Pixar’s latest animated adventure fell flat in its opening weekend.
As summed up by Variety, “Elio” from Disney “face-planted with the worst start in Pixar’s 30-year history.”
The Pixar film chronicling the intergalactic adventures of an 11-year-old took in $21 million domestically. Globally, it took in $35 million.
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David A. Gross of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research said, the opening numbers “would be solid numbers for another original animation film, but this is Pixar. By Pixar’s remarkable standard, this opening is weak.”
“Coming out of the pandemic, the bar has been set higher for a number of genres, including family films. It’s been hard to create something new with animation. Audiences want more of the same, or something very different,” he said.
Looking at the 2020 film “Onward,” the 2022 film “Lightyear,” and the 2023 film “Elemental,” Variety wrote that “Pixar’s name alone is no longer enough to fill seats in multiplexes.”
“Elemental” debuted with a first weekend showing of $30 million in 2023, according to The New York Times. Until “Elio,” that had been the standard for the worst Pixar opening.
“Elio” is a costly flop, with the Times noting that it cost more than $250 million to produce and market.
/**/The Times noted that two original animated films that arrived in 2023 also failed to attract audiences.
The DreamWorks Animation film “Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken” made $5.5 million in its first weekend. Illumination Animation’s film “Migration” made $12 million in its first weekend.
Although those made less money, they also cost about 50 percent less than what a Pixar film costs.
Jason Solomons, a British producer, said there’s something lacking in the storyline.
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“You can feel a need to have another script meeting in which they plot their way out of trouble with another layer of story or another dimension,” he said, according to the BBC.
“Even these lesser films are always extremely thought-out, but in tying up all their loose ends, giving punchlines to every joke, and an arc to every character, sometimes you feel the mechanism creaking, straining to make it all work with the customary almost obligatory smoothness. Maybe a little craziness, a rough edge here and there, would do them the world of good.”
This article originally appeared on The Western Journal, and is reposted with permission.
