Elemental Had One of the Worst Box Office Debuts Ever for a Pixar Movie

For the first time in nearly three years, an original Pixar Animation Studios movie is playing in theaters around the country. The acclaimed studio saw three straight movies released directly onto Disney+ in the wake of the pandemic. Last year’s Lightyear, a Toy Story spinoff, was the first time Pixar was in theaters since 2020. This weekend’s Elemental marks the first Pixar theatrical release since Onward that isn’t based on an existing franchise. Unfortunately, it hasn’t fared too well so far, falling short of projections and delivering what is arguably the worst opening weekend in Pixar history.

Elemental was already tracking towards a low $35 million debut this weekend, but the film didn’t even hit that mark, delivering just $29.5 million over the last three days. Technically, that is the second-lowest opening ever for Pixar. Toy Story, the studio’s first film, made $29.1 million in its first weekend. When you adjust for inflation, though, Toy Story‘s opening is much more impressive. It also opened in significantly fewer theaters and was a film that changed the landscape of the entire animation industry. 

The Good Dinosaur, Elemental director Peter Sohn’s previous film, earned just over $39 million in its opening weekend, and that was seen as low at the time. Needless to say, this debut is a bit troubling for Pixar.

It’s not fair to lay the blame at the feet of Elemental, which has been met with mostly positive reviews. It carries a 76% “Fresh” designation on Rotten Tomatoes, with its audience score all the way up at 92%. Most people that have seen the movie have liked it, that doesn’t seem to be the issue. 

Why Is Elemental Performing Poorly at the Box Office?

There are probably a multitude of different answers for this question. Original films do have a hard time at the box office than original stories these days, but original hits were Pixar’s bread and butter for a long time. If there’s a studio that has earned the trust of movie fans over several decades, convincing people to buy into big concepts with characters they don’t know, it’s Pixar. 

We could talk about an ineffective marketing campaign, which has been an issue for Disney on multiple different occasions over the past couple of years. Despite being a part of the Toy Story franchise, Lightyear failed to meet expectations last year, and Disney Animation’s Strange World totally bombed. Marketing has been an issue as of late.

Perhaps the biggest culprit, though, is Disney’s handling of Pixar movies over the last couple of years. Disney was putting Pixar movies directly onto Disney+ long after theaters had reopened. Soul debuted directly on Disney+ in late 2020, and that made sense at the time. Theaters were still closed and a COVID-19 vaccine wasn’t readily available. However, as theaters started opening back up in 2021 and people started to return to a sense of normalcy, Pixar movies continued to head straight to streaming. Instead of a theatrical release, or even a delay to a time when a theatrical release was safer, Disney released both Luca and Turning Red directly onto Disney+. Both were original Pixar films that received rave reviews and were major awards contenders.

For nearly three years, audiences were essentially trained to watch Pixar movies at home, which is a major contrast to how Pixar titles were viewed previously. 2015’s Inside Out, an original film about a young girl’s inner emotions, made more than $90 million in its opening weekend and went on to gross $857 million globally. Coco, an original musical released in 2017, debuted with $50 million and eventually grossed over $807 million worldwide.

It’s hard to say exactly what would’ve happened with Elemental had Luca and Turning Red been theatrical releases, but it’s easy to bet the performance would’ve been significantly stronger. Pixar’s next film — Elio — isn’t until 2024, and it’s another original story. It’ll be interesting to see if Disney can change up the marketing ahead of its release and get the studio out of its current box office rut.