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Source: Variety
Throughout most of the first half of 2024, the reigning champion of the box office charts was Warner Bros. and director Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction epic “Dune: Part 2”, the sequel to Villeneuve’s 2021 feature “Dune”. That film proved to be a surprise hit in a pandemic-recovery climate that made it difficult for most other cinematic releases (garnering over $400 million at the global box office as well as six Academy Awards), so it shouldn’t have come as any surprise that the sequel has done even better, nearly doubling its predecessor’s gross with a current total of around $712 million. In spite of all this success, Villeneuve, while very much proud of how warmly his films have been received, seems to be a bit disappointed that it’s taken so long for any other film released this year to come close to matching, if not topping, his accomplishment. In a recent interview, Villeneuve lamented how his film has remained at the top of the yearly box office for as long as it has, citing the underperformance of certain big-budget releases and claiming that his film still being #1 is less a sign of its quality and more a sign of how the current box office landscape isn’t producing as many big hits as it probably should. Granted, part of this may be the result of last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which forced various different major releases to be pushed back and resulted in a few noticeably large gaps in the yearly release schedule, but even then, one would assume that studios would try to find a way to fill those gaps while they make preparations for their bigger features to come out. While there have been a few solid successes so far this year – Universal’s “Kung Fu Panda 4” and Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” stand out in particular – nothing has been able to top “Dune: Part 2”… or at least that was the case until very recently, with a studio that ironically struggled quite a bit last year stepping in to usurp the aforementioned sci-film’s box office throne. The studio that’s done this is Disney; its film is “Inside Out 2”.
Going into its opening weekend, “Inside Out 2”, an animated production from Disney and its subsidiary Pixar, already had a lot working to its advantage that suggested a bright future for the film. As a sequel to 2015’s “Inside Out”, which earned just under $860 million during its initial box office run and continues to be cherished as one of Pixar’s best films, this newer feature had the benefit of a built-in audience that could develop a nostalgic attachment to the original film in the nine years since it had first came out. Also proving advantageous for the film is the generally favorable reception from critics, with many praising the film for its capability of expanding upon the ideas of the first film in an inventive and thought-provoking manner. Before the film finally made its debut during Father’s Day weekend, analysts had projected an opening weekend gross of around $80 to $90 million. This would’ve been enough to declare the film one of Disney’s biggest successes in recent memory, but as it turns out, such estimates were unable to take into account just how highly anticipated this animated feature turned out to be.
By the time the period between Friday, June 14th and Sunday, June 16th came to an end, “Inside Out 2” managed to accumulate a weekend domestic gross of around $154 million; this is the biggest opening weekend for any film since last year’s “Barbie”, it’s the third biggest opening weekend for an animated film (trailing only 2019’s remake of “The Lion King” and 2018’s “Incredibles 2”), and the fourth biggest opening weekend for a PG-rated feature (following the two previously mentioned films and 2017’s remake of “Beauty and the Beast”). Needless to say, Disney could not be happier that the film is performing as well as it is, especially considering how so many of its big-screen releases last year failed to meet expectations. In fact, the most recent Pixar films have generally struggled to break even at the box office (at least when they weren’t sent straight to the streaming service Disney+); 2022’s “Lightyear” only made $226 million on a $200 million budget (resulting in a loss of over $100 million), and last year’s “Elemental”, while ultimately able to develop strong legs and make it to just under $500 million, still had to overcome Pixar’s lowest-grossing opening weekend to date. Because of all this, Disney has been banking on “Inside Out 2” to do well and lift Pixar out of its post-pandemic slump, and so far, it looks like it’s outpacing even the most optimistic of expectations.
For further evidence of how well “Inside Out 2” is doing, one needs to look no further than its second weekend at the box office, which is usually a strong indicator of how well a film is being held up by word-of-mouth. If a film makes significantly less in its second weekend than it did in its first, the assumption is that people aren’t responding to the film nearly as well as one would desire; if the drop isn’t quite as steep, that usually means people are enjoying the film and may in fact be coming back to see it additional times. As it turns out, “Inside Out 2” was fortunate enough to drop by only 34.4% and earn over $101 million throughout the three-day period; that’s more than it was initially predicted to make during the prior weekend, and it’s enough for the film to earn the biggest second weekend for any animated feature. Films earning $100 million or more during their second weekend of release is already a rare achievement, so Disney not only has much to celebrate at the moment, but if the film can maintain similar holds throughout the coming weeks, they’ll still have much to celebrate as the summer season moves along.
Admittedly, the next month or so does appear to be pretty competitive and may keep “Inside Out 2” from holding onto the top spot for very long. Another animated family film, Universal’s “Despicable Me 4” will likely draw audiences of all ages through the Fourth of July holiday period, and before the end of the month, “Deadpool and Wolverine” could break out with the year’s biggest opening weekend (which, if early tracking is any indication, is a very strong possibility). For the time being though, “Inside Out 2” sits comfortably at the top with a current domestic gross of $356 million and an overseas gross of $373 million, totalling to around $729 million worldwide. That’s more than enough to surpass “Dune: Part 2” as the highest-grossing release of 2024 so far, something that Denis Villeneuve is perhaps quite pleased to see happen.
