Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
Look at that, they all made money! 3 and 4 made the most money!
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Elemental (Pixar - June 2023)
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
As for #2, none of the major studios are using stock off-the-shelf stuff. Most (including Disney/Pixar) are using industry standard modeling and composite software like Maya and Nuke, among others, which offer APIs for deep levels or custom coding and they all have their own in-house render systems.
Pixar uses RenderMan (which they also lisence/sell), Disney studios uses Hyperion Renderer, Dreamworks uses MoonRay, Illumnation uses MGLR, etc.
The thing about Pixar is they usually go with a far less economical style of animation/rendering which requires a lot more work and hardware resources to pull off. A lot of their "breakthroughs" and innovations come from finding ways to produce that stuff more cheaply, not so they can make movies for less but so they can use more of that stuff in what they do.
I mean, look at Elemental. Most of the characters are translucent and/or lacking a solid form and nearly all are empirical to their environments. That kind of thing is super-expensive to pull off and it's basically every frame of the movie.
It seems obvious, a big part of the reason the Mario Movie was more expensive than other Illumination work is that they went heavier in that direction to make everything glow and sparkle a whole lot more than it does in most of their work.
They calculated that spending the bigger bucks to add more eye-candy to the movie would be worth it for that release because they'd been handed a gift of guaranteed success if they didn't whiff it and it looks like they made the right call to spend a little extra for that one.
The big difference with Pixar is they try to set the dial to 11 on animation and rendering for nearly every release*, even when the story-telling part may be lacking.
That ends up hurting them when something doesn't perform well.
Likewise, no matter how bad or lacking the story, Disney's animation is almost never in question in regards to the era it's released.
I know there were people that took issue with the color palette of Strange World, for instance (though there was a story reason for that) but I've never heard anyone complain that the animation/rendering looked bad or cheap.
*Luca feels like it might have been the closest thing to a "budget" release I can think of from Pixar. I loved that movie but to my eye, they made creative decisions with the rendering/animation to reduce costs, particularly in the above-water scenes. I mean, tell me how many individually animated strands of hair you see in that movie. Still beautiful, still Pixar but not at the same level as the visuals of say, Toy Story 4.
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MrPromey
Well-Known Member
There's a reason we call things "vanilla" to say they're bland or boring... and yet vanilla is one of the most popular flavors on earth.
5 had a noticeable drop in profit thanks to it not being liked in and of itself and because 3 & 4 weren't liked.
Cars 3 suffered at the BO even though it was better than Cars 2, but people were wary of Cars 3 because of Cars 2.
Same drop off for Pirates for the same reason.
Meanwhile, the Toy Story franchise keeps printing money.
Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
Compared to DAS, Pixar has always been the sequel machine with about one third of its movies being sequels.
DAS rarely did sequels. After Frozen 2 and Ralph 2, the next four DAS animation features are originals.
I believe the franchise mania era we're entering is temporary. It's sole purpose is to get (almost) guaranteed winners in the theaters to break the reliance on D+ and to tighten the budget until D+ is profitable.
When Ant-Man underperformed, Iger was musing about whether we needed all these sequels.
Next quarterly call, he was hyping franchises as a cherished asset.
Toy Story 3 & 4 were billion dollar films and both made more than 1 & 2.
Avengers 3 & 4 were 2 billion dollar films.
Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
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
Well-Known Member
Oh goody! Hooray! But sadly, people considered it a flop.
erasure fan1
Well-Known Member
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
Well-Known Member
Let's see how it looks once it opens in some major markets, like the UK.
It seems to have legs, right now.
It seems to have legs, right now.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
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
Well-Known Member
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.
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
Well-Known Member
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.
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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
Premium Member
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
Well-Known Member
Disney Irish
Premium Member
We'll see where it ends up, but it clear its finding an audience.It will certainly be fun to track with hard facts and solid data, won't it?
Ghost93
Well-Known Member
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.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.