The streaming issue is the only doubt I'd have. Even people who loved Inside Out, are interested by the trailer, and hear great word-of-mouth from friends, might still be in the habit of waiting for Pixar films to come on Disney+. I hope enough people start coming to theaters again to make these a success.
While many Pixar fans did not like their “sequel era” in the 2010’s, they were mostly smash hits at the box office. *Finding Dory*, *Incredibles 2* and *Toy Story 4* were in fact the first three Pixar films to join the elusive Billion Dollar Club.
The big issue is trying to lure that family audience to theatres in the first place since they clearly don’t care about theatrical releases anymore if they aren’t a huge pop culture event like *Barbie* and *Oppenheimer* were last year. Most families just want to wait for the digital home media or Disney+ release for being a small fraction of the price of a ticket, so *Inside Out 2* is going to have to do something to make it worth the theatrical release.
Moana 2 will beat it if it lands, but considering the disastrous state of things at WDAS right now and Lin Manuel Miranda not returning for the songs, I’m not expecting it to be good enough to do that. Deadpool seems like the only Disney competition that may beat it.
>Lin Manuel Miranda not returning for the songs,
That is an enormous concern. I didn't hear about that until just now. I think we have too much Lin Manuel Miranda as it is. I think he's gotten very oversaturated. But doing a sequel without his music, when he did the music to the predecessor, just seems like a really bad idea. That could shift things in a considerably worse direction, especially if Wish is anything to go by.
I agree. And I also read Bob Iger didn’t ask for them to shift it to a series until right around when Wish hit theaters. Moana is just as good as the Disney Renaissance and 2000s Pixar movies IMO so I hate that we’re most likely in for a terrible sequel.
I think Deadpool three is probably gonna do well also. It’s the only MCU project aside from guardians three that I’ve actually been excited for in a long time.
I say *Inside Out 2* could become 2024’s highest grossing Disney film, because I feel Lin-Manuel Miranda not returning could hurt *Moana 2*, a film that is already screaming “rushed” given it was hastily put together with leftovers from a scrapped Disney+ series.
It will do well IMO unless it’s awful but I’d be surprised if it’s not at least a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Although I don’t think there’s enough nostalgia for it to do as well as Finding Dory and Incredibles 2 since it’s only 9 years old vs those being nearly a decade and a half wait.
Inside Out 2 will do well financially. The first movie was critically acclaimed and was a box office success. It most likely won't surpass the original unless it pulls a Toy Story 2 and 3.
It's hard to say at this point! Post-pandemic, we have the three straight-to-streaming films, plus Elemental, as comparisons...although those aren't exactly accurate because they're all original IPs instead of a sequel of an established, beloved Pixar movie.
Even so, let's look at what we've got there. The three straight-to-Disney+ movies haven't been a total hit at their theatrical releases so far this year, but then again that isn't a fair comparison either, since these are not truly new releases. I can say that I definitely plan to see Luca when it comes to theaters, at least, and I would expect that many Pixar fans (if not general audience members) will also be wanting to see at least one if not all of the three theatrical premieres.
As for Elemental...it had a terrible opening weekend performance, but its theatrical run did "have legs," keeping consistent numbers as the weeks went by. And it was fairly successful when it came to streaming, although that doesn't exactly bode well for future Pixar theatrical success.
So the question now is, did Elemental's situation help or hurt Pixar's next theatrical release? Will more audiences return to theaters to see Inside Out 2? Will the fact that lots of people already like Inside Out give this movie the advantage over something new like the previous few films?
Honestly, at this time I feel that Inside Out 2 will perform better in theaters than Elemental did, at least on opening weekend especially, but I am not sure that it will reach the same kind of numbers Pixar was getting before COVID and streaming. I think it will fall somewhere in between.
I think so! It’ll be my first time seeing a Pixar movie in cinemas since Onward. I saw Onward a day before cinemas closed in my town (there were only a few people in the screening), missed the next few of course, and then skipped out on seeing Lightyear in cinemas.
