WEEKEND THREAD: Lightyear implodes with 51M DOM, 85.6M WW. THE LAST PIXAR MOVIE EVER?????😱😱😱 | Dominion #1 with 58.66M, Top Gun 44M

[El Squibbonator]

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. 

[cannastop]

12 minutes ago, El Squibbonator said:

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. 

seems a bit rosy

[cannastop]

1 hour ago, grim22 said:

Personally speaking, I think Disney should stop making it a promotional tactic for movies.

It's not a promotional tactic. Show me any commercial where the gay stuff is in it.

[LegendaryBen]

Very pleased with TGM's performance. If EC's early number holds up, sub-10% weekend drop isn't out of the question.

[CJohn]

27 minutes ago, El Squibbonator said:

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. 

This is not reaching 400M WW. It won't 200M OS.

[JohnnyGossamer]

43 minutes ago, El Squibbonator said:

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. 

I think it can do 3X whatever it's opening weekend is... 57 is pretty unlikely but I'd take it. If it's somehow 57, I think it would to 170+ DOM.

[Jonwo]

2 hours ago, AniNate said:

 

I'm of two minds about this. Not really thrilled at the idea of Pixar continuing to milk franchises so I don't mind seeing that strategy getting taken down a peg, though I do fear their funding will take a hit if Disney interprets this as "we can't even rely on their established IP anymore". They really need Elemental to deliver next year in any event.

I doubt Pixar will get shut down but I suspect they'll probably be forced to have the same level of budgets that WDAS has. TBH actually might not be a bad thing, studios like Disney and DreamWorks have gone through phases where they had to make cheaper films after the failure of more expensive films. Indeed the post Sleeping Beauty films like 101 Dalmatians and The Jungle Book had much lower budgets but were very successful. Pixar has put story is king as their mantra and perhaps that what they should concentrating rather than pushing animation to be better and better.

[jimisawesome]

2 hours ago, grim22 said:

 

Personally speaking, I think Disney should stop making it a promotional tactic for movies. Just have the characters exist in the movie without making a big song and dance about it in the promotions and then see if there's actually a boycott or backlash or if it's all just as performative as it seems.

 

 

This.  Disney has been using promotion via twitter culture war for a while now and I dont understand the point.  A dude with 4 followers has half the culture warriors doing tweet storms over a dumb star wars take.  And this is the pattern stories hit the fan/entertainment media sites about how awful people are to their proprieties and the examples they find are all brand new accounts with low followers time after time and for those that are going to ask for examples the Red Panda review and the new star wars D+ show.  Who exactly is making the decision to go owe wow people are A holes and being mean about Marvel movie X so I must go see it to support it?

[Jonwo]

Just realised that Elvis has a very good chance of debuting at number 1 next week. 

[El Squibbonator]

50 minutes ago, cannastop said:

seems a bit rosy

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. 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by El Squibbonator

[CJohn]

14 minutes ago, Jonwo said:

Just realised that Elvis has a very good chance of debuting at number 1 next week. 

It will be a 4 way race for the top spot with 4 movies in the 30M range.

[wildphantom]

33 minutes ago, Jonwo said:

I doubt Pixar will get shut down but I suspect they'll probably be forced to have the same level of budgets that WDAS has. TBH actually might not be a bad thing, studios like Disney and DreamWorks have gone through phases where they had to make cheaper films after the failure of more expensive films. Indeed the post Sleeping Beauty films like 101 Dalmatians and The Jungle Book had much lower budgets but were very successful. Pixar has put story is king as their mantra and perhaps that what they should concentrating rather than pushing animation to be better and better.

They’ve just made Toy Story 4, Onward, Soul, Luca and Turning Red in a row in the last four years. All loved by critics and audiences and all putting story and animation front and centre. 

 

The only thing that needs to be changing for Pixar are their overlords having a clue what they’re doing with the best animation studio in the business.  Disney are the ones leaving money on the table with how they’re treating their golden goose.  

