Summary

Despite critical acclaim, Elio is struggling at the box office with projected low domestic earnings.
Original animated films post-COVID are struggling; IP-based or sequels dominate top-grossing lists.
Elio's success may hinge on word of mouth, much like Elemental, if it wants a surprising box office turnaround.

Lilo & Stitch may have gotten the summer started off right for Disney, but things aren't looking so hot for the Mouse House this weekend. Despite giving Pixar its fourth June release in a row, Elio is crashing and burning at the box office.

Few American film studios have as storied a legacy as Pixar. Although their first feature didn't release until 1995, they came out of the gates on fire with the instant classic Toy Story, a movie that changed the animation business seemingly overnight. What followed Toy Story was a string of highly successful, critically beloved hits: Monsters, Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Inside Out, Coco. Sure, they'd always find time to release a sequel or two as the Toy Story and Cars series ballooned into the most profitable Disney franchises running in their heyday. That being said, Pixar was lauded for being the rare studio always willing to go out on a limb for a new idea. The studio could almost always turn an original story into a bona fide hit that let them continue taking big swing after big swing. The COVID-19 pandemic changed all of that, and things simply haven't been the same since.

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By Matthew Wilkinson

At the moment, Deadline is reporting that Elio is currently tracking to make around $22 million this weekend at the domestic box office. With Disney's own Lilo & Stitch and DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon remake still in theaters, it's clear Elio had an uphill battle from the start. If the $22 million figure holds, Elio will have the worst wide release opening of any Pixar film ever, lower than both Elemental and Toy Story. The low figures for both of those films don't tell the whole story, either, as Toy Story was released decades ago (meaning that number would be much higher with inflation), and Elemental eventually became a success after one of the craziest box office turnarounds in recent history. For Elio to do so would be quite a shock.

Elio Still Has That Pixar Magic, But It Is Tanking At The Domestic Box Office

The saving grace for Elio could be its word of mouth. First off, Elio is sitting at a spectacular 85% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, which isn't quite A-tier for Pixar given their track record, but is nothing to scoff at. Where things really get interesting is with audiences. 90% of audiences on Rotten Tomatoes recommend Elio, and the film has a stellar A CinemaScore to boot. Elemental struggled early on during its theatrical release, but ended up bringing nearly $500 million worldwide by the time it was finished. Could Elio have a similar trajectory in front of it?

The unfortunate thing for both Pixar and animation fans at large is that Elio's struggles continue a worrying trend: original, non-IP animation is pretty much a no-go at the box office these days. Films like Disney's Strange World, Locksmith's Ron's Gone Wrong, and DreamWorks' Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken have all crashed and burned at the post-COVID box office. Every single recent entry on the list of the highest-grossing animated films of all time is either based on an IP or is a sequel: Inside Out 2, Frozen 2, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Toy Story 4, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

If Elio can't turn things around and buck the trend, perhaps next year's Pixar offering, Hoppers starring Jon Hamm and Bobby Moynihan, can. If not, Toy Story 5 is always around the corner to keep the sequel train running.

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