Pixar’s Inside Out 2 has proved to be the box office smash of the year thus far, bringing in huge numbers from its theatrical run.
Pixar’s Inside Out 2 is now officially the studio’s most financially successful film of all time. Earlier this week the film passed the global total of Incredibles 2 at $1.243 billion to take the number one spot atop a list of beloved and successful movies. That’s not the only achievement that the film earned this week, either, as it also became the first film this year to go beyond the billion dollar mark on its theatrical run.
As noted by Forbes, Inside Out 2 already sits comfortably atop the 2024 rankings and could yet double the totals of 2024’s current runner up, Dune: Part Two. Should it continue to perform well this week, there’s every chance it could surpass the theatrical gross of 2013’s Frozen at $1.285bn, making it the third-highest grossing animated film of all time (without adjusting for inflation of course).
Given that Pixar (and its parent company, Disney) came in for some criticism last year, the film’s success is a clear vindication of its ability to pull audiences into cinemas en masse. A feat that some doubters were questioning after a difficult few years where the studio had to recover from shifting economic forces and changes in audience expectations due to the world-altering pandemic.
During that time, we’ve seen Pixar make staff redundant, seen its future openly questioned while the studio head has had to fend off the creatively-bankupt idea of making live action remakes of its films while also justifying the sizeable price tags that come with each movie.
Last year’s Elemental proved to be a slow-burning earner at the box office, suggesting that some of the concerns were misplaced. Now, the meteoric success of Inside Out 2 has firmly shown that the studio is still capable of delivering giant hits. Plus it has a musical in the works, that features lots of ducks… further proof that future successes are surely a formality.
As to how many more box office records Inside Out 2 can acquire before its worldwide theatrical run ends, we’ll see. It’s been performing well in the face of some pretty stiff competition so far and it’s going to be interesting to see just how much the film can gross before it makes its way to the smaller screen.
