2022 At The Box Office (1 Viewer)

[Wayne_j]

I think Maverick could overtake Jurassic World in a week or two.

 

[Jake Lipson]

We've been discussing the fact that the last three Pixar releases were on Disney+. It occurred to me that Onward sort of became one too due to circumstances out of Disney's control.

Of course, Disney did release Onward as a theatrical exclusive with every intention of giving it a 90-day window. But then COVID hit. Onward only had two weeks in theaters before everything shut down. As a result, it was moved to digital purchase almost immediately and then arrived on Disney+ by the beginning of April. Even though I was lucky enough to see it in theaters twice before the shutdown, it seems clear given the brevity of its theatrical run that the majority of its audience probably caught up with it on Disney+.

So for the people who didn't get to Onward before the shutdown, the last Pixar film they saw in theaters was probably Toy Story 4 in June 2019. That was three years ago at this point, and three years is a long time. But particularly these there years have seemed long. So if going to a theater for a Pixar movie is a habit, lots of people have been out of that habit even longer than we thought.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I thought the reviews and just plain old being bad would have killed JW even by a second weekend. Next weekend, it'll have to sink like a stone.

78% audience "fresh" on RT is more important than critics' reviews.

It's bad WOM from "regular people" that crushes movies, not bad reviews... in general. Bad reviews don't help, but if audiences like the movies anyway, the reviews become much less relevant.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Over the past 2 years Disney has sent all of Pixar's films to D+ so they've conditioned the audience that they no longer have to buy theater tix to see Pixar. It'll be streaming sooner rather than later.

While the "controversy" about "Lightyear" seems idiotic to me, it might've damaged box office.

A certain faction seems destined to claim "Lightyear" bombed due to its "agenda"...

 

[Tino]

Index

		Movie Title	Distributor	Gross	%LW	Theaters	Theaters Change	Per Theater	Total Gross	Weekends In Release
1	(1)	Jurassic World: Dominion	Universal	$58,660,000	-60%	4,697	+21	$12,489	$249,796,690	2
2	N	Lightyear	Walt Disney	$51,000,000		4,255		$11,986	$51,000,000	1
3	(2)	Top Gun: Maverick	Paramount Pi…	$44,000,000	-15%	4,035	-227	$10,905	$466,167,545	4
4	(3)	Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness	Walt Disney	$4,200,000	-19%	2,465	-880	$1,704	$405,083,660	7
5	(5)	The Bob’s Burgers Movie	20th Century…	$1,100,000	-55%	1,350	-1,255	$815	$29,762,030	4
6	(4)	The Bad Guys	Universal	$980,000	-61%	1,477	-939	$664	$94,239,005	9
7	(7)	Everything Everywhere All At Once	A24	$959,631	-27%	679	-755	$1,413	$64,920,186	13
8	(6)	Downton Abbey: A New Era	Focus Features	$830,000	-53%	1,179	-832	$704	$42,196,350	5
9	(9)	Sonic the Hedgehog 2	Paramount Pi…	$228,392	-70%	439	-628	$520	$190,478,000	11
10	N	Brian and Charles	Focus Features	$198,000		279		$710	$198,000	1
11	(8)	Firestarter	Universal	$157,000	-81%	40	-110	$3,925	$9,528,740	6
12	(11)	The Lost City	Paramount Pi…	$154,434	-72%	135	-218	$1,144	$105,262,000	13
-	(12)	Crimes of the Future	Neon	$101,500	-73%	122	-590	$832	$2,367,981	3
-	(-)	Watcher	IFC Midnight	$95,000	-72%	136	-520	$699	$1,871,493	3
-	N	Abandoned	Vertical Ent…	$60,500		54		$1,120	$60,500	1
-	(-)	Deep in the Heart: A Texas Wildlife Story	Fin and Fur …	$35,686	-45%	41	-20	$870	$360,595	3
-	(-)	Mad God	Shudder	$35,000	+316%	26	+24	$1,346	$50,113	2
-	N	Official Competition	IFC Films	$34,000		4		$8,500	$34,000	1
-	(-)	Men	A24	$18,887	-74%	68	-148	$278	$7,571,216	5
-	(-)	Lost Illusions	Music Box Films	$15,984	+5%	9	+3	$1,776	$41,091	2
-	(-)	The Automat	A Slice of P…	$1,050	-21%	2	n/c	$525	$242,211	18
		21		$162,865,064

 

[Malcolm R]

While the "controversy" about "Lightyear" seems idiotic to me, it might've damaged box office.

A certain faction seems destined to claim "Lightyear" bombed due to its "agenda"...

Well it didn't really "bomb" and I don't think subject matter was a factor other than for a select few social media loudmouths.

Reportedly, some of its biggest success worldwide was in Latin America and Mexico, much of which seems to be pretty conservative, and Lightyear beat JW3 in Utah, also a very socially conservative state.

It disappointed worldwide, with a predicted international gross of $50+ million that came in just under $35 million. It seems to be a film that just didn't excite the masses when there are dinosaurs running wild on the other screens. JW3 passed $660 million worldwide this weekend.

