Eliohas broken a longstanding Pixar box office record after three decades. The new animated movie, which was directed by Domee Shi, Madeline Sharafian, and Adrian Molina, follows alien-obsessed kid Elio (Yonas Kibreab) being abducted by aliens and befriending the worm-esque Glordon (Remy Edgerly), who helps him defend the intergalactic collective known as the Communiverse when his father Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) attempts to take it over. TheEliocastalso includes Zoe Saldaña as Elio’s aunt Olga, Shirley Henderson as liquid supercomputer OOOOO, and Jameela Jamil as Communiverse ambassador Questa.
PerDeadline, as of Saturday morning,Eliois projected to close out its opening weekend at the domestic box office with a 3-day debut total of just over $22 million. This will place it at No. 3 on the domestic box office chart for the weekend, behind the new release horror movie28 Years Laterat No. 2 and the live-action remakeHow to Train Your Dragonat No. 1 in its sophomore weekend. While this projected total could fluctuate slightly by the end of Sunday,Eliois set to earn the worst opening weekend in Pixar’s history.
What This Means For Elio
It Continues A Downward Trend For Pixar
Pixar’s previous lowest debut was their first-ever theatrical feature, 1995’sToy Story($29.1 million), which came out when they were still an unknown quantity.Every title that they had released since then has exceededToy Story’s debut total, with the next-lowest title beforeEliobeing 2023’sElemental($29.6 million). Below, see a breakdown of the 10 lowest opening weekends for the 29Pixar moviesthat have been released so far, includingElio:
~$22 million
$29.1 million
$29.6 million
$39.11 million
$39.15 million
$47 million
$50.6 million
$50.8 million
$53.7 million
Cars(2006)
$60.1 million
Even among Pixar’s 10 openings, five titles had opening weekends that earned more than double the current projections for theEliobox officedebut. While Pixar has had ups and downs periodically, this seems to reflecta general trend of lower opening weekends for much of their contemporary output, even when the totals are not adjusted for inflation. This is reflected by the fact that 2024’sInside Out 2(which earned their second-highest debut ever with $154.2 million) is their only domestic release of the 2020s to not have ended up in the Bottom 10.
Our Take On The Elio Box Office Debut
The Movie Still Has A Chance To Succeed
The fact thatEliohas had a record-low debutdoes not necessarily mean that it will be a box office bomb.Elemental, which was the previous lowest debut for Pixar in the 2020s, showed strong audience retention and eventually grew to a worldwide total of $496.4 million. IfEliofollows its trajectory, it could potentially climb as high as $370 million worldwide. While its reported budget of $150 million could place its break-even point as high as $375 million, preventing it from breaking even in theaters, its performance on VOD and streaming could make up for that discrepancy.
