Disney’s Lightyear misses estimates in box office debut

The Walt Disney Co and Pixar animated film Lightyear fell short of forecasts in its debut weekend at the North American box office, marking a rare miss for its creators.

The film brought in an estimated US$51 million in the US and Canada, placing second to Jurassic World: Dominion, data tracker Comscore reported on Sunday (June 19). That’s well below Boxoffice Pro’s estimate of between US$76 million and US$105 million.

“This was definitely an unwelcome surprise for what has traditionally been a trifecta of very reliable brands in Disney, Pixar and Toy Story,” said Shawn Robbins, the chief analyst at Boxoffice Co. “It’s certainly not the way their big summer box office comeback was written up on paper.” The domestic opening is one of the worst-ever for a Pixar film, falling below the 2017 movie Cars 3, which debuted to US$53 million in ticket sales.

Lightyear, an offshoot of the popular Toy Story franchise, is the first animated kids movie Disney has released exclusively in theatres in more than a year, after mostly opting to debut films on its Disney+ streaming service during Covid-19 lockdowns. 

“I‘m not sure we can pinpoint one factor behind the misfire, but rather quite a few,” Robbins said. Those circumstances range “from a competitive market of male-skewing theatrical releases to genuine questions about how Disney marketed Lightyear to audiences and what negative impact their straight-to-streaming strategies for recent Pixar movies might have had”.

The film also faced bans abroad and ire from conservative political figures in the US who say the movie’s fictional space inhabitants in a same-sex couple could not naturally produce children and that the portrayal violates their religious beliefs.

However, Disney will still consider other sources of revenue when it comes to determining whether Lightyear was a flop, according to Jeff Bock, a senior media analyst at Exhibitor Relations. The entertainment giant can still make money off merchandise tied to the film and streaming success, he said.

Disney said it’s betting on the long game. “It should be noted that in nearly all international markets, Lightyear is opening ahead of upcoming school holidays and so long-term play is key,” a company spokesperson said. “In several markets, Lightyear posted Saturday grosses significantly above Friday, showing that families did come out over the weekend.”

Lightyear had been expected to be the largest kids movie since the start of the pandemic, topping the domestic US$72 million opening of the Paramount Pictures movie Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in April.

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There was plenty of competition last weekend. Jurassic World: Dominion, the sixth film in the successful dinosaur movie franchise from Universal Pictures, led the box office with US$58.7 million in its second weekend, Comscore estimated. It had one of the largest openings of 2022 last week, as fans returned for the first real summer moviegoing season in 3 years.

In addition, Top Gun: Maverick continued to generate high ticket sales. It made US$44 million over the weekend, and is now the highest-grossing picture starring Tom Cruise. The film may ultimately generate close to US$1 billion in global ticket sales, having made more than US$800 million in its first 21 days after release. BLOOMBERG