El Squibbonator

Hopefully, that's what Elemental will be, assuming it gets a theatrical release.

There's also League of Super-Pets, which I'd honestly put on the same level as Minions in terms of appeal to non-kid audiences.

I suppose not. I'm still desperately trying to find a positive in all this. Maybe it'll do better overseas than we thought. Maybe it at least manages to reach 400M worldwide. Maybe Minions: The Rise of Gru also underperforms, and Lightyear has at least a little bit of wiggle room in July. But in the back of my mind, I know that no matter what happens, this is going to go down as a serious disappointment at best.

In all seriousness-- and I do mean seriousness, so no sarcastic or doomsaying answers, please-- what impact will Lightyear have on theatrical films at Pixar from here on out? Even if it manages to have a strong showing overseas and claw its way to 400M, I can't imagine the folks at Disney being especially happy with what I'm sure they imagined being an 800M movie. So where do we go from there? They can't really use the pandemic as an excuse to keep Pixar movies out of theaters anymore, so what now?

That doesn't make any sense. Cars 3 had earned 74.8M worldwide in its opening weekend, while Lightyear made 85.6M worldwide in its own opening weekend. If Lightyear wants to avoid being a total disaster, it's going to need to rely on the strength of the overseas market.

Well, the only foreign territories we have data for Lightyear in are the UK, Argentina, and Mexico. Cars 3 opened in the UK and Argentina in July, but opened in Mexico the same weekend as it opened domestically, just like Lightyear has. But here's the thing. Cars 3 made 5.8M in its Mexican opening weekend, while Lightyear made 8M in the same territory over the same period of time. Its British and Argentine opening numbers are also ahead of their Cars 3 counterparts, though not by as much.

Well, I don't know if I want to call it good news necessarily, but definitely interesting news regarding Lightyear. Apparently, it's overseas gross this weekend is 34M. Cars 3-- the Pixar movie with the domestic opening weekend most similar to Lightyear, made 21M overseas in the same amount of time. In other words, Lightyear is actually having a bigger overseas opening weekend than Cars 3!

How do they have the Sunday numbers? It's only 3:00 AM ET.

It was just the first one that popped into my head. There are probably dozens more. But the fact remains, Disney is a lot more willing to let its writers explore LGBTQ themes in TV shows and Disney+ films than it is in theatrical films. Funny how when an individual says they'd rather not engage with LGBTQ people, they're a bigot, but when a company does it, they're "trying to reach the widest possible audience".

Mostly I'm disappointed because Disney, probably more than any other movie studio, is famous for its love stories. Lady and the Tramp. Cinderella and her Prince. Ariel and Eric. Belle and the Beast. Aladdin and Jasmine. And so many more. They are fully capable of adding a queer relationship to the pantheon of great cinematic Disney romances, but that hasn't happened yet. Even Lightyear only counts as progress in the very generous sense that its queer character has a major supporting role-- she still isn't the main protagonist.

I do that. But no matter how much queer-friendly media I consume, the fact that a major film and TV company is categorically opposed to LGBTQ representation-- or at least good LGBTQ representation-- in its works is a cause for serious concern. (This post was originally much longer, but I cut it down because I typed some stuff that would probably get me blocked from the forum)

If they wanted to make Elsa's sexuality explicit, they would have done that already. Frozen is a massive franchise, which unfortunately means it's too "safe"-- that is, too reliant on money from all audiences, not just the ones who are chomping at the bit for queer representation-- for this sort of thing. At least, that's the logic Disney seems to use. On the rare occasion when we do get a queer character in a theatrical film, these characters are either bit parts, or their sexuality is only confirmed offscreen by the directors and writers. And this doesn't just apply to the animated movies either. Valkyrie from Thor: Ragnarok is supposedly bisexual, but did you know that from watching the movie? I thought not. It's telling that most of their more sincere attempts at LGBTQ representation are from TV shows and Disney+ films, which are things that seem to be subject to less scrutiny from the company than theatrical feature films. In other words, they're seen as "lesser" works, which ironically means they can get away with more. I know I was one of the many people wishing for Lightyear to get a theatrical release, but I must have wished on some sort of cursed monkey's paw when I did, because it really does seem like the sort of movie that would be better-suited to Disney+. If Lightyear performs as poorly as it looks like it will ($51-55M opening weekend), then that's bad news not just for it but for LGBTQ character in theatrical Disney films as a whole. I'm trying to get #SaveLightyear trending on Twitter, so people will realize that this is a litmus test for queer representation in Disney films. If it fails, we might not see Elsa confirmed as lesbian in that third Frozen movie.

You think we'll ever see them try another movie with an LGBTQ main character? Or has Lightyear made sure that they won't?

Do we have numbers for Saturday yet?

The absence of Tim Allen isn't really the issue. The issue is that this movie stars an in-name-only version of the Buzz Lightyear we've come to know and love. The whole point of the character is that he's a kitschy but egotistical 90s action figure who's naively ignorant of the fact he's nothing but a toy. The character they have in the movie isn't bad, but I can see why a lot of people don't really see him as Buzz Lightyear. Lightyear is trying to sell itself as "the character behind the toy", but that's easier said than done when you consider that Buzz Lightyear, the character, didn't exist before Toy Story and as such was introduced in the context of the toy.

In all seriousness, adding the little green squeaky aliens into Lightyear somehow would have increased its appeal immensely.

Which Pixar movie do you think would be the most useful "model" for calculating Lightyear's potential overseas gross?

My fear is that Disney will blame the movie's underperformance on its LGBTQ content, at least in the sense that they'll claim audiences stayed away from it for that reason. Even if Lightyear doesn't outright bomb, we still might not see any further queer main character in Disney animated movies for a long time.

Maybe so, but let's do some math. Lightyear earned 20.7M on its first day. That actually gives us more to work with than you might think. Now, while this might be disappointingly low for a Pixar movie, it's not the lowest Pixar opening of all time, or even the lowest of the past decade. That distinction goes to The Good Dinosaur, which earned 9.7M on its first day in 2015. The Good Dinosaur, of course, was Pixar's first box-office bomb, and earned 333M on a 185M budget, 123M of which was domestic. So whatever its other issues are, Lightyear does at least appear to be outpacing The Good Dinosaur. Now, even though Lightyear earned almost twice as much as The Good Dinosaur did in its first day, I don't think it can fully manage twice The Good Dinosaur's domestic total (246M). Going as far back as Toy Story 3, the average multiplier for Pixar summer franchise films is 3.48 times the opening weekend. Lightyear probably won't make that; 3.2 times the opening weekend is more likely. If we take the projected 57M domestic opening and multiply it by 3.2, we get a domestic total of 182M.

So who's ready to guess what Lightyear's totals are going to be? A very rough guess of mine-- based on my not-at-all-thorough comparison with other movies-- is a $57M opening weekend, 185M domestic, and 400M worldwide.

What do you think WW is going to look like for Lightyear?

My big concern is that Disney will take this as a sign that audiences "aren't ready" for LGBTQ main characters in their movies, and will roll back their current efforts at making their works more diverse in that respect. Which is why I hope Lightyear can at least squeak past 400M worldwide, so they don't write it off as a total loss.

What do you think it's ceiling is? 180M?

The more pertinent question is, does Lightyear still have a shot at 200M DOM?

Speaking of which, Solo came within a hair's breadth of $400 million worldwide. If Lightyear performs similarly, it might at the very least double its budget.