PNF2187

Also, I saw this last night. Didn't feel like waiting two months like I did with the original. Very much enjoyed this one. It felt like a natural progression of what happened in the first movie with its own things to say even if a lot of the story beats are very very similar. The emotional moments don't hit as hard, but that's fine. I didn't need to be caught ugly crying in a full theatre. Didn't (or does) help that the emotional moments got undermined by the fly buzzing in front of the projector or the random guy who started snoring in the second half, but oh well. At least it made for a memorable experience. Apparently the theatre I went to might be shutting down in a few years for condo redevelopment, so might as well go when I can (and feel like it).

Given what the trades were saying earlier in the week, I think they would have been more than fine with $85M. Would have still been enough for all the "PIXAR IS BACK" headlines. It getting an additional $70M on top of that is pure gravy for the news outlets.

It seems like a safe A, but I think A+ is probably out of reach here. Coco and Incredibles 2 were the last Pixar movies to hit A+, and those were a bit higher for definite recommend at 79% and 83%. Even Moana hit 79% and that was still an A. 72% is closer to Encanto (70%), Elemental (68%), Toy Story 4 (75%), and curiously Frozen 2 (71%).

THIRTEEN! I'm curious about what the IM will be for this one, but I assume this is skewing a fair bit more adult.

Reviews seem good here, certainly not where the first film was... but literally no other mainstream animated movie since has quite been able to get there, even if some of them come close. And it's certainly not bad enough to hurt the movie in any meaningful way. I will say, seeing Pixar movies score in the 80% range on RT always throws me. It's usually either 90%+ or somewhere in the 70% range.

It's.... B E A U T I F U L

I think the bigger concern is internationally where some markets only have two weeks in between. I don't think the legs will be hurt all that badly though. There's a three week clearance between both domestically, which is plenty of time for soft second and third weekend drops. The Pixar movies with weaker legs tended to only have 2 weeks before an Illumination film, and also didn't have the same glowing reception that Inside Out 2 looks to be getting. Two week headstart before Illumination: Lightyear (2.34x - I'm still shocked by how low this is) Cars 3 (2.85x) Monsters University (3.26x) Three week headstart before Illumination: Finding Dory (3.60x) Inside Out (3.94x) Toy Story 3 (3.76x) I think Monsters University is a good baseline target for legs here, but I think Finding Dory/Toy Story 4 is probably more likely here.

I have to wonder if Pixar films just generally underindex in Canada. Toy Story 4 did $434M domestic, but it only grossed $27.2M in Canada, which is fine, although that's below Aquaman ($31.5M), Aladdin ($29.6M), Far From Home ($35.3M), and Joker ($39.1M), and none of those crossed $400M domestic.

All you really need is one glowing blurb now. Then you can quote it 3-4 times in the same 30 second ad by splicing a few words at a time. I can already see the ad being made from EmpireCity's tweet: "On June 14, watch the movie people have been calling" "FANTASTIC" - @EmpireCityBO "...the very best Pixar has ever done" - @EmpireCityBO "People are going to fall in love with this movie" - @EmpireCityBO "Disney and Pixar's Inside Out 2" "onlyintheatersjunefourteen"

I mean, could go either way. No real hopeful signs, but also nothing in particular to indicate that this is going to be a trainwreck. The late embargo doesn't really mean anything now considering the last three Disney films that did this all got 80%+ on RT. This is their first sequel in 5 years, and their last sequel has reviewed better than everything that's come out since. Take that as you may.

I guess presales and tracking, while solid enough, probably aren't quite where Disney wants them to be. Doesn't seem to be a ton of new footage from this trailer. More of a HEY PLEASE WATCH OUR MOVIE ITS OUT NEXT FRIDAY. Edit: Maybe not, Apes just did the same thing last month, although this one's a lot shorter.

I guess that would be for pre-pandemic. Post pandemic opens a whole treasure trove of movies for very understandable reasons: Sing, Puss in Boots, Boss Baby... heck even Minions: The Rise of Gru opened a bit lower than the first film even if ended up passing it domestically.

I doubt $80M-$85M is actually going to stick come opening weekend. I'm probably committing some sort of fallacy here, but no Pixar film in the last 15 years has actually opened smack in the range of tracking. They've all either over- or underperformed tracking on opening weekend by a fairly sizeable margin. Granted, most of the underperformers are from 2019 onward, but three of those had lesser prospects and had early reception working against them. I think Inside Out 2 has good odds to overperform. If it doesn't, well then we'll just watch Deadpool and Despicable Me blow up in July.

I did just notice that. The First Omen, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and now Young Woman and the Sea all basically had the same embargo that Inside Out 2 is having and they all did pretty well in terms of reviews.

Honestly, I just want to see what it was like in the recording booth at the 49 second mark. I feel like it's been a while since a Pixar or WDAS film has gotten this much cross promotional advertising.