Edited June 18, 2022 by wildphantom

[RichWS]

I was talking to my co-worker today, a guy in his mid-forties and very casual Pixar fan. When I told him Lightyear was kinda tanking, he told me he had zero interest in the movie because "Buzz Lightyear is not a superhero you take seriously. That's the whole appeal of Buzz!"

[FilmFincher]

Just got out of The Black Phone.

It's a really entertaining watch, it's exciting, it keeps you guessing, there's some big laughs scattered throughout. Stephen King meets 10 Cloverfield Lane. It's definitely the most audience friendly horror since Scream, I can see them having a fun time with this one. 

[Johnny Tran]

20 minutes ago, wildphantom said:

Disney are the ones leaving money on the table with how they’re treating their golden goose.  

 

Why stop at Star Wars and the MCU?  The Mouse has no clue of late..

[krla]

57 minutes ago, CJohn said:

It will be a 4 way race for the top spot with 4 movies in the 30M range.

If Black Phone overperforms, could have the top 5 all within 10M of each other. 

[Deep Wang]

8 minutes ago, RichWS said:

I was talking to my co-worker today, a guy in his mid-forties and very casual Pixar fan. When I told him Lightyear was kinda tanking, he told me he had zero interest in the movie because "Buzz Lightyear is not a superhero you take seriously. That's the whole appeal of Buzz!"

 

I would have gone Princess Bride route.  Bookend it with adult Andy, who should be like 30 now and has a kid(maybe two, who knows).  He's rented an old cabin out in the woods for a week after school gets out and the whole family goes.  Uh-oh, it storms the first day and they have nothing to do, but wait, the kid finds a box of old video tapes and among them is a bunch of tapes of an old cartoon from Andy's childhood, Buzz Lightyear.  And so they watch them together as a family until the storm passes.  Hell it kinda even harkens back to TS2 when Woody is watching all of his old shows, you know?

 

Totally traditional animation, Saturday morning cartoon style, action and catchphrases and humor.  Break up the episodes they watch with family interactions here and there.

 

Totally cheesy and I don't know if that's better than what they did.  It's a terrible idea to want to focus on that toy anyway, but this seems like a more fun thing to do to me.  However, I don't think you can get the stink of cash-grab off any variation of this at all, lol.  

[grim22]

12 minutes ago, Deep Wang said:

.  However, I don't think you can get the stink of cash-grab off any variation of this at all, lol.  

 

Title it "Lightyear: The Search for More Money". Lean into it fully.

Edited June 19, 2022 by grim22

[Jake Lockley]

1 hour ago, Jonwo said:

Just realised that Elvis has a very good chance of debuting at number 1 next week. 

Tbh I think this may be our next big Top Gun-esque surprise. Idk I could definitely be wrong.

[Juan Caballo]

With the disastrous performance of Lightyear, my only concern is what lessons Disney takes from this. 

 

I think the main one is...you just can't make spin-offs for the sake of them. Just because you have a big franchise, doesn't mean you should milk in such...different ways that takes so much away from what people loved about this franchise. No one wants to see the real Buzz story. Specially such half baked story. That doesn't make you want to buy a Buzz toy. How would a kid want to buy a Buzz toy based on this movie? Also... you're spending 200M on this stupid, most soulless uninspiring spin-off? 

 

Look. I get it. Big franchise. We want to capitalize on it. Dude... just make Toy Story 5 and 6. And maybe don't call it "5" or "6". Doesn't sound right. Put a little title in front of Toy Story. This is what the audience fell in love with. This group of toys and their adventures. 

 

And maybe, Imo, if you want to make spin-offs... do of the actual toys. A Buzz spin-off but still in the "toy world". A Buzz solo adventure. Idk how that would happen or come together... but still better than the real story that inspired the toy. Specially if that story is so anti-children in the sense that it seems to be way to serious. Lack the fun of the franchise.