While the majority of the headlines will undoubtedly be going towards The Flash becoming DC’s latest box office disappointment, it shouldn’t go unnoticed that Elemental has also flopped to give Disney the latest in its alarmingly long line of failures.
By scoring just over $29 million over the three-day weekend, Pixar’s latest has secured the unwanted distinction of landing the animation powerhouse’s worst-ever first frame outside of the first Toy Story, which obviously gets a pass both for being the studio’s very first feature and the fact it hit theaters 28 years ago when tickets were a damn sight cheaper.
That’s bad enough on its own when you consider the estimated production budget said to be hovering around the $200 million mark, but it’s even worse when you take into account recent history. Pixar’s own Lightyear and Walt Disney Animation’s Strange World both lost over $100 million each, and there are still no guarantees that The Little Mermaid will turn a profit.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was a very rare miss from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and even Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is tracking for a debut that could generously be described as underwhelming. If this carries on, Pixar could be in real danger of being banished to Disney Plus forevermore to prevent more commercial catastrophes, which would be the worst possible outcome for an outfit that genuinely helped revolutionize the entire industry when it first rose to prominence.
It might have legs both and home and abroad, but the chances of Elemental not losing a fortune are already very slim to none.