Soul, Luca, Turning Red), or give them limited theatrical windows (Encanto, Strange World)
4. No LGBT characters for awhile (I hate to say this as I want better gay representation, but I KNOW it's what's being discussed)
5. No discussion of periods or attempting to as authentic as possible in depicting the lives of teenagers. Being authentic to what teens are like (as in Turning Red) means angering many parents who prefer a more santized recreation of the teenage experience.
6. Don't fork over money to bring back talent who aren't major draws (such as Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling, whose absence didn't impact the movie at all)

I would agree with you on all 6 points there. I think it's obvious now that both Pixar and WDAS will not be trying the gimmicks and "new things" or "authenticity" they tried the past few years that turned away global audiences.

That last one, #6, is something I think is a big one. I've been baffled by it in general. Why do you even need former SNL actors or actresses from last decade's sitcoms to do the voiceovers for this stuff? Just pick one of the roughly 250,000 struggling actors or actresses in LA or New York with talent and pay them a few hundred thousand to be the next voice of a heroine, or the singing frog, or loveable fairy godmother, or whatever.

And then get A.I. to fill in all the background voices and characters and you'd save yourself millions per animated film.

 

[Dranth]

Let me add (to help contextualise my thinking) that even Inside Out 2 lends itself to a queer reading. (I’m far from the only one to detect a crush-like dynamic between Riley and Val.)

I thought the same thing about Riley and Val though I did read

Spoiler

Mount Crushmore as all male.

Looking back at it though I believe I only knew a few of the folks represented so I could easily have been wrong there and even if it wasn't, that doesn't really preclude Riley from being into Val.

ETA: Just noticed this wasn't in the IO2 thread so added spoiler tag just in case.

 

[LittleBuford]

What is the basis for that feeling?

Because I think the proverbial horse has already bolted. Perhaps we won’t get another Ethan for a while, but I’d be very surprised indeed if fleeting queer references of the kind Elemental gave us were now off the menu. I also think people are overstating the extent to which Inside Out 2 played it safe. Besides the possible queer reading I pointed to earlier, it features a headscarfed girl, which is exactly the sort of thing people would have cited as a reason for the film’s failure had it not done well.

 

[Ghost93]

Because I think the proverbial horse has already bolted. Perhaps we won’t get another Ethan for a while, but I’d be very surprised indeed if fleeting queer references of the kind Elemental gave us were now off the menu. I also think people are overstating the extent to which Inside Out 2 played it safe. Besides the possible queer reading I pointed to earlier, it features a headscarfed girl, which is exactly the sort of thing people would have cited as a reason for the film’s failure had it not done well.

I guess I don't consider the blink-and-you-miss-it queer moments in movies like Elemental actual LGBT inclusion. I don't think the Walt Disney Company should be congratulated for minor, one-sentence references to LGBT people that can easily be missed.

I had mixed feelings on Lightyear and didn't like Strange World at all but I will give kudos for Hawthorne and Ethan being characters whose LGBT identity was unmistakable.

 

[BrianLo]

This film is about anxiety tied to wanting to fit in, losing friends, transitioning to high school and making new friends/peers. Along with the pressure of all those difficult life transitions at once. All framed around a single weekend hockey tournament that she's trying to make the team so she can be popular and have friends in high school. There's no real love interest (externalized) narrative that also fit in to the final product or would have any sensible means of having been there to begin with and scrubbed.

I suspect IO3 might actually be about romantic relationships. That would make a ton of sense as the next natural story beat, but this film was not and never appeared to be it. These films also have a lot longer than a 2 year production.

 

[LittleBuford]

It's always fascinating how off the mark people can take things when they haven't watched the product. Sure, there's an argument if you literally don't know what the movie is about. But this movie is purely about a panic attack about not having friends in high school (from Riley's perspective). There's no room there for a romantically coded sub plot. She just desperately wants friends and to fit in.

Which is why 95% of things people assume are controversial in these films really don't end up existing.

I don't fully agree with the bolded, since I myself saw a crush-like dynamic at play, but yes, romance (of any kind) is not, and was never going to be, a central element (!) of this film.

 

[Disney Irish]

I don't fully agree with the bolded, since I myself saw a crush-like dynamic at play, but yes, romance (of any kind) is not, and was never going to be, a central element (!) of this film.

I think the crush-like dynamic you're seeing was meant to be really anxiety crossed with envy rather than enamored.

Also, and not speaking to you specifically, but does anyone remember there was a short released back in 2015 for Riley's first date. They reference it a bit in IO2.

 

[LittleBuford]

I think the crush-like dynamic you're seeing was meant to be really anxiety crossed with envy rather than enamored.

Also, and not speaking to you specifically, but does anyone remember there was a short released back in 2015 for Riley's first date. They reference it a bit in IO2.

None of these things precludes my reading (which I'm not saying is the correct or intended reading, for what it's worth). In any case, I don't want to go too far down the path of another fruitless debate that'll only end up being deleted by the moderators. I think we can all agree that romance isn't, and was never intended to be, a dominant theme of this particular movie.

 

[Ghost93]

I find it fascinating to see how wildly successful Inside Out 2 already is compared to last summer's "hit!" Elemental that wasn't that much of a hit historically, and the global box office misery of Lightyear.

Movie Comparison: Inside Out 2 (2024) vs. Toy Story 4 (2019) vs. Incredibles 2 (2018) vs. Finding Dory (2016) vs. Lightyear (2022) vs. Elemental (2023)

Domestic box office comparison between Inside Out 2 (2024) and Toy Story 4 (2019) and Incredibles 2 (2018) and Finding Dory (2016) and Lightyear (2022) and Elemental (2023)

www.the-numbers.com

When people talk about Elemental being a hit you have to take it into context. Post COVID, original animated movies (not based on IP or sequels) haven't been MAJOR hits. Disney also trained audiences to stay and home and expect quality Pixar content for "free" by sending Soul, Luca and Turning Red right to Disney Plus. And then, Pixar's supposed grand return to the big screen was a huge misfire with Lightyear — which was both a critical and commercial disappointment.

