Both Disney and Pixar can really use a hit. Returns on Disney’s live-action Little Mermaid (2023) remake have been mixed. So far, it’s brought home $414 million in just under three weeks. A solid return, but nowhere near the $1 billion mark that The Lion King (2019) and Aladdin (2019) made. And at this point, that number seems even further away.
Pixar is even more desperate for a hit, and the studio hopes this week’s release of Elemental (2023) will provide them with that much-needed box-office revenue.
Since Toy Story 4 (2019) reach $1.073 billion at the box office, the team at Pixar has been on a dry spell. The last five Pixar Studio films have a combined worldwide box office of $556.8 million, a little more than half of what Toy Story 4 made.
Shawn Robbins, senior analyst for Box Office Pro, told Reuters:
It used to be that when a Pixar film was coming out, it could be an original title that didn’t even need to be be based on pre-existing characters and it could still open like a mini-blockbuster, if not a full-fledged blockbuster. I think that’s changed now, especially because there’s more competition.
That new competition comes from Disney’s Theme Park rival, Universal Pictures. The Comcast-owned studio struck gold with the Super Mario Bros Movie (2023), bringing in $1.3 billion.
The Director of Elemental, Peter Ohn, has admitted that he feels the pressure to deliver a hit. His film is the only one on Disney’s summer slate that isn’t based on pre-existing characters, which requires complete buy-in from the audience and a willingness to accept a new storyline.
Pixar’s bad run isn’t entirely the studio’s fault. Onward (2020) debuted in March 2020, and we all remember how that month went. Sout (2020), Luca (2021), and Turning Red (2022) all debuted on Disney+ in America, which helped boost subscriptions but destroyed box office numbers.
And then there was Lightyear (2022), panned by critics and widely considered the biggest box office bomb of the year. It was so bad that Disney CEO Bob Iger laid off the team behind it.
Now, both Walt Disney Studio and Pixar Animation Studio are banking on Elemental to help bring the studios back to profitability. The movie debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and received mixed reviews. It currently has a 76 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. We shall see if the studios made the right choice.
We will continue to update this story at Disney Fanatic.
