Without a doubt, it’s clear that the debut of Elio for its high-budgeted ($150 million) Pixar premiere didn’t go as planned. With earnings of $20.8 million, only barely surpassing the $19 million opening weekend of the budget-friendly animated film The Nut Job from January 2014, Elio holds the record for the lowest Pixar opening in history. This was significantly lower than the consistent $60+ million openings that Pixar originals like Monsters Inc., first released in November 2001, typically garnered.
Reflecting on Elio’s debut, my role as a box office bimbo, and the initial showings of other non-sequel animated films in the 2020s, I found myself pondering a question. How much did the $35 million opening of The Wild Robot or the $29 million debut of Elemental differ from pre-COVID openings for non-sequel animation releases? Analysts on Wall Street, who are often considered authorities in artistic matters, have suggested that Elio could accelerate the decline of original animation on the big screen. But what were the opening weekends like for non-sequel family animated movies before the COVID era?
Let’s explore if films from the 2020s, like Elio and Encanto, are performing differently compared to their counterparts before the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to March 2020 (the pandemic’s onset), Box Office Mojo data from late July 2019 showed that a total of 45 fully or partially animated movies, including The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, had earned $50 million or more in their initial domestic release. This list included the Frozen films but excluded some charted ones. Interestingly, 21 of these were sequels, spin-offs, or remakes, while 3 were adaptations of well-known properties (The Simpsons Movie, The Lorax, and The LEGO Movie). The remaining 21 were either original features or movies based on lesser-known media (like The Boss Baby and Big Hero 6) from pre-existing sources.
Prior to 2008, it was common for non-sequel animated films, including those produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, to have a modest opening under $50 million and then experience extraordinary growth afterwards. For example, Disney didn’t have a movie open to over $50 million in its first three days until Frozen in 2013. Movies like Shark Tale and Madagascar from Dreamworks Animation during the mid-2000s debuted with $47 million each, with Madagascar earning more than four times that amount on its opening weekend.
Discussing DreamWorks, the movie Shrek earned $42.34 million during its initial release in summer 2001 and continued to be a hit, making over six times its opening weekend earnings. Even as recent as 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which carried the Spider-Man name, started with $35.36 million but eventually surpassed its initial weekend’s total by an impressive 5.38 times due to exceptional word of mouth. On the other hand, Rio and Rango both debuted in early 2011 with opening weekends of $39 and $38 million respectively, despite intensive marketing efforts for each film. Just before COVID disrupted the entire movie theater landscape, there was a clear limit to how big non-sequel animated films could become. This is why even in 2005, when just being a CG-animated film was enough to grab people’s attention, Blue Sky’s Robots only managed an opening weekend of $36 million instead of the expected $66 million.
Blue Sky Productions often faces a consistent challenge in the domestic box office for non-sequel, original animated films, as seen by the fact that only two of their titles, “Horton Hears a Who!” and “The Peanuts Movie,” have opened to over $40 million in North America. Notably, both were adaptations based on well-known children’s media, with “Peanuts” even following a trend established by several hand-drawn films from the 60s and 70s featuring Charlie Brown and his friends.
However, there are exceptions to this trend, such as “Kung Fu Panda” and “The Incredibles,” which both earned over $60 million on their opening weekends. So, it’s interesting to consider how these original animated movies managed to surpass the typical domestic box office limitations for non-sequel animated films.
The appeal of those movies lies in their intriguing concepts. For example, “Jack Black as a panda doing kung fu” or “exploring the idea of personified emotions” is more engaging for a broad audience compared to “imagine a parrot speaking like the main character from ‘The Squid and the Whale’.” However, these titles gained additional attention due to a favorable industry trend. Studios such as Pixar, Disney Animation, DreamWorks Animation, and Illumination were experiencing a creative boom during which they could easily market their productions to audiences of all ages.
