There were a lot of high expectations for Toy Story 4. It reunites an all-star cast in a time when big sequels and remakes are all the rage in Hollywood. Despite being disappointing by not reaching expectations, the movie did pull in a respectable $118 million during opening weekend and it’s a number the Pixar team should be proud of.
It appears as if sequels have not been doing too well lately. Hollywood’s fix for unoriginal ideas is to keep bringing back the big characters that have sold well before. Disney and Pixar didn’t really need a huge hit on their hands. They still reign supreme currently. Disney was also hoping to push Avengers: Endgame this weekend into the #1 of all time slot.
Toy Story 4 is only the third movie this year to hit triple-digit million-dollar hauls opening weekend and is still a top debut for an animated movie. Also still in the mix is Disney’s “Aladdin” remake, which crossed the $800 million mark. It would appear as if Disney might have way too many hands in the cookie jar currently. Still, Toy Story 4 is a hit.
“Audiences are loving this movie,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior box office analyst at Comscore. “That should portend long-term playability for the film. [Pixar] can build on this perception of quality that should carry it forward quite nicely.”
Disney’s Continued Dominance
Currently, Disney films are making up about 30% of the year’s total market share. That’s a lot of money! After their merger with Fox and other dominant outings, Disney is poised to have its best year on record. They’re even responsible for the four largest movies out this year, with Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin, Captain Marvel, and now Toy Story 4. This is all while the year-to-date ticket sales have been average downward.
In the coming weeks and months, we expect Disney to continue