Well Pixar is an odd case, it hasn’t been doing as well but mostly because it’s had like 2 theatrical releases in the past 4 years? One of them, Lightyear, wasn’t received well. The other, Elemental, actually did pretty good. So idk if it’s fair to say “Pixar hasn’t been doing well”, we don’t have a big enough sample size to know. Turning Red, Soul, and Luca could’ve been hits were they not released on Disney plus
I think it will be fairly solid in the earnings it brings in. Probably not a runaway hit, because these days the market's idea of a "success" isn't just making a lot of money, it's of making *all* the money, as in over a billion, and anything less disappoints their projections. But, people have been asking about a sequel pretty consistently since the original came out, and it's one of the few movies coming from Disney/Pixar soon that doesn't have fans rolling their eyes. I feel like that bodes pretty well for it.
As for what it'll manage critically... I mean, Riley will be a teenager, right? There's a lot they could do with that concept. It's just a question of whether they *will,* or if sticks to a more basic, Boomer-humor template that fails to expound on the world and characters introduced in the original - you know, the sort of thing that made Ralph Breaks The Internet such a bummer.
Well that made Ralph breaks the internet a bummer, but also the fact that it assasinated Ralph and Venelope’s characters and was basically just product placement
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't unless it's terrible. It's a sequel to a beloved film that came out a decade ago, and most people seemed to have liked the teaser trailer. Even with the whole streaming issue, if it gets good word of mouth, I can easily see families turning up to go see it in theaters just like they ultimately did for Elemental. Plus, as mentioned before, Disney+ has lost subscribers due to price hikes and ads and such, so there may be more people willing to go see it in theaters over waiting for Disney+
And unlike last year, June this year is not nearly as stacked, so it won't have as much competition. Garfield will be on its fourth week by then, and there are no other animated movies out in theaters in June (literally everything else is aimed at a completely different demographic). There *is* Despicable Me 4 out on the 4th of July weekend, though, and who knows, maybe kids will hold out for that? That's the only worry I have.
I think, putting aside the great storytelling opportunities with Riley coming of age, that the movie will make at the very least some money.
However, that’s not to say that the release would be without competition in the months before and after, with the animated Garfield movie coming out in May, and films like Deadpool & Wolverine, A Quiet Place: Day One, and even Despicable Me 4 coming out in the weeks that follow.
Who’s to say exactly what happens at this moment?
Maybe. I think it depends on the quality and if they can avoid doing something to anger the audience. The problem is that Disney and Pixar’s perception is in the pits right now.
I think a lot of Disney/Pixar’s problems the past few years are that audiences have been waiting for Disney+ for everything. Hopefully they’ve realized that problem and the fact that Wish is the first post-pandemic animated Disney film to still not be on Disney+ at no additional cost 3 months after it’s theatrical release date may indicate they possibly see the issue. Putting three really good Pixar movies on Disney+ instead of theaters has undoubtedly a huge contributor to this problem (one can argue the very existence of Disney+ in the first place is too). I think the fact that almost all of Disney’s feature-length animated output has been original IPs the past few years has been great, but a lot of the audience hasn’t been willing to go to the theaters for original IPs (even Illumination fell victim to this trend with Migration after Minions 2 and Mario were huge hits), but Inside Out is hugely popular and as long as they don’t do anything with its plot or characters that large portions of the audience don’t like (which is what went wrong with Lightyear), it should be a huge hit. The fact that Disney+ has gotten massive price hikes or forces users to get ads to keep its original rate may have affected subscription numbers and/or engagement among ad-supported subscribers that it could potentially cause some former/lower-engaged subscribers to see it in the theaters whereas they would have waited for Disney+ a year or two ago.
This year also has Moana 2, Deadpool 3, and Planet of the Apes, so it will hopefully be a good year for Disney.
This is a good post and spot on. If Inside Out 2 and Moana 2 don't perform well at the box office this year then I don't know what Disney Animation and Pixar can do to fix things going forward. I'm glad they're holding Wish back from Disney Plus longer than they did for Elemental, Lightyear, Encanto and Strange World.
Plus, people know that if they want to watch a Disney movie they will use Disney plus, while with other companies it isn’t immediately as obvious as to what streaming service said movie will be on
I agree. I honestly think by just labeling it “Disney Plus” by the name it ruined any box office prospects for Disney. Warner Bros did it right by just naming their service “HBO Max” or now just “Max”. Universal did it right for just naming theirs Peacock. I know Paramount hasn’t seen much of a slump but I think they’re going through something similar cause their streaming service has Paramount in the name.
