Weekend Box Office 6/22 - Pixar's Worst

[AndyDursin]

Nothing interesting this weekend other than the bizarre looking ELIO serving as Pixar's lowest wide release (guess TURNING RED doesn't count).

Now look I have nothing against ELIO but it looks absolutely bizarre. It might be great, but the concept is so strange. Kid with an eyepatch meeting aliens? How was this supposed to be different than any animated kids movie you could see on Netflix (and I've checked, believe me, having seen Theo's Kids Mode roster and the unending supply of kid-flicks you can get there).

1.) How to Train Your Dragon (Uni) 4,373 (+17) theaters, Fri $10.8M (-69%), Sat $14.5M, Sun $11.6M 3-day $37M (-58%), Total $160.4M/Wk 2

2.) 28 Years Later (Sony) 3,444 theaters, Fri $14.1M, Sat $8.8M Sun $7M 3-day $30M/Wk 1

3.) Elio (Dis) 3,750 theaters Fri $9M Sat $6.6M Sun $5.4M 3-day $21M/Wk 1

4.) Lilo & Stitch (Dis) 3,375 (-300) theaters, Fri $3M (-38%) Sat $3.8M Sun $2.9M 3-day $9.7M (-38%), Total $386.7M/Wk 5

5.) Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning (Par) 2,603 (-339) theaters, Fri $1.8M (-20%) Sat $2.7M Sun $2M 3-day $6.55M (-33%), Total $178.3M/Wk 5

[Monterey Jack]

Gee, giving away three Pixar movies in a row for free on D+ may have "devalued" the Pixar brand name a little bit...? The only quasi-flop Pixar had to their credit prior to 2020 (when Onward's release came less than two weeks before movie theaters shut down) was probably The Good Dinosaur, but they got totally thrown under the bus at the height of the Pandemic, while Disney kept releasing almost all of their intended theatrical releases to theaters (Mulan and Artemis Fowl were the only notable sacrifices). Now, people see an original Pixar movie, and immediately go "Ehhh, it'll be on D+ in three months, I can wait." Meanwhile, a pair of soulless live-action Xeroxes like Lilo & Stitch and How To Train Your Dragon are raking it in. It's a shame, as Elio was very entertaining. Elemental had an opening weekend only slightly larger ($29 million), yet manage to leg out to just under $500 mil worldwide, so hopefully Elio will find an audience over time.

[AndyDursin]

I doubt that's going to happen here because there's more in the marketplace than there was when ELEMENTAL was out, but we'll see.

I just don't think you can just chalk it up though to "audiences are used to Disney+" or whatever. I think it's more a case of they're making odd premises that just aren't appealing to the masses anymore.

TURNING RED was never, ever going to make a lot of money with that plot line. This movie -- the kid with the eyepatch -- it's also kind of odd...I don't know, they used to make movies that had very straightforward, easy-to-sell concepts. Yes they were "original" but the stuff that worked -- toys come to life, fish searches for his son, colorful cars that can talk in their own "world," the adventures of a cute robot, etc. -- was simple and easy to market with characters that looked appealing and cute. They weren't "Chinese girl turns into a panda" with a title that's an allegory for menstruation, or "kid with a lazy eye goes out to meet aliens", or "two elf brothers go out to resurrect their dead Dad for 24 hours."

The more they vary out of the straightforward, the more (increasingly) difficult it's been for them to market these movies. You can argue that the success of UP may have been one of the worst things that happened to the company because as good as the movie was, I think it convinced Pixar they could make anything offbeat and somewhat esoteric and it still would rake in huge amounts of money.

[Monterey Jack]

Well, now we know a big chunk of the reason why the movie was delayed for over a year and heavily modified from the original version...

[AndyDursin]

They havent gotten the message yet. Its unbelievable really.

[Monterey Jack]

They havent gotten the message yet. Its unbelievable really.

Of course, everyone Twitter is outraged at the "cowardly" excision of gay and trans characters from Elio and that Pixar D+ show I haven't watched, and I'm like...have you SEEN the box-office takes for Lightyear and Strange World?!

Parents don't want to deal with this sh!t in entertainment that will be viewed by children far too young to process it. These insertions of LGBTQ crap aren't for children, they're for twenty-five-year-olds who want to crow about how "Groundbreaking!" and "Inclusionary!" it all is, while kids and parents just want to have something silly and fun to watch together. It's the reason why Lightyear barely scraped past $200 million worldwide, while Minions 2 (which opened only two weeks later) sailed its way to a cool billion.