After a disappointing start, Pixar’s Elemental has turned things around at the worldwide box office.
Elemental opened to just a $29.5 million domestic haul, which was a poor sign at the time due to the movie’s $200 million budget. It was the worst domestic opening in Pixar’s history. But the movie continued to climb in the weeks and months to follow, and Elemental now sits at $425 million worldwide.
We have a lot of different revenue streams, but at the box office we’re looking at now, it should do better than break even theatrically
Speaking to Variety, Pixar president Jim Morris talked about the animated feature’s box office performance.
“[Elemental’s opening] was certainly disappointing from a revenue point of view,” Morris said. “We felt pretty good about the film. We had a higher hope for its opening weekend, so we were a bit crestfallen.”
Even with its slow start, Morris said Pixar is hoping Elemental can reach $460 million at the box office, with Morris personally saying he’d like to see it reach half a billion.
“We have a lot of different revenue streams, but at the box office we’re looking at now, it should do better than break even theatrically. And then we have revenue from streaming, theme parks and consumer products. This will certainly be a profitable film for the Disney company.”
Overall, it’s been an uneven year at the box office for Disney. In addition to Elemental’s initial struggles, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny struggled to make an impact, while costly Marvel films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania significantly underperformed for Marvel standards.
And Disney’s struggles can’t be blamed on a wider industry trend, as movies like Barbie, Oppenheimer, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie have done very well. However, there are certainly some victories this year for Disney, like the strong performance from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
We called Pixar’s latest “okay” in our Elemental review, saying, “Visually, Pixar is in absolutely top form with the creation of Element City and its inhabitants. Unfortunately, the story is way too thin and none of it makes any sense.”
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over seven years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
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