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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 11 months

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ELEMENTAL Box Office Nonesuch

So... ELEMENTAL looks to make $28-33m over the weekend... The autopsies are already being done, the expensive Pixar original is already deemed a flop... Here's what I say...

Box office is absurd: I mean really, box office runs seem more and more absurd by the year in the post-COVID outbreak era... Having to make so much money, in a very competitive field and in a time where audiences can't see too many movies a year, in around 3-4 months? Like c'mon, it's literally the infancy of a movie's existence. It's not the '00s, or even the '10s anymore.

Longevity: Especially since animated movies from both Pixar and Disney Animation traditionally have had long, ever-fruitful second lives. Whether it was thru theatrical re-releases (1940s-1980s), home video (1980s-onward), or streaming... ELEMENTAL will likely be no different by the end of the year, probably will rack up a million streams on Disney+. This has a very good "A" CinemaScore grade, so it could have very good legs over the summer, even if it doesn't top that ridiculous budget.

$200m budget... Making around $500m at the worldwide box office is a lot of pressure to put on an original animated family movie, let alone most movies, especially in this day and age.

"Well, if they had made a good movie-" OK, now do every blockbuster smash hit that got mixed to negative critical reception. Heck, do this year's SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE. Critical reception/one's own opinion doesn't mean shit. If it did, CARS 2 - the go-to for "worst Pixar movie" - would've flopped hard back in 2011, regardless of any goodwill brought over from the first movie.

That William Goldman quote/marketing/blah blah: "Nobody knows anything... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one." Whatever was in that marketing... And there WAS marketing... LOTS of it... Just didn't motivate audiences to shell out lots of money for tickets and concessions to see this film in a theater where it's possibly disgusting, noisy, or... Both!

Pixar is not in a slump: This is also all subjective. And if I was a filmmaker, and I had a slump of movies that ranged from roughly 70-85% Rotten Tomatoes scores - not that RT aggregate scores mean anything anyways... That'd be quite alright! Anyways, the movies they're currently making just aren't to your liking. That's all it is... and they don't have to release a specific kind of movie. This, ideally, should be a studio where a director makes THEIR film. Not a collective. Like it used to be at one point... Speaking of which-

John Lasseter: I've seen so many people, from inside animation fan circles... to even pundits writing for major movie publications... Suggesting that Lasseter's ouster left a real hole in Pixar, and Disney Animation as well. Never mind implying that a misogynist pervert should be brought back to the studio, but this also suggests that every Pixar success is because of him... And him only. Like, all the filmmakers are just untalented hacks without him? Like he's the guy who waves a magic wand and suddenly, everyone on board made a good movie? Do you want animated movies made by FILMMAKERS? Or films determined by a small COMMITTEE? I'm also old enough to remember when Lasseter was THE problem with Pixar, that he was a dictator making every director bow to his every demand. (Which was true.)

I'm sorry, but I'm just exhausted from how people are talking about ELEMENTAL... Which I haven't even seen yet, but it feels like people are trying to write such nuanced industry-related things and outside factors off and use their personal opinions/biases to explain away these box office mishaps, wrapping it up in neat simplistic bows...

I'm just concerned about what will happen with the studio from here on out, especially after 75 people - including veterans like Galyn Susman, Angus MacLane, and Steve Purcell - were laid off.

"Make better movies, then!" Okay, how subjective, it's not like the studio's people are all sitting there not putting in effort and calling it a day. Okay? These movies take years and years to plan out, make, remake, and finish. Like Goldman said, it's all a guess each time out. A gamble. When these people are making these movies, they're making decisions that they think are the right decisions at the right time. ELEMENTAL, by all accounts, went into development around 2016-ish. Around the time director Peter Sohn had finished THE GOOD DINOSAUR... How would the crew, and the studio as a whole, had known what the world would like in 2023? What audiences' ever-changing tastes would be? What the zeitgeist would be?

And again... "Make better movies"? MARIO might've pulled in $1.3b worldwide and became one of the highest-grossing animated movies of all-time, but the critical reception for it wasn't great. Mostly mixed to negative, not as good as this movie. Or TURNING RED, LUCA, SOUL, ONWARD, even LIGHTYEAR! And even all the recent WDAS movies, including big box office flop STRANGE WORLD.

Again, it's as simple - and boring - as "They made a movie... People didn't show up."

So... What do I think happens next?

Pixar hasn't had a genuine financial success in theaters since TOY STORY 4 all the way back in 2019. ONWARD got cut off by the pandemic, SOUL, LUCA, and TURNING RED all went straight to Disney+ in most parts of the world. LIGHTYEAR lost money, this might, too... How much did ELIO cost? Why should that film be expected to make the amount of money usually reserved for a massive superhero movie? INSIDE OUT 2 is all but a lock for a huge gross... A sequel, no less.

I would hate to see Pete Docter get removed as CCO (and who the hell would they replace him with anyways? The rest of the "Brain Trust" is either no longer working there or off doing other things), but I fear that could be a very real possibility. I know most of the internet declares Docter's Pixar to be some kind of failure, but I for one like his Pixar. Even if I didn't like the films coming out now, the place is a lot more director-driven than before, and more experimental. John Lasseter would've probably fired Enrico Casarosa, Domee Shi, and Angus MacLane off of all of their films... Or would've blockaded them every step of the way whenever they tried to make something in their respective films interesting. So yeah, I don't feel Docter is the problem here... it's really all down to how Disney handled the release of many of the recent Pixar films, how much the studio spends on their films, and the marketing just not enticing audiences to go see the films.

That's beyond Docter's control, and he even partially touched upon this in a recent interview... And for what it's worth, again... Audiences... The ones who actually saw the movie already... seem to be liking ELEMENTAL. "A" CinemaScore is pretty good. SPIDER-VERSE Deux and MARIO had an "A" CinemaScore as well. If this movie has excellent legs, it'll show that people - not internet-dwelling weirdos who seem to be the authority on all things animation - actually DID like the film... It just cost too much to make. Like a modern-day CLEOPATRA or SLEEPING BEAUTY. A movie that quite a few audiences went to, but it wasn't enough to cover the gargantuan costs to make it...

Like, if ELEMENTAL cost around BAD GUYS/PUSS IN BOOTS 2/DC SUPER-PETS/SPIDER-VERSE numbers... You know, around $80-90m in budget and NOT $200m+... this thing wouldn't be written off as a flop.

I'd imagine more sequels will happen, which was always a given, but maybe more so than ever before. INSIDE OUT 2 and TOY STORY 5, they weren't going to stop there, that was a given... Docter did say in that same interview that the originals in Pixar's library are fair game for sequels. And no smart exec walks away from movies that make $1b at the box office... Unless they're something like, say, TITANIC.

Maybe there will be stricter mandates put on Pixar films to "make them more appealing to audiences"... That's very possible, as it sometimes happens at these studios. Micromanaging, ya know? Trying to create that next big hit the mechanical way, by overthinking it... Instead of just making something and seeing how it all goes. How it does at the box office is often beyond a filmmakers' control anyways... Again, what the world will look like 4 years after you've started your endeavor...

Or maybe nothing happens, Pixar has special privileges, and keeps making what they make...

To me, the smartest thing would be to either... Step back and realize how silly box office has become, that it's absurd to expect a smash hit out of something in a crowded marketplace in just 2-4 months, hinging an entire studio's future on that... Or lower the budgets of these movies...

Anyways, sorry to rant, but it's all just absurd to me... Yes, the movie may indeed lose money, but it's not clear-cut.

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