Why Pixar’s new movie Elemental is bombing at the box office, despite solid reviews

My Twitter feed felt like it was overrun this weekend with fawning praise from theatergoers who’d ventured out to see Pixar’s new Elemental — the animation studio’s 27th feature film, set in the fictional world of Element City. That’s where the four elements of fire, water, land, and air live together and where an independent-minded young woman named Ember (fire) embarks on a friendship with Wade (water) that “challenges her beliefs about the world they live in,” according to Elemental’s official synopsis.

Meanwhile, the fact that Elemental during its opening weekend posted the second-lowest domestic box office in the studio’s entire history might have some of its fans and executives likewise challenging assumptions about the world that they live in.

Elemental — which also happens to be the first rom-com from Pixar — only managed to grab $29.5 million domestically during its opening weekend (despite it costing more than $200 million to produce), a far cry from the glory days of 2018’s Incredibles 2. The latter is Pixar’s top-grossing film overall, which pulled in $182.3 million during its opening weekend. The only Pixar movie in the studio’s history that had a lower domestic box office than Elemental during its opening weekend?

That would be none other than the original Toy Story, which scored $29.1 million and is probably an unfair comparison for Elemental (since Toy Story was the very first film to originate from Pixar, back in 1995, and had a unique hill to climb).

Still, though — what gives? It’s tempting to opine that Pixar has maybe lost its vaunted creative spark. I know I certainly haven’t been all that excited about any of the half-dozen movies the studio has released after the $1 billion success of 2019’s Toy Story 4 (they include Onward, Lightyear, Soul, Luca, Turning Red, and now Elemental). But as with so many things, the truth of the matter here really resists overly simplistic answers.

We can probably chalk up Elemental’s performance to several things. Like, for example, audiences being trained for Pixar movies to head quickly to Disney+, the streaming equivalent of a straight-to-video release, as well as the studio taking fewer creative risks, playing it safer, and ceding more adventurous animation territory to the likes of, for example, a certain Spider-Man movie that also opened this month.

There’s also the fact that Pixar has significantly ramped up its release cadence over the years, a step up in quantity that doesn’t exactly lend itself to deliberative creativity. In addition to Pixar’s 1-2 feature films every year, the studio’s first-ever TV series is also coming soon (Win or Lose, about a middle-school softball team, debuts on Disney+ in December). Another unannounced TV series is reportedly in the works, not to mention all the Pixar shorts for Disney’s streamer.

I suspect that some degree of Pixar’s recent performance, though, is also out of its control. Most of the animated fare that crushes in theaters these days seems to be a product of existing franchises. And let’s not forget — audiences that have decided to leave home to go see Pixar on the big screen, with all of the inconveniences that a theater experience entails compared to streaming, actually seem to have been pleased overall.

As of this writing, Elemental has a pretty stellar 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

“#ELEMENTAL is adorable, and basically the My Big Fat Greek Wedding of Pixar movies,” one Twitter user raved. “I do hope a lot of fathers and daughters watched it together today.” Added another:

“You guys NEED to see Elemental. It is easily one of Pixar’s best movies. I laughed and cried. It was so so good. The girls loved it too.”

Personally, I decided to forgo my local cinema over the weekend in favor of streaming Netflix’s new Extraction 2, which I have no doubt millions of you did as well. As for what’s next from Pixar, it has two movies already teed up for 2024 — Elio, coming on March 1, and Inside Out 2, releasing on June 14. Here’s hoping the beloved animated studio can turn its fortunes around soon.