Elemental did open poorly, but I think that had less to do with the film itself and more to do for it paying for the sins of Disney's pandemic-era release strategy and Lightyear and Strange World — mediocre/weak films that tarnished the brand. The movie legging out to almost $500 million is a testament to positive word of mouth. Elemental's relative success was a necessary step to help people learn to trust Pixar again and get people back in the habit of seeing a Pixar movie on the big screen.

So while Elemental isn't a hit compared to Pixar's heyday it's definitely a hit for the times we are living in, and it helped pave the way for the monumental success that is Inside Out 2.

 

[LittleBuford]

Disney would be wise to remember that the huge global box office success they had with 2 didn't involve LGBT plotlines in a cartoon movie aimed at children.

It won’t be long before people look back on such opposition with the same dismay that we (well, most of us) look back on opposition to the portrayal of interracial relationships. Progress is unstoppable, just as sure as it is always met with hostility.

 

[TP2000]

Elemental did open poorly, but I think that had less to do with the film itself and more to do for it paying for the sins of Disney's pandemic-era release strategy and Lightyear and Strange World — mediocre/weak films that tarnished the brand. The movie legging out to almost $500 million is a testament to positive word of mouth. Elemental's relative success was a necessary step to help people learn to trust Pixar again and get people back in the habit of seeing a Pixar movie on the big screen.

I think that's a sound argument, and probably explains much of the comparative weakness of Elemental's box office. Pixar had to retrain their audience, and rebuild some trust from big sections of their audience demographic (parents who buy movie tickets to family cartoons for their children).

 

[BrianLo]

Apropos of almost nothing, I just Googled how many girls play ice hockey in the USA. Because I thought maybe I'd missed some big cultural thing I didn't know about (although I've never had a girl hockey player show up on my doorstep on Halloween). I'm not missing any big pop culture tsunami on girls ice hockey, it turns out.

USA Hockey, the largest youth hockey organization in the country with leagues and camps coast-to-coast, counts 10,700 girl players aged 13 to 14 in the 2024 season. Obviously, most of those girls are playing in leagues and schools in New England and the upper Midwest, but there are a few girls ice hockey teams with a few dozen players in California.

Pixar has chosen an incredibly niche hobby for Riley to obsess over in Inside Out 2; competitive girls ice hockey at age 13 in the Bay Area. 10,700 girls playing ice hockey nationwide equates to roughly 0.5% of American girls aged 13 or 14 in 2024.

Membership Statistics

www.usahockey.com

The first movie is about her moving from Minnesota and her Dad is hockey obsessed.

Which you would know if you watched the things you have strong opinions on.

 

[LittleBuford]

Ah, well, thank goodness she found a girls ice hockey team to play on in California.

Statistically, that's not an easy feat.

I’m really at a loss to understand the point you’re trying to make.

 

[Disney Irish]

Ah, well, thank goodness she found a girls ice hockey team to play on in California.

Statistically, that's not an easy feat.

I will await my first flood of girl ice hockey players at my door this Halloween! And I will knowingly nod and smile.

Not to go off on more of a tangent, but hockey is really popular in California especially the Bay Area. There are multiple youth leagues in the Bay Area, both boys and girls. So its not really that hard of a feat to find here in the Bay Area. There are also multiple year round ice rinks around the area, 3 in just 10 miles of me.

 

[Disney Analyst]

And I’ve got my tickets finally for next Tuesday, let’s keep this ball rolling!

 

[TalkingHead]

Kinda crazy that with as good as Inside Out did its second weekend the overall box office was still lower than last year when Transformers Rise of the Beast(?) opened and bombed or the following weekend when The Flash opened and bombed.

 

[BrianLo]

Kinda crazy that with as good as Inside Out did its second weekend the overall box office was still lower than last year when Transformers Rise of the Beast(?) opened and bombed or the following weekend when The Flash opened and bombed.

A complete dearth of anything has proceeded this. When Apes is clinging to the fourth position with a B cinema score in week 7 of release, you know the competition is a mess.

No shade to Apes, but it’s clearly taking advantage of this years poor release calendar and poorly connecting competitor movies.

 

[BrianLo]

‘Inside Out 2’ Will Prevail At Weekend Box Office, But ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ & ‘Horizon’ Look To Provide Depth To Marketplace – Preview

Inside Out 2 will prevail again at the weekend box office, but Quiet Place: Day One and Horizon: An American Saga open.

deadline.com

Speaking of competition. At least Warner isn’t on the hook for Horizon.

We’ll see of course given the totally erratic tracking of IO2, Horizon is something I feel tracking will poorly metrically understand.

IO2 widely expected to three-peat. But Quiet Place could randomly surprise and it is taking the premium screens away.

 

[brideck]

Speaking of competition. At least Warner isn’t on the hook for Horizon.

We’ll see of course given the totally erratic tracking of IO2, Horizon is something I feel tracking will poorly metrically understand.

IO2 widely expected to three-peat. But Quiet Place could randomly surprise and it is taking the premium screens away.

If there happen to be any fans of hand-drawn animation in the house, I could not recommend Robot Dreams more. It was probably my favorite of the 2023 animated nominations. Simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking, all without any real dialogue. It's around this weekend, too, but unfortunately not in a whole lot of theaters.

For those with kids, Common Sense recommends 8+, which I would generally concur with.