Pixar’s Inside Out 2 scores biggest opening weekend in North America since Barbie
LOS ANGELES – Inside Out 2, an animated film from Walt Disney’s Pixar, grossed US$155 million (S$209 million) at the box office in the United States and Canada, besting Dune: Part Two as the movie with the biggest opening weekend of 2024.
In a reprieve for theatre chains such as AMC Entertainment Holdings and Regal owner Cineworld Group, which have suffered from a dearth of Hollywood films in the first half due to the twin actors and writers strikes in 2023, Inside Out 2 scored the biggest opening weekend since 2023’s Barbie. That Warner Bros Discovery release grossed US$162 million on its debut.
Globally, Inside Out 2’s US$295 million haul is the biggest opening weekend in history for an animated film. In the US and Canada, it is the second-biggest, behind Pixar’s own The Incredibles 2 in 2018.
“If it was ever in doubt, people continue and are still willing to go to the cinema to see great movies, and with 92 per cent critics and 96 per cent audience scores on RottenTomatoes, there’s no better example of this than Inside Out 2,” Mr Tony Chambers, Disney’s executive vice-president for theatrical distribution, said by phone.
The strong showing marks a comeback for Pixar – the storied studio behind A Bug’s Life (1998) and Up (2009) – which has struggled in recent years after the Toy Story film Lightyear failed in cinemas in 2022 and Elemental, in 2023, opened to the company’s worst performance ever before gaining momentum.
In the near term, Pixar’s turnaround strategy will focus on balancing original concepts with sequels and spinoffs in popular franchises such as Monsters, Inc. (2001 to present) and Finding Nemo (2003 to present), President Jim Morris said in an interview in May.
The ticket sales of Inside Out 2, a critically acclaimed sequel to the 2015 film that follows five anthropomorphised emotions who direct the thoughts and actions of a young girl, trounced an estimated range of US$85 million to US$115 million from industry tracker Boxoffice Pro.
Disney’s film studio, led by entertainment division co-chair Alan Bergman, has suffered setbacks in recent years.
The unit that includes theatrical releases has not turned a profit since April 2022. Mr Bergman has said that he is looking to titles in 2024 – including Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes, which has grossed US$361.7 million since its release in May, Inside Out 2 and August’s Alien: Romulus – as key to returning to past form.
Disney chief executive Bob Iger, who returned to lead the company in November 2022, has made fixing movie output a priority, delaying some titles as far out as 2031 to ensure better quality control. BLOOMBERG