4-Week Tracking: Pixar’s INSIDE OUT 2 Pacing for Strong $75M+ Father’s Day Weekend Start, FURIOSA Trends Upward Following Cannes Premiere

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This week’s long range outlook takes a look at Pixar’s latest anticipated sequel, Inside Out 2, as the follow-up to 2015’s original blockbuster courts family audiences of all ages over Father’s Day weekend.

Nine years after the original took the box office by storm and and became the fourth-highest grossing movie of 2015, the sequel will have some added microscopes on it in the wake of Disney’s recent box office stumbles during the post-pandemic and post-peak-streaming era.

Meanwhile, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga‘s tracking has ticked upward as pre-sales and very positive reviews out of the Cannes Film Festival amp up its buzz ahead of next week’s debut.

Unfortunately, though, The Garfield Movie is trending in the opposite direction for now as Furiosa increasingly appears to be the favorite to win Memorial Day weekend.

Our full analysis and latest tracking:

Inside Out 2
Disney & Pixar
June 14, 2024

Key Tracking Factors:

• With pre-sales beginning on May 14, early models are volatile as families are likely not focused on post-Memorial Day planning quite yet. With that said, first day sales in our sample markets tracked 253 percent ahead of The Garfield Movie‘s first day, 281 percent ahead of Trolls Band Together, 36 percent behind The Little Mermaid, and 47 percent behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
• The addition of multiple characters and cast members expanding the beloved core ensemble, with returning stars Amy Poehler, Lewis Black, and Tony Hale, should be a draw for many audiences. Maya Hawke’s role as Anxiety is driving standout buzz in early marketing and social media footprints.
• While Disney and Pixar remain lucrative brands, their fates have been tied in less-than-optimal ways recently as the parent studio and its former regime are widely opined to have damaged both brands by sending three consecutive Pixar films straight to streaming during the pandemic rather than reserve them for their planned theatrical windows.
• During the time since, multiple animated releases from both Disney and Pixar have missed box office projections while other animated studios have seen their theatrical family audience shares recover more robustly.
• The first Inside Out once owned the record for an original film’s opening weekend at $90.44 million following its June 2015 debut. Subsequently strong legs sent it to $356.5 million domestically, part of an overall $857.6 million worldwide blockbuster haul.
• While Father’s Day weekend will help boost Sunday sales for the opening, how The Garfield Movie and IF fare in the three weeks leading up to Inside Out 2‘s debut could be worth watching. Sony’s Garfield has the advantage of being the first animated release of summer, while Paramount’s IF beats it to the family-driven punch by one week. Those could capture some of the pent-up demand from families following a two-month gap since Kung Fu Panda 4. Should Garfield and/or IF falter with modern families and kiddie audiences, though, it would shift momentum back in favor of Inside Out 2.
• On the subject of staying power, word of mouth will hope to closely match traditional Pixar standards if this sequel is to weather the competitive storm from Despicable Me 4 when it opens during Inside Out 2‘s fourth weekend in early July. The Universal and Illumination franchise has made considerable headway into Disney and Pixar’s share of the theatrical market over the past decade-plus, gaining significant followings with modern young audiences.
• Despite recent under-performances from Disney and Pixar, their history with sequels to their biggest hits has been generally quite positive. Most notably, the Toy Story, Finding Dory, and Incredibles sequels were box office powerhouses at the time of their release. Moreover, the studio has scaled back its over-reliance on streaming strategies and is expected to market Inside Out 2 as one of their top theatrical event releases of 2024.