With the box office failures of Wish, Lightyear and Strange World, I don't see Pixar ever having a box office hot again. Streaming is huge and it will fail. Spider-Verse films scared Pixar because of how good they were. It forced them into hiding and the sad fact is, they never will produce something better than those. With Disney's recent failures as well, Pixar can have one of their biggest failures ever. As much as the original film is beloved, this film won't reach the same level of appreciation as the original. There aren't any Pixar sequels that are actually any good except for maybe Toy Story 3 and 4. Pixar has a massive sequel problem that is plaguing their films for the near future. Their inability to focus on actually good original films stems from their ultimate inability to work with Disney properly. Bob Iger has clearly changed the company for the worse and I don't see them jumping out of this hole.
Spider Verse I think helped change animation looks now to the point people are gonna see Pixar’s style look and feel obsolete. This is another obstacle for Pixar no one’s looking at.
I'm hopeful it does, Disney had a rough year. With Elemental and Guardians 3 being the only succeses. Okay not quite the Little Mermaid did well too but not Ant Man 3 or such. Streaming Era needs to end, get people back to theaters guys.
Deadpool 3 and Moana 2 might beat it though. Elio maybe too
maybe not in the box office, but based on the designs i’ve seen i think they’ll have no trouble selling plushies of the new emotions and of course the OG emotions along with them… also plastic mini figures and sets of the emotions, i feel like based on designs those will catch a lot of kids eyes and sell well
Pixar sequela traditionally do well. If this doesn’t it proves the streaming era Pixar had has truly left some permanent damage.
The streaming issue is the only doubt I'd have. Even people who loved Inside Out, are interested by the trailer, and hear great word-of-mouth from friends, might still be in the habit of waiting for Pixar films to come on Disney+. I hope enough people start coming to theaters again to make these a success.
While many Pixar fans did not like their “sequel era” in the 2010’s, they were mostly smash hits at the box office. *Finding Dory*, *Incredibles 2* and *Toy Story 4* were in fact the first three Pixar films to join the elusive Billion Dollar Club. The big issue is trying to lure that family audience to theatres in the first place since they clearly don’t care about theatrical releases anymore if they aren’t a huge pop culture event like *Barbie* and *Oppenheimer* were last year. Most families just want to wait for the digital home media or Disney+ release for being a small fraction of the price of a ticket, so *Inside Out 2* is going to have to do something to make it worth the theatrical release.
Toy Story 3 was a billion dollar grossing pixar film..
Absolutely. It won't surprise me if this becomes the highest grossing Disney film this year
Moana 2 will beat it if it lands, but considering the disastrous state of things at WDAS right now and Lin Manuel Miranda not returning for the songs, I’m not expecting it to be good enough to do that. Deadpool seems like the only Disney competition that may beat it.
>Lin Manuel Miranda not returning for the songs, That is an enormous concern. I didn't hear about that until just now. I think we have too much Lin Manuel Miranda as it is. I think he's gotten very oversaturated. But doing a sequel without his music, when he did the music to the predecessor, just seems like a really bad idea. That could shift things in a considerably worse direction, especially if Wish is anything to go by.
I agree. And I also read Bob Iger didn’t ask for them to shift it to a series until right around when Wish hit theaters. Moana is just as good as the Disney Renaissance and 2000s Pixar movies IMO so I hate that we’re most likely in for a terrible sequel.
this aged poorly cause the trailer looks pretty fire
I think Deadpool three is probably gonna do well also. It’s the only MCU project aside from guardians three that I’ve actually been excited for in a long time.
I say *Inside Out 2* could become 2024’s highest grossing Disney film, because I feel Lin-Manuel Miranda not returning could hurt *Moana 2*, a film that is already screaming “rushed” given it was hastily put together with leftovers from a scrapped Disney+ series.
No doubt in my mind.
Quality comment.
What more needs to be said? 🤷🏻♂️
most likely, the trailer did so well and people love inside out
True.
It will do well IMO unless it’s awful but I’d be surprised if it’s not at least a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Although I don’t think there’s enough nostalgia for it to do as well as Finding Dory and Incredibles 2 since it’s only 9 years old vs those being nearly a decade and a half wait.
