It’s hard to escape the devastating feeling that Disney’s “Lightyear” has remained firmly attached to Earth in its debut box office. At least that’s the prevailing mood that greeted the opening weekend of Pixar’s latest $ 51 million film in North America.
For industry analysts, these weak ticket sales were confusing because Pixar was royalty at the box office, and Lightyear, a spin-off of the space-winning Toy Story franchise, received decent – albeit not euphoric – reviews. What’s more, the audience (which awarded the film with “A-” CinemaScore) seems to be enjoying the animated unearthly adventure in which Chris Evans takes on the role of Tim Allen as the voice of Buzz Lightyear.
Of course, the first weekend of $ 51 million is far from catastrophic; in fact, Lightyear made one of the best debuts for a children’s animated film in COVID’s time. Family audiences are returning in fits, but this is a demographic group that is largely absent during the pandemic. However, Disney certainly hoped the $ 200 million film would raise more coins in its first weekend in theaters. For Pixar, Lightyear ranks as one of the studio’s weakest starts, behind Cars 3 in 2017 ($ 53 million) and ahead of Good Dinosaur in 2015 ($ 39 million) and Next. from 2020 ($ 39 million). It is also one of the few Pixar films that did not take first place in the indoor box office, taking second place.
So what prevented Lightyear from going indefinitely beyond the box office?
“[‘Lightyear’] is facing the limitations of the spin-off format, “said David A. Gross, who runs the film consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “It’s still an elite business, it just doesn’t oppose gravity anymore.”
One of these limitations is that Lightyear had an unusually confusing premise that probably sounded much more playful in Buena Vista’s boardrooms than in the film’s puzzling marketing materials. Do you know Andy’s favorite action figure from Toy Story? No, not the cowboy voiced by Tom Hanks. The other. Well, this is the movie about the fictional astronaut who (stay with us …) inspired the piece of plastic that later became best friends with Woody and Mr. Potato Head. Try to explain this to a 6-year-old child. Hell, try explaining this to an adult. With the exception of the protagonist himself, Lightyear had little to do with the four films in the popular children’s franchise. And in turn, nostalgia was not as powerful as Disney might have imagined.
“[The film’s] marketing never clarified the relationship with Andy’s favorite toy until the last second. And they’ve been promoting this movie for a while, “said Sean Robbins, chief analyst at Box Office Pro.
At the same time, Disney has spent the last two years putting Pixar’s “Soul” and “Turning Red” movies among them – directly on Disney +, which may have inadvertently made people expect to see the latest releases from the animation studio at home. Lightyear, Pixar’s first film to be released on the big screen since Forward in March 2020, may be enthralled by this pandemic-era experiment. Given the muted word of mouth, Lightyear struggled to excite people to go to the movies in the same vein as, say, Top Gun: Maverick, a film that could count on its status in the name of brand, but also managed to develop more carefully the property.
“Disney has trained many parents to look forward to Pixar movies at home,” says Robbins. “I wonder how much Lightyear paid for that.”
For years, Disney has achieved immense commercial fame by immersing itself in its multi-storey vault to revive and remodel old properties such as Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Aladdin. The studio has also suffered some high-profile flaws, such as the 2019 action movie Dumbo and the 2018 Solo: A Star Wars Story, a spin-off that unfolds in a distant, distant galaxy. Lightyear is somewhere in the middle and serves as a final reminder that brand recognition is certainly useful, but not every retreaded tread has the potential to be a hit. Boxing experts also point out that Disney has somehow fallen victim to its own box office success.
“Disney’s flaws are sometimes better than the best hits from other studios,” said Jeff Bock, an analyst at Exhibitor Relations. “Did they spend too much?” Probably. But Lightyear has to play all summer. “
It helps that Lightyear will not face stiff competition from family audiences until the Universal animated sequel Minions: Rise of Gru opens on the big screen on July 1. It was already a hot summer in the multiplexes with back-to-back triumphs of Jurasic World Dominion and Top Gun: Maverick. Since these films have proven that the box office can finally hold more than one big film in one weekend, there is reason to believe that there is room for Lightyear to fly higher.
“If a movie catches fire, people will go and watch it,” says Bock.
With Lightyear, it’s clear that the intergalactic adventure just wasn’t loud enough.
VIP + analysis: The trend of nostalgia in the Lightyear cement box office
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