“Elio” marked Pixar’s worst opening weekend in its 30-year history
The Disney-owned animation giant’s recent box office performance has seen some blockbuster sequels — and lackluster originals.
Over the weekend, Disney’s Pixar aimed for the stars with the release of new intergalactic tale “Elio”… and fell back to earth when the $150 million-budgeted film took only $21 million at the domestic box office, the worst debut ever for Pixar.
Telling the story of a space-obsessed middle schooler who gets abducted by a friendly alien, the new Pixar movie slumped behind rival Dreamworks’ live-action remake of the smash hit “How To Train Your Dragon,” which accrued $37 million in its second weekend after a whopping $85 million opening, as well as zombie sequel “28 Years Later,” which took $30 million in North America, per Variety.
The weekend’s triptych reflects the waning public appetite for original content in favor of more familiar IP. However, just looking at Pixar itself — lionized since the 1990s for its groundbreaking computer animation techniques and original heart-warming flicks like “Toy Story” and “Inside Out” — it seems that the iconic production studio is losing its magic touch for making blockbusters based on unique (often anthropomorphic) worlds.
To originality… and beyond
Though “Elio” was critically well received, garnering an impressive 84% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s not yet translated to ticket sales — increasingly the case for Pixar’s original content, like “Elemental” and “Onward,” but not necessarily for movies that build on the studio’s existing franchises.
Data from The Numbers shows that sequels have dominated Pixar’s box office takings across opening weekends in recent years, with “Incredibles 2” (2018) and “Inside Out 2” (2024) ranking among the biggest domestic debuts of all time.
Parent company Disney has seen profits driven by family-friendly sequels like “Moana 2,” as well as from its ability to pull on existing threads in its wildly successful Marvel franchise. Last October, CNBC reported that up to 70% of the movies from the six major studios — Universal, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony, and Lionsgate — would be related to existing IP in 2025. Now, with the disparity in box office takings looking starker than ever, Pixar’s original content might fall even further out of focus.
