Pixar's Elemental Is One of the Most Surprising Box Office Success Stories of the Year

While Barbie and Oppenheimer represent the biggest stories at the box office this year, Pixar's Elemental may be 2023's most surprising success. The narrative around Peter Sohn's animated adventure has completely changed since it was first released in theaters back in June. Elemental debuted to a paltry $29.6 million in its opening weekend, giving the storied Pixar Animation Studios its lowest debut since Toy Story was released in 1995. It seemed like yet another nail in the coffin for the studio, which has struggled to gain any traction theatrically since the pandemic. However, in the month-and-a-half since its release, Elemental has turned into the Little Engine That Could, slowly becoming a big win for the studio.

This week, Elemental crossed $400 million at the global box office, a feat that seemed almost impossible after its disastrous opening. What once seemed like a film that was destined to lose a lot of money, just as Lightyear did in 2022, has turned profitable for Pixar. It's also the very first original film to pass $400 million at the box office since the start of the pandemic. Every other film to cross the threshold has been part of a franchise or based on some kind of existing property. 

Elemental is a success story that needs to be talked about when it comes to the changing habits of moviegoers and how studios look at box office success. Hats no longer have to be hung on opening weekend, and Elemental proves it would be silly to do so. Patience is most definitely a virtue when it comes to the box office. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 faced a similar scenario earlier in the year. It wasn't quite the flop that Elemental was, but it opened lower than many expected, and didn't quite meet the standards of other Marvel movies. However, Guardians 3 went on to deliver record-low drops for Marvel week after week, letting positive word of mouth guide people to the theaters. It went on to become one of the highest earning films in all of 2023.

Elemental's Place in the Summer Release Calendar

Scheduling has a lot to do with Elemental's success as well, and that's something Disney has been hit or miss with in 2023. Elemental was released at the start of the summer and the weeks that followed were pretty crowded, but not with animated films geared towards families. Prior to the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem on Wednesday, DreamWorks' Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken was the only other animated film to get a wide release since Elemental hit theaters in mid-June. For many families wanting to go to the movies over the summer, Elemental was one of the only options. 

Elemental Found Success Without Streaming

Elemental proves there are multiple paths to finding success at the box office in the modern era. Not every release has to be a home run, and not every movie has to be a huge hit right out of the gate. It just takes a little while for some movies to find their audience, and that wouldn't have happened had Disney simply tossed Elemental onto Disney+ a month after it was released. That's been the move for the House of Mouse as of late, and it was that very streaming mindset that hurt Pixar's theatrical output in the first place. 

Hopefully, Elemental will show Disney (and other major studios) that there is always hope in movie theaters. Streaming can be a great compliment to theaters, but it will never be able to deliver the same kind of success.