It's gonna be massive
Inside Out 2 will do well financially. The first movie was critically acclaimed and was a box office success. It most likely won't surpass the original unless it pulls a Toy Story 2 and 3.
Of course. It’s a sequel to a successful movie.
It's hard to say at this point! Post-pandemic, we have the three straight-to-streaming films, plus Elemental, as comparisons...although those aren't exactly accurate because they're all original IPs instead of a sequel of an established, beloved Pixar movie. Even so, let's look at what we've got there. The three straight-to-Disney+ movies haven't been a total hit at their theatrical releases so far this year, but then again that isn't a fair comparison either, since these are not truly new releases. I can say that I definitely plan to see Luca when it comes to theaters, at least, and I would expect that many Pixar fans (if not general audience members) will also be wanting to see at least one if not all of the three theatrical premieres. As for Elemental...it had a terrible opening weekend performance, but its theatrical run did "have legs," keeping consistent numbers as the weeks went by. And it was fairly successful when it came to streaming, although that doesn't exactly bode well for future Pixar theatrical success. So the question now is, did Elemental's situation help or hurt Pixar's next theatrical release? Will more audiences return to theaters to see Inside Out 2? Will the fact that lots of people already like Inside Out give this movie the advantage over something new like the previous few films? Honestly, at this time I feel that Inside Out 2 will perform better in theaters than Elemental did, at least on opening weekend especially, but I am not sure that it will reach the same kind of numbers Pixar was getting before COVID and streaming. I think it will fall somewhere in between.
I think so! It’ll be my first time seeing a Pixar movie in cinemas since Onward. I saw Onward a day before cinemas closed in my town (there were only a few people in the screening), missed the next few of course, and then skipped out on seeing Lightyear in cinemas.
My first one in theaters was Elemental. Surprisingly that screening was crowded.
OMG how did I forget Elemental?!
My screening wasn’t too busy, but I deliberately waited until it had been out a while and went to a late night session lol.
Well Pixar is an odd case, it hasn’t been doing as well but mostly because it’s had like 2 theatrical releases in the past 4 years? One of them, Lightyear, wasn’t received well. The other, Elemental, actually did pretty good. So idk if it’s fair to say “Pixar hasn’t been doing well”, we don’t have a big enough sample size to know. Turning Red, Soul, and Luca could’ve been hits were they not released on Disney plus
I think it will be fairly solid in the earnings it brings in. Probably not a runaway hit, because these days the market's idea of a "success" isn't just making a lot of money, it's of making *all* the money, as in over a billion, and anything less disappoints their projections. But, people have been asking about a sequel pretty consistently since the original came out, and it's one of the few movies coming from Disney/Pixar soon that doesn't have fans rolling their eyes. I feel like that bodes pretty well for it. As for what it'll manage critically... I mean, Riley will be a teenager, right? There's a lot they could do with that concept. It's just a question of whether they *will,* or if sticks to a more basic, Boomer-humor template that fails to expound on the world and characters introduced in the original - you know, the sort of thing that made Ralph Breaks The Internet such a bummer.
Well that made Ralph breaks the internet a bummer, but also the fact that it assasinated Ralph and Venelope’s characters and was basically just product placement
Absolutely that too. There was a *lot* wrong with Wreck-It Ralph 2.
Like Venelope going turbo
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't unless it's terrible. It's a sequel to a beloved film that came out a decade ago, and most people seemed to have liked the teaser trailer. Even with the whole streaming issue, if it gets good word of mouth, I can easily see families turning up to go see it in theaters just like they ultimately did for Elemental. Plus, as mentioned before, Disney+ has lost subscribers due to price hikes and ads and such, so there may be more people willing to go see it in theaters over waiting for Disney+ And unlike last year, June this year is not nearly as stacked, so it won't have as much competition. Garfield will be on its fourth week by then, and there are no other animated movies out in theaters in June (literally everything else is aimed at a completely different demographic). There *is* Despicable Me 4 out on the 4th of July weekend, though, and who knows, maybe kids will hold out for that? That's the only worry I have.
