Analyst: “Elio” Poor Opening Is Worrisome

This past weekend saw Pixar’s “Elio” release in cinemas, and subsequently crashed and burned on lift-off.

The $150 million-budgeted CG-animated sci-fi adventure snagged the worst box office opening of any Pixar film to date, taking in just $21 million domestically for its first weekend. It was even worse overseas, where it pulled in a dismal $14.9 million.

Critics reviews were good, albeit softly so, for the feature, while the CinemaScore of ‘A’ suggests audiences are really liking the movie. Disney no doubt hopes this will pull off an “Elemental” and stick around in subsequent weeks to become a decent earner by the time it wraps its theatrical run.

Wall Street analyst Doug Creutz tells Deadline that the gap between original animation and sequels has grown massive since COVID, and poor starts like this will only fuel the push for more sequels in the future:

“We expect movie studios to react to this clear trend by greenlighting fewer original IP animated films (don’t blame film execs, blame audiences). The issue, of course, is that without new hit properties, a studio cannot grow its IP portfolio. This could be particularly problematic for Disney, which depends on its animated film/parks/consumer products flywheel to help drive overall company growth.”

Creutz says the average gross for original animated titles released by Disney and Universal since 2022 has been $412 million – less than half the $844 million average for the seven animated sequels released over the same span.

In fact, the gap would be even wider if it weren’t for the $1.36 billion haul of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” lifting up that original count.

Pixar used to do well with originals – launching “Inside Out” in 2015 and “Coco” in 2017 to both acclaim and very healthy box-office. However, they’ve been struggling since the 2020s began – first with “Onward” opening right as the pandemic hit and then opting to release “Soul,” “Luca” and “Turning Red” direct to Disney+ to boost subscriber counts.

After that Pixar tried going back to theatrical with limited success – first with “Lightyear” which ended bombing badly – grossing a total of just $226.4 million off a $200 million budget, and “Elemental” which started slow but ended up doing OK with $496.4 million off a $200 million budget.

“Inside Out 2” last year was a massive success for them, taking in $1.7 billion. Thus it comes as little surprise that Pixar has opted to move forward with “Toy Story 5,” “Incredibles 3” and “Coco 2” in the next few years. It still has two more originals on the way – “Hoppers” early next year and “Gatto” in Summer 2027 – and there’s understandable concern people aren’t going to rush out to see those.

The talk comes as Pixar chief Pete Docter said last week at a Fast Company summit in New York that originals are essential to his company: “We have to find out what people want before they know it. Because if we just gave them more of what they know, we’d be making Toy Story 27.”

The post Analyst: “Elio” Poor Opening Is Worrisome appeared first on Dark Horizons.