'Inside Out 2' Tops $1 Billion Global As The Permanent Box Office Recovery Begins
The full-throated theatrical comeback begins a year early, with no strikes, delays, pandemic variables or streaming pressures set to undercut the momentum this time.
Continuing to assert itself as the movie of the summer, at least thus far, Inside Out 2 powered past the $1 billion mark at the global box office, including $469 million in North America after 17 days of domestic release. Its global roll-out began on June 12, meaning it technically passed the worldwide milestone on day 19, on par with Barbie and The Last Jedi, both of which A) topped $620 million domestically and B) topped $1.3 billion worldwide by the end of their respective theatrical runs. Among the 11 films to do so in 19 days or fewer, only Fate of the Furious ended below $1.3 billion (with a sad/shameful $1.236 billion), mainly because $390 million came from China and – unlike Furious 7 – it opened in China concurrently with its global release.
The tentpole is now taller than ever before.
The Pixar sequel is earning money faster than even Top Gun: Maverick, hailed in 2022 as the ultimate savior of all movies everywhere. To be fair, the Tom Cruise sequel was instrumental in pulling older and irregular moviegoers back into theaters for both itself and the likes of Elvis, Bullet Train and Where the Crawdads Sing. It also carried a disproportionate load (21% of the season’s $3.33 billion domestic cume) for a smaller-than-hoped-for tentpole slate. The chatter afforded to the likes of Top Gun: Maverick and Barbie compared to the $2.3 billion-grossing Avatar: The Way of Water (which was so dragged over its mere $425 million global debut by no-nothings that it dinged Disney’s stock for a week), is an amusing example of how the punditry picks and chooses its would-be theatrical saviors.
Inside Out 2, which fell just 43% in weekend three for a chart-topping $57.3 million, continues two COVID-era patterns. First, each year since 2021, a couple of tentpoles have pulled business that would have been considered absurd even in pre-COVID times to become one of the top-earning movies ever, with little to no help from China. It’ll also be yet another example of each year this decade – sans 2020, of course – offering multiple movies each year that shattered records even amid COVID variables, streaming competition and shrinking theatrical windows. The films that don’t break out may sometimes fail harder than they would have before, but the ones that become relative events (biggies like Oppenheimer and smaller-scale breakouts like Everything, Everywhere All at Once) perform better than they would have just a few years ago.
The theatrical recovery is occurring right here, right now.
It was (correctly) presumed that May would get this summer off to a quiet start. It was then assumed that Bad Boys: Ride or Die and A Quiet Place: Day One would do solid but not-spectacular business while Inside Out 2 would – we hoped - perform like last year’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($381 million/$691 million). Instead, Bad Boys 4 is playing like Bad Boys 3, the Quiet Place spin-off just opened bigger ($53 million) than the first two Quiet Place films and Inside Out 2 is playing like a 2010s Pixar sequel on steroids. This June, allow me some spitball math for films not remotely done yet, could be the biggest June – sans inflation –since 2018 ($1.5 billion domestic, with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Incredibles 2 totaling $1 billion by themselves).
Suppose the positive momentum continues. Suppose Despicable Me 4 earns “franchise business as usual” grosses (think $265-$365 million domestic and over/under $1 billion worldwide). Presume Twisters breaks, and it’s currently looking at a domestic debut anywhere from $65 million to $85 million, pending reviews. Hell, even if Deadpool & Wolverine only performs like a Deadpool flick (over/under $350 million domestic and around $750 million worldwide). We may have a July shockingly close to the #Barbenheimer-fueled mania of 2023 ($1.52 billion domestically). Deadpool & Wolverine is currently tracking at somewhere between Incredibles 2 ($183 million) and The Last Jedi ($220 million). If it performs like a multigenerational event flick (including being as kid-safe an R-rated action comedy as its predecessors... which its admission into China seems to imply), well, you see where this is going.
What’s changed for the better...
August is as crowded as it’s been since 2019, with M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap starting to look like the youth-skewing breakout I had hoped it would be. The last four months of the year will have a more conventional slate of big movies on the regular, like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in September, Venom: The Last Dance in October, Moana 2, Wicked Part I and Gladiator 2 in November and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Mufasa: The Lion King and Kraven the Hunter for Christmas intermixed with various horror biggies leading into a business-as-usual 2025 line-up. Unlike the strong May/June/July summer 2022 earn kneecapped by a near-empty August-October slate and the #Barbenheimer momentum undercut by a dual labor strike, there should be no stopping the train this time. No pandemic, no streaming, no strikes, no more excuses.
This year will again heavily depend upon Disney movies, including 20th Century Studio releases that once would have been competition for the Mouse House. However, from 2014 (Transformers: Age of Extinction) to 2022 (Top Gun: Maverick), every $1 billion earner came from either Disney or Universal or was a DC/Marvel offering (Aquaman, Joker, Spider-Man: Far from Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home). In this new decade, the mega hits can be WBD’s Barbie, Universal’s Super Mario Bros, Paramount’s Top Gun sequel or Disney’s $1.015 billion-and-counting Inside Out 2 *alongside* MCU movies from Sony or Disney. That’s not even counting a $920 million-grossing Oppenheimer or a $712 million-grossing Dune Part Two. To paraphrase Ratatouille, not every film can be a blockbuster, but for the first time in forever, it feels like a blockbuster can come from anywhere.