Despite solid reviews, Pixar’s latest film, Elio, does not look like a hit.
The studio’s latest animated feature opened with just an estimated $21 million in ticket sales in U.S. theaters — which makes it the worst opening in the history of Pixar, the much-beloved creators of cartoon classics like Toy Story, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles.
That $21 million number is significantly down from Pixar’s previous worst opening weekend, which came in 2023 with Elemental, which grossed $29.6 million in theaters in its first days of release. (The very first Toy Story opened to roughly that number as well — but that was 30 years ago and that number is not adjusted for inflation.)
If there’s any good news here for Pixar it’s that despite its weak opening weekend, Elemental wound up playing well in theaters all through the summer of 2023; it wound up grossing close to half a billion dollars worldwide. It’s possible Elio, which got fairly strong reviews from critics, could generate positive word of mouth that drives some families to the theater in the weeks ahead.
(In this writer’s opinion, the film is sweet and funny; not amongst Pixar’s best, but certainly not among their worst either. If Elio doesn’t become a hit in theaters, it will surely find an audience eventually on Disney+.)
READ MORE: Two Brutally Honest Kids Review Elio
One issue for Elio, unlike a lot of animated movies lately (including Elemental), is that it faced strong competition for family audiences this weekend. The top-grossing film in theaters was DreamWorks’ remake of How to Train Your Dragon. In its second weekend of release, Dragon earned an estimated $37 million, bringing its domestic total to $160.4 million so far.
The New York Times notes that said family audience tends to turn up for familiar brands these days — like How to Train Your Dragon — while original films that aren’t based on existing IP have, in their words, “fallen out of favor at the box office.” They cite recent flops like Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken and Migration as examples.
That theory certainly seems more plausible when you consider that Pixar’s last movie was a sequel (2024’s Inside Out 2) and it was turned out to be the studio’s biggest worldwide hit in history. It made $1.69 billion in theaters.
Pixar currently has two films scheduled for 2026: One original, called Hoppers, and one sequel, Toy Story 5. I know which one I’d bet earns more money in theaters.
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