After the overperformance of Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die, summer’s big wheels keep on turnin’ as Disney/Pixar‘s Inside Out 2 is looking at what could be the biggest stateside opening of the year to date with $85M, and another $50M abroad for a $135M global launch.
Legendary/Warner Bros’ Dune: Part Two owns the biggest domestic opening of 2024 so far with $82.5M, while both studios’ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire counts the year’s largest global launch for a Hollywood movie at $194M.
Inside Out 2 also will rep the biggest post-Covid opening for a Disney animated movie, with many of its films lacking the wattage of pre-pandemic times. Disney/Pixar’s Lightyear became its best post-Covid domestic opening at $50M — and that was considered to be a total misfire for the Toy Story franchise.
Many have postulated that Disney+ has siphoned off family audiences. Inside Out 2 comes as another test, but it’s fair to say that Disney has some of the longest theatrical windows among the studios now, with around 60 days to electronic digital and another 80-90 days to Disney+ — and that even goes for duds. 20th Century Studios’ The Haunting of Venice was one of their shorter windows to digital at 45 days.
Diverse audiences in their walk-up business are an absolute key to success in this marketplace, evident in Bad Boys: Ride or Die busting past its $40M+ projections to a $56.5M start. The Will Smith-Martin Lawrence pic’s second weekend is expected to ease by 55%-60% with $22M-$25M. When it comes to animated movies, typically they derive 15%-25% from walk-up business versus a Marvel movie, which can account for as much as 30% in a given opening weekend.
Moms, fathers and young girls are the key draw for Inside Out 2 over Father’s Day weekend, a big moviegoing frame. In U.S. and Canada, the Kelsey Mann-directed Pixar sequel is booked at 4,300 sites with premium tickets from Dolby, Imax, PLFs, and D-box screens. Previews begin at 3 p.m. Thursday. The first Inside Out opened to a strong $90.4M back in 2015 and legged out to $356.9M domestic and $858.8M worldwide. The series follows a young girl’s emotions duking it out inside her soul as she contends with growing times.
No reviews yet on Rotten Tomatoes for Inside Out 2. The first movie received an A CinemaScore, 89% Rotten Tomatoes audience score and 98% certified fresh critical rating. Voiced by Amy Poehler, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Bill Hader and others, Inside Out won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Joining the sequel are The Bear‘s Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri as Evny, Maya Hawke as Anxiety and Tony Hale as Fear.
Inside Out 2 begins overseas rollout on Wednesday, notably in Germany and Korea before heading to Australia and Mexico on Thursday and the UK on Friday. Sitting out this session and going next weekend are France, Italy, Spain, Brazil and China. Japan goes August 1.
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The international opening does have some possible upside. The original debuted to $49M in like-for-like markets at today’s exchange rates. That release pattern was staggered, however, with dates running from June through to early October (Germany, for example, went on October 1 the last time around).
The reason some of the other European majors are not in the opening suite on the sequel is based on proximity to school holidays and the inherent associated family travel. As for China, although it was ultimately not a Top 10 market for the first movie, this weekend coincides with school exams, so the delay on IO2 to next frame should provide better positioning — even if that market remains unpredictable.
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The top final markets overall internationally on 2015’s Inside Out were the UK, Korea, Japan, Germany and Mexico (at historical rates).
This weekend’s opening on IO2 should see a Top 5 mix of UK, Korea, Germany, Mexico and Australia. Korea will be interesting to watch as the market is still somewhat hard to call, though we hear tracking is positive.