Pixar has had its worst box office opening ever with Elio, its new, alien-themed children’s animation, taking just an estimated US$21m in North America and $14m internationally, despite generally positive reviews.
Elio, about an orphaned boy whose dream of being abducted by (friendly) aliens comes true, struggled against the competition: Disney’s live action remake of How To Train Your Dragon, which ate the competition with $37m in its second weekend; and Danny Boyle’s zombie threequel 28 Years Later, which landed 23 years after his cult classic 28 Days Later and took $30m in North America and $60m globally.
Pixar, the powerhouse studio behind Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, had been bracing for modest results for Elio as it weathers an industry-wide trend of original animations struggling to perform against franchises and remakes.
While Pixar has found success with its own franchises – most recently Inside Out 2, which grossed an estimated $155m in its opening weekend and a total of $1.7bn globally in 2024 – it has found original ideas a harder sell.
Ahead of Elio’s opening weekend, pre-release tracking suggested it would be on par with Pixar’s 2023 original Elemental, which took just under $30m in its opening weekend – a significant step down from the high-water mark for original animations set by the studio with 2017’s Coco, which took $49m at the domestic box office in its opening weekend and $814.3m globally across its release.
On Sunday, Pixar’s corporate parent, Disney, said it was confident its latest movie would find the same longer-term success as Elemental, a sleeper hit that ultimately took almost $500m globally. Exit data bodes well, with Elio scoring glowing PostTrak exit results from its opening weekend, and an A CinemaScore, including an A+ from kids.
Reviews have also been generally positive, although some critics have found it underwhelming. Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw said the film had “charm, likability and that potent ingredient: childhood loneliness and vulnerability”, while also describing the large chunk of the film set in space as “[occasionally] a little formulaic, a bit programmatic”.
Pixar’s most successful opening weekend in its 39 year-history was for 2018’s Incredibles 2, which took $182.6m in North America and $231.5m globally.