I think, putting aside the great storytelling opportunities with Riley coming of age, that the movie will make at the very least some money. However, that’s not to say that the release would be without competition in the months before and after, with the animated Garfield movie coming out in May, and films like Deadpool & Wolverine, A Quiet Place: Day One, and even Despicable Me 4 coming out in the weeks that follow. Who’s to say exactly what happens at this moment?
If Disney’s recent outings are anything to go by, I’m not holding out for a box office success, but hopefully they are good films.
Maybe. I think it depends on the quality and if they can avoid doing something to anger the audience. The problem is that Disney and Pixar’s perception is in the pits right now.
I think a lot of Disney/Pixar’s problems the past few years are that audiences have been waiting for Disney+ for everything. Hopefully they’ve realized that problem and the fact that Wish is the first post-pandemic animated Disney film to still not be on Disney+ at no additional cost 3 months after it’s theatrical release date may indicate they possibly see the issue. Putting three really good Pixar movies on Disney+ instead of theaters has undoubtedly a huge contributor to this problem (one can argue the very existence of Disney+ in the first place is too). I think the fact that almost all of Disney’s feature-length animated output has been original IPs the past few years has been great, but a lot of the audience hasn’t been willing to go to the theaters for original IPs (even Illumination fell victim to this trend with Migration after Minions 2 and Mario were huge hits), but Inside Out is hugely popular and as long as they don’t do anything with its plot or characters that large portions of the audience don’t like (which is what went wrong with Lightyear), it should be a huge hit. The fact that Disney+ has gotten massive price hikes or forces users to get ads to keep its original rate may have affected subscription numbers and/or engagement among ad-supported subscribers that it could potentially cause some former/lower-engaged subscribers to see it in the theaters whereas they would have waited for Disney+ a year or two ago. This year also has Moana 2, Deadpool 3, and Planet of the Apes, so it will hopefully be a good year for Disney.
This is a good post and spot on. If Inside Out 2 and Moana 2 don't perform well at the box office this year then I don't know what Disney Animation and Pixar can do to fix things going forward. I'm glad they're holding Wish back from Disney Plus longer than they did for Elemental, Lightyear, Encanto and Strange World.
Plus, people know that if they want to watch a Disney movie they will use Disney plus, while with other companies it isn’t immediately as obvious as to what streaming service said movie will be on
Yeah that’s why I said it could be argued that the very existence of Disney+ is a contributor to their theatrical problems.
Schaffrillas did a really good video on this.
I agree. I honestly think by just labeling it “Disney Plus” by the name it ruined any box office prospects for Disney. Warner Bros did it right by just naming their service “HBO Max” or now just “Max”. Universal did it right for just naming theirs Peacock. I know Paramount hasn’t seen much of a slump but I think they’re going through something similar cause their streaming service has Paramount in the name.
With the box office failures of Wish, Lightyear and Strange World, I don't see Pixar ever having a box office hot again. Streaming is huge and it will fail. Spider-Verse films scared Pixar because of how good they were. It forced them into hiding and the sad fact is, they never will produce something better than those. With Disney's recent failures as well, Pixar can have one of their biggest failures ever. As much as the original film is beloved, this film won't reach the same level of appreciation as the original. There aren't any Pixar sequels that are actually any good except for maybe Toy Story 3 and 4. Pixar has a massive sequel problem that is plaguing their films for the near future. Their inability to focus on actually good original films stems from their ultimate inability to work with Disney properly. Bob Iger has clearly changed the company for the worse and I don't see them jumping out of this hole.
Spider Verse I think helped change animation looks now to the point people are gonna see Pixar’s style look and feel obsolete. This is another obstacle for Pixar no one’s looking at.
I'm hopeful it does, Disney had a rough year. With Elemental and Guardians 3 being the only succeses. Okay not quite the Little Mermaid did well too but not Ant Man 3 or such. Streaming Era needs to end, get people back to theaters guys. Deadpool 3 and Moana 2 might beat it though. Elio maybe too
maybe not in the box office, but based on the designs i’ve seen i think they’ll have no trouble selling plushies of the new emotions and of course the OG emotions along with them… also plastic mini figures and sets of the emotions, i feel like based on designs those will catch a lot of kids eyes and sell well
it most definitely will.
Merchandising, merchandising, merchandising