Lightyear Underperforms at Its Opening Weekend Box Office

It seems that there was a lot of excitement and hype for Lightyear prior to its release last weekend. Given that it's a Toy Story-adjacent film and feature a beloved character, it was an easy bet that it will be a guaranteed box office success and will attract a lot of family audience to flock to the theaters to see it. However, as it turns out, that may not be the case at all.

According to Variety, Lightyear fell short on its opening weekend box office as it only managed to earn $51 million in the North American theaters. The film was projected to generate at least $70 million. As a result, the latest Pixar film only debuted at number two at the weekend box office. Jurassic World: Dominion remains at the top spot as it generated $58.6 million on its second weekend despite the 60% drop.

In the international market, Lightyear also had an underwhelming performance as it only earned $34.6 million from the 43 markets where it was released which means it has only generated $85.6 million at the global box office so far. It didn't help that the film is banned in several countries for its inclusion of a same-sex kiss and it costs around $200 million to produce (not including the marketing spend).

So what happened there? There are several factors that are being considered by analysts. First, the previous three Pixar films were released straight to Disney+ which might have led the audience to be trained now to watch a Pixar film on streaming instead. Some analysts are also calling out Disney for relying too much on brand recognition in its marketing and not enough on the execution. There's also the fact that Top Gun: Maverick continues to dominate the box office and attract more moviegoers even in its fourth weekend.

The film's box office story is still not over as there is a possibility that it will have word-of-mouth and manage to attract more audience after its first weekend. After all, it had a very respectable CinemaScore of A- and a 77% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Let's just wait and see if its box office will turn things around and end up becoming a bigger hit than what it seems to be at the moment.

Also Read: Toy Story Fans Accuse Pixar of 'Castrating' Buzz Lightyear for Replacing Tim Allen with Chris Evans

Lightyear is currently showing in theaters worldwide.