Pixar's Elio - bad weekend start

[esxokm]

Pixar continues to underwhelm at times, unfortunately; no longer is one of its films a guarantee. The latest film, Elio, generated $21 million domestically and $14 million at foreign locations. From what I’ve read, this may be the lowest gross ever for a Pixar feature.

Stuff like this happens. I don’t fault the studio for doing its best and experimenting and whatever. You can’t predict these things.

But, it does seem as if the risk of bad box-office results is increasing for Disney. When the company hits, it hits big, and that is often enough to make the company the leader in terms of global box office (without checking, I want to say DIS is actually leading right now, thanks I believe to Lilo, in box-office take, with WBD in second).

Even if DIS is leading, shareholders I would assume want to see every movie hit it as big as it can. And the big problem to me is I think Pixar budgets simply put have to come down. They need to develop the projects faster and start to produce at least two per year. And I would say the company should try to focus only on commercially-bent material - stuff that appears as if it would be a hit. I don’t mind swinging for the fences, but maybe in those cases, create a trade-off with talent - if you want to experiment, accept lower amounts of compensation in return.

I don’t think any of this has to do with, by the way, any of the complaints some people have over topic selection and casting and so forth - I don’t want to get into that here, I’m sure those reading this know what I am talking about, I will just say I think DIS does fine in terms of inclusion and should lean into that more, actually. I just mention this because that is not what I mean by focusing on commercial stuff - in this case, I merely mean create projects with great concepts that are compelling (toys come to life? great. A movie about the actual origin of Buzz Lightyear? That may have done poorly, but on paper, I would agree with the green-light given it, seemed commercial enough to me)

You can’t predict the movie business and what will hit, execs can’t control that, and I don’t blame them. You can though control the budget to a large extent - and this goes for Marvel features, Lucasfilm, all of it. Disney should channel that old Katzenberg memo (for those who know) and just focus on story and less on casting expensive talent. This goes triple for Pixar by the way…use unknowns. I get that the company wants celebrities because their follower-counts might add value…but then again, did that help with Elio?..

One other point: maybe it is time to make live-action Pixar films, original or remakes or otherwise…maybe that studio needs to expand its model for sake of shareholder value…

Thanks for reading…(I will now look for Fool articles that may discuss Elio; I am sure there has to be one by Rick)…

[Goofyhoofy]

It’s true that “Elio” opened “poorly” by both Pixar and other recent box office standards. The scores on the movie are quite good, actually, and I expect a longer tail on it than is typical as well.

I am reminded that “Elemental” started weak, but went on to earn more than $500m by the time the run was complete. (That’s just B.O. and doesn’t include other windows like PayTV, streaming, etc.)

It was up against some hefty competition, as “Dragon” overperformed and has lasted (it still won the week, again) - and there is now increasing competition for the kid-friendly audience which didn’t exist in the 20-teens, at least to the extent that it does now.

At any rate, I’d comfort myself with consumer scores and hope for a long life and, of course, more product on which to sell streaming subscriptions and maybe merchandising (although not having seen the film I don’t know if it lends itself to that.)

[esxokm]

Goofy, thanks for the reply.

I forgot about the positive development with Elemental. That did do well over time. And I hope that happens here. I would say that of course we want higher returns from the films, and in these days, $500 million global isn’t what it used to be. So there is still a challenge, but if Elio went to $500 million, that might still be a good ad for D+ once that project hits the service. This of course echoes your last point.

The point about the increased competition is a good one as well; DWA and Dragon certainly were formidable. I wonder if the company should have considered this more strongly and changed the release date. I don’t mind being aggressive and trying to compete, but perhaps some different frame would have been better.

Nevertheless, DIS should not be afraid of underwhelming at the box office…keep the films coming, don’t pull back as we need to supply D+ with solid content that is advertised at the theater.