Summary
Lilo & Stitchmay have gotten the summer started off right for Disney, but things aren’t looking so hot for the Mouse House this weekend. Despite giving Pixar its fourth June release in a row,Eliois crashing and burning at the box office.
Few American film studios have as storied a legacy asPixar. Although their first feature didn’t release until 1995, they came out of the gates on fire with the instant classicToy Story, a movie that changed the animation business seemingly overnight. What followedToy Storywasa string of highly successful, critically beloved hits:Monsters, Inc,Finding Nemo,The Incredibles,Ratatouille,WALL-E,Up,Inside Out,Coco. Sure, they’d always find time to release a sequel or two as theToy StoryandCarsseries ballooned into the most profitable Disney franchises running in their heyday. That being said, Pixar was lauded for being the rare studio always willing to go out on a limb for a new idea. The studio could almost always turn an original story into a bona fide hit that let them continue taking big swing after big swing. The COVID-19 pandemic changed all of that, andthings simply haven’t been the same since.
At the moment,Deadlineis reporting thatEliois currently tracking to make around $22 million this weekend at the domestic box office. With Disney’s ownLilo & Stitchand DreamWorks’How to Train Your Dragonremake still in theaters, it’s clearEliohad an uphill battle from the start. If the $22 million figure holds,Eliowill have the worst wide release opening of any Pixar film ever, lower than bothElementalandToy Story. The low figures for both of those films don’t tell the whole story, either, asToy Storywas released decades ago (meaning that number would be much higher with inflation), andElementaleventually became a success after one of the craziest box office turnarounds in recent history. ForElioto do so would be quite a shock.
ElioStill Has That Pixar Magic, But It Is Tanking At The Domestic Box Office
The saving grace forEliocould be its word of mouth. First off,Eliois sitting at a spectacular 85% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, which isn’t quite A-tier for Pixargiven their track record, but is nothing to scoff at. Where things really get interesting is with audiences. 90% of audiences on Rotten Tomatoes recommendElio,and the film has a stellar A CinemaScore to boot.Elementalstruggled early on during its theatrical release, but ended up bringing nearly $500 million worldwide by the time it was finished. CouldEliohave a similar trajectory in front of it?
The unfortunate thing for both Pixar and animation fans at large is thatElio’s struggles continue a worrying trend: original, non-IP animation is pretty much a no-go at the box office these days. Films like Disney’sStrange World, Locksmith’sRon’s Gone Wrong, and DreamWorks’Ruby Gillman, Teenage Krakenhave all crashed and burned at the post-COVID box office. Every single recent entry on the list of the highest-grossing animated films of all time is either based on an IP or is a sequel:Inside Out 2,Frozen 2,The Super Mario Bros. Movie,Toy Story 4,Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
IfEliocan’t turn things around and buck the trend, perhaps next year’s Pixar offering,Hoppersstarring Jon Hamm and Bobby Moynihan, can. If not,Toy Story 5is always around the corner to keep the sequel train running.