On the topic of the animation supposedly looking weaker, I do have to wonder how much of has to do with it with the final product actually looking weaker. There's still some bits that probably aren't quite finished yet, with the opening bit with the conch shell being an indicator that stuff might still be in the works since that looks quite a bit better in the teaser than it did in the announcement video from February. I've seen some mentions about 2 looking less detailed, but I wanna chalk that up to poor compression since the trailer looks quite a bit better on Disney+ than it does on YouTube or Twitter. I think the thing that's throwing me off the most is the change in aspect ratio. I probably wouldn't have batted an eye if it had stayed consistent between both films.

Definitely. There's even more people tagging along this time, and it's not like Disney and Pixar sequels are particularly renowned for having wildly original plots.

I thought for a moment they were gonna go full Frozen 2 with the teaser but this does seem like a safer way to market the sequel. This has huge potential though. I might be extremely bullish on this but I think this can do $150M+ over the 5-day. I'd go higher but we haven't had a film open above $100M over Thanksgiving, and the highest that any film has done over Thanksgiving is $125M. If there's any movies that would smash these records though it would be this next set of WDAS sequels. Curious to see how this does alongside Wicked. This has a greater reach, but if the core overlapping demos make a commitment to see both over the 5 days (or 6 considering how early previews start now) then we're in for a big Thanksgiving feast.

I think ideally Disney would want November 22 (that Friday did wonders for Catching Fire and Frozen 2), although Gladiator 2 already staked that out and doesn't seem to be budging. I think Disney wants to be as close as possible to Thanksgiving though, not just because of the big flashy 5-day headlines that Moana 2, Zootopia 2, and Frozen 3 would break or approach records for, but also because of the potential to play throughout Christmas. They've squandered that opportunity in recent years with Encanto's deeply abridged theatrical window followed by Strange World and Wish being flaccid performers from opening day. But pre-pandemic showed the potential. At worst you still had the likes of The Good Dinosaur and Ralph Breaks the Internet being able to squeak past milestones at the end of their runs, and at best you had Frozen becoming a monster at the box office during the holidays and running unopposed in terms of family animation until February. Then there's the likes of Moana and Frozen 2 which were still healthy performers leading up to and during the holidays even while new releases were playing You could make a point for Wakanda Forever, but IMO that film got lucky because a) Thanksgiving 2022 was a flopfest and b) Avatar and Puss in Boots were the only Christmas releases that made a dent. Moana 2 doesn't have the same luxuries for opening in early November, and most early November releases are usually done by Christmas.

Father's Day weekend used to a happenstance for Pixar and not a set target. They've been taking the third Friday of June since 2013 with Monsters University (also June 21 and not on Father's Day weekend). If Inside Out 2 followed suit it would have also taken the 21st, but it's actually deviating a bit to the second Friday of June (the first Pixar movie to do that since Cars). I think they bumped it to the 14th to give more space between it and Despicable Me 4, because every time Disney tried to put a movie out 2 weeks before an Illumination film their legs have suffered greatly (see Monsters University and Cars 3). They seem more committed to Father's Day weekend now than they were pre-pandemic though, seeing as Elio is slated for June 13 next year.

Oh I see what they did there. Pretty bold of them to not put the title though. Disney usually reserves that for the really big ones.

I think kids' draws just aren't what they used to be. It's been a hot minute we had an animated movie that actually opened well ($50M+) and predominantly skewed towards families and younger children. Sure we've had big hits, but they've all skewed older: Mario was 62% 18-34/33% 18-24, Spider-Verse was at 61%/40%, and Minions hit 34% with the 13-17 crowd. Even a disaster like Lightyear hit 61% for the 18-34 crowd on opening weekend (although that had its own controversies). Like sure, if a movie is going to open over $100M then there's going to be some level of 4 quadrant appeal, but Frozen 2 opened higher than all of these except for Mario and that film's audience was 70% families. Even the likes of the first Inside Out and Moana had 71% and 72% of their audience be families. I'm sure Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, and Moana 2 are going to be big hits, but I think these are going to have to skew a bit older if they really want to blow up (moreso for Inside Out 2 than the other two).

I feel like positive reactions from Pixar screenings at CinemaCon are almost a given at this point, so Inside Out 2 having good reactions from CinemaCon isn't particularly surprising nor exciting IMO. I have a feeling this and Moana 2 are going to be better than the last 2 years of movie output from WDAS and Pixar though. Not that I think it's much of a bar to clear (Elemental notwithstanding), but I do have hope for this, even if they both almost certainly won't be as good as the first Inside Out and Moana. Although it could just be Disney doing a far better job at selling their sequels than their originals...

I was gonna say something along the lines of chocolate spiced lattes but spicy chocolate lattes already exist. I feel there was a missed opportunity to do some cross promo with Wonka and Dune since they're both WBD, but I guess the popcorn bucket was already weird enough. Still need to get one of those for myself. As an aside, Dune: Part Two was fantastic. I saw it on Thursday and it gets better the more I think about it. I think Arrival is still going to remain my favourite Villeneuve movie, but it's great to see it doing well.

I had this plus Ghostbusters and Civil War... so pretty much everything on the IMAX website through the end of June save for Inside Out 2.