INSIDE OUT 2 opening | Family moviegoing update | Where we are now | June 14 to 16, 2024 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: June 14 to 16, 2024
1) Inside Out 2 opening
- This is a sensational opening by Pixar's own exceptional standard for a follow-up sequel. Every one of Pixar's second episodes has opened better than the first — all of them — and that’s happening again here. Critics' reviews and audience scores are outstanding (an A CinemaScore).
This isn’t Pixar's biggest follow-up opening; that was Incredibles 2 with $182.7m in 2018. It’s the 2nd biggest, ahead of Finding Dory ($135.1m in 2016). Whatever the order, Pixar sequels are in a league of their own, including this one:
Pixar and the pandemic
- For Pixar, Inside Out 2 comes after 4+ volatile years disrupted by the pandemic:
First, Onward opened on March 6, 2020, five days before the "official" start of the pandemic. Business fell sharply as theaters shut down;
Then, Soul (Dec 2020), Luca (Jun 2021) and Turning Red (Mar 2022) opened directly on streaming. Soul was considered brilliant and won the Academy Award for best animated picture, but was shut out of the domestic theatrical market simply because there was no market;
Then, after two years of launching Pixar movies on streaming, Lightyear played theatrically in June 2022, but was a rare Pixar creative miss. Replacing the voice of Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear did not work;
Finally, at this time last year, Elemental started slowly but then picked up and finished well at $496.4m worldwide, in the middle echelon of new Pixar stories.
- That brings us here. After this impressive weekend, it remains to be seen whether Pixar and Disney can continue to exhale. There are more franchises to maintain, including Disney's Moana 2 this Thanksgiving, and Mufasa: The Lion King this Christmas.
For now, the weekend is extremely good news and a significant turn-around. Pixar has charmed a lot of families and moviegoers for 29 years. It’s one of the few meaningful production labels in the industry, and they’ve earned a lot of goodwill. There’s going to be a halo effect now, like “They did it again, they’re back.”
2) Family moviegoing update
- 2023 was a good year for family moviegoing, although the number of titles has dropped over the last five years, and the 2023 lineup was top-heavy (Super Mario represented a third of the family total).
2024 has the potential to improve on 2023, but it will depend on how the remaining big pics finish (Despicable Me 4, Moana 2, Mustafa and Sonic the Hedgehog 3).
Before the pandemic, 2019 was a stupendous year, with four Disney or Pixar billion dollar-plus titles (Lion King/live-action, Frozen 2, Toy Story 4 and Aladdin). The 24 family wide releases in 2019 represented roughly a third of Hollywood's worldwide BO total — that’s remarkable:
3) Where we are now
- Moviegoing is starting to build momentum. Comparisons to pre-pandemic business levels are going to continue to be tough, and next weekend will be quiet — again. But for now, this is a terrific lift at the BO.
We see Inside Out 2 as the first over-performer of the summer. That's not a knock on Planet of the Apes, Bad Boys, IF or Garfield. Those titles are doing very well. But this is the first weekend where you look at the numbers, sit up and say, "Great."