During the late 2000s, DreamWorks’ strong audience favor led films like “Monsters vs. Aliens” and “Kung Fu Panda” to earn over $55 million in their initial releases. Similarly, Pixar and Illumination saw success in the 2000s and July 2016 (with the release of “The Secret Life of Pets”) following multiple popular movies like the Despicable Me series. The post-“Frozen” goodwill combined with a strong marketing strategy propelled “Zootopia” to earn $75 million. However, even in their most successful periods, these studios couldn’t launch every non-sequel to Incredibles-sized numbers. Films like “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Ratatouille” had initially underperformed with sub-$50 million openings but went on to make over $200 million domestically each.
These numbers aren’t intended to miraculously transform Elio’s underwhelming debut into a success. Instead, they serve to underscore the risky financial landscape of non-sequel animated family movies, even prior to the 2020s. Now, major studios have taken aggressive steps to exacerbate this precarious situation. In a recent Pajiba article, I pointed out that Onward’s pre-release tracking indicated it was on course for one of Pixar’s lowest opening weekends. This prediction hinted at a shift in audience enthusiasm since 2008, when audiences were more eager to watch an original Pixar movie. This shift posed a significant challenge even before Disney started associating “original Pixar movies” with streaming content by releasing films like Soul and Turning Red on Disney+.
It’s not surprising that recent original animated films, excluding “The Wild Robot,” are struggling at the box office given the long-term focus on streaming content and the saturation of franchise movies in theaters (if you continue to insist that sequels are the only movies suitable for the big screen, audiences may come to believe it). For instance, even though “Rango” (which was a financial success overall) opened with “just” $38 million in 2011 after eight-and-a-half months of aggressive marketing. This should have served as a warning for major studios to invest more in original animated films rather than moving the cinematic landscape further away from such titles.
Admittedly, it’s not surprising that lower opening weekends for non-sequel animated movies are due mainly to rising ticket prices. For instance, if The Lion King had been released in 2025 instead of 1994, its opening weekend earnings of $40.88 million would be approximately $88 million today. Similarly, How to Train Your Dragon’s box office debut in 2010 would amount to about $64.59 million in current dollars. The fact that Elio made less than a third of what Dragon did during its opening weekend highlights the significant transformation in the movie theater landscape over just 15 years.
The low openings for recent non-sequel animated movies are due to increasing ticket prices, as illustrated by The Lion King’s $40 million in 1994 being equivalent to about $88 million today, and How to Train Your Dragon’s debut of $64.59 million in 2010 equating to around the same amount now. This shows how much the movie industry has changed over the past 15 years.
Over the years, it has been a consistent trend for original animated movies to start with lower box office numbers compared to sequels, but then gradually increase their earnings. For instance, “The Prince of Egypt” (1998) began with a $14 million opening but ended up making $101 million domestically. Similarly, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” (2009), which was only the 32nd highest opener that year, eventually grossed $124 million domestically. This pattern has often caused concern among investors in the early weeks, but many of these movies have gone on to achieve impressive domestic totals. One of the most notable examples is “How to Train Your Dragon,” which had a disappointing opening weekend for Dreamworks Animation, causing its stock to drop just before it became one of the top-earning wide releases of the 2010s.
Despite what Wall Street might suggest due to their short attention span, family animated movies without sequels historically start off slow but gain popularity over time as audiences discover them. The current culture of releasing big-budget animated films on streaming platforms (Sony, please keep your top-tier productions like KPop Demon Hunters for your own services!) and quickly sending them to video-on-demand outlets contradicts this trend. Factors contributing to the relatively low box office performance of the movie Elio include its lack of attraction for older viewers and the fact that Pixar’s animation style, once considered modern, is now perceived as outdated.
As a film enthusiast, I’ve noticed that the contemporary movie scene presents an intricate maze for non-sequel animated films, especially those aiming for a $50 million plus opening weekend. Instead of paving the way for future gems like “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” and “Rango,” major studios seem to be veering away from nurturing this new generation.
In a bid to make quick cash, they’re either licensing animated features to Netflix or moving Pixar productions to Disney+. This shift has made it an uphill battle for me, and many others like me, to persuade families to leave their homes and experience a non-franchise film in theaters. The challenge of making these movies successful is now almost insurmountable.
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2025-06-30 19:15