 

[Wayne_j]

I stand by what I said yesterday, if Top Gun drops around 20% next weekend and Jurassic World drops another 50%+ Top Gun will be back on top.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Damn son, Lightyear's a box office disaster.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Damn son, Lightyear's a box office disaster.

I don't think we can determine that fairly just yet.

We can say that it was a lower opening than Disney wanted. But the opening weekend does not determine everything. We'll have to see how it plays over the next few weeks. Its run is not done.

This is still the largest opening for any animated film since the advent of Covid-19. It also opened higher than Onward did in March 2020 despite the presence of much bigger competition in Dominion and Maverick.

The last major animated release, The Bad Guys, opened back in April to $23.9 million and it is now at $94 million domestically despite also being available at home 17 days later. It is possible that Lightyear could have some legs too. I think calling it a disaster is premature.

It is a good weekend to be Michael Giacchino, though. He scored both Jurassic World: Dominion and Lightyear, which means he has both of the top two films this weekend. Plus, he has Thor: Love and Thunder coming up as well.

 

[TravisR]

I don't think we can determine that fairly just yet.

Agreed. It's clearly not going to be a huge hit but "kids" movies have a longer shelf life than most movies so its box office story isn't going to be solely written by the first weekend. Unlike Jurassic World, Lightyear has the advantage of actually being good so that should help it in the coming weeks.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Well it didn't really "bomb" and I don't think subject matter was a factor other than for a select few social media loudmouths.

I didn't say it bombed. I indicated that people of a certain ilk will say it bombed, and they'll use culture wars as the reason for this.

That certain ilk had already declared war on Disney. The "controversy" about "Lightyear" just added fuel.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The same-sex kiss in Lightyear is nice, but it is very brief. One of the women involved doesn't even have a name mentioned in the movie. It seems a short thing to cause controversy in relation to the entirety of the film.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

The same-sex kiss in Lightyear is nice, but it is very brief. One of the women involved doesn't even have a name mentioned in the movie. It seems a short thing to cause controversy in relation to the entirety of the film.

The fact it's treated any differently than a heterosexual kiss seems ridiculous.

Any additional comments will violate HTF rules so I'll abstain, but this "controversy" makes me really disheartened and unhappy with the direction society is going...

 

[Patrick Sun]

Didn't Lightyear do worse than Cars 3 for opening weekend?

 

[Malcolm R]

Didn't Lightyear do worse than Cars 3 for opening weekend?

Yes, unless the actual numbers come in higher than current estimates ($51 million. EDIT: Actual numbers dropped a bit to $50.57 million). Cars 3 had a first weekend of $53.7 million.

Though Pixar has had other lower debuts. And the lowest opening for any Pixar film remains the first Toy Story film. Info below from the-numbers.com, opening weekends are in the right column (other column is production budget):

 

[Jake Lipson]

It is important to remember that Cars 3 opened in a very different box office environment than we are in right now, so context has to be considered.

Lightyear is the largest opening for any animated film in the Covid era and opened bigger than Onward, which was the last Pixar film to open in theaters.

Cars 3 was also a sequel to an established franchise. Although Lightyear is a spinoff from Toy Story, it is a very different movie from those.

 

[Wayne_j]

Onward also opened a week before all the theaters closed and people were already terrified of being in crowds.

 

[Jake Lipson]

people were already terrified of being in crowds.

Speaking only for myself, that wasn't my experience. I saw Onward twice and also went to live performances the weekend that it opened. There hadn't been any confirmed cases of Covid-19 around me yet and I didn't yet understand how quickly the situation would escalate. It was a few days after Onward's opening that I began to realize I might not be leaving the house for a while. But I wasn't concerned about going out at all when I went out for that movie. I suspect that the virus sank Onward's second weekend more than its first. I might have gone to see it again if things felt safer. But I had no qualms about seeing it when it first came out. Maybe that's just me.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Speaking only for myself, that wasn't my experience. I saw Onward twice and also went to live performances the weekend that it opened. There hadn't been any confirmed cases of Covid-19 around me yet and I didn't yet understand how quickly the situation would escalate. It was a few days after Onward's opening that I began to realize I might not be leaving the house for a while. But I wasn't concerned about going out at all when I went out for that movie. I suspect that the virus sank Onward's second weekend more than its first. I might have gone to see it again if things felt safer. But I had no qualms about seeing it when it first came out. Maybe that's just me.

COVID was definitely "in the air", as it were, before The Big Shutdown hit.

We can never say definitively whether or not COVID dented the 1st weekend of "Onward". It might simply not have been a movie that interested audiences all that much.

But COVID fears crept up in the weeks before The Big Shutdown, so I don't think it went from 0-60 overnight.

I remember in late February I got a cold - truly just a minor cold. I took off the week from work not because I was very sick but because people were jittery and I thought it would be bad for me to wander blithely around the work setting while coughing!

 

[Wayne_j]

Deadline has Elvis and Maverick fighting for number 1 with a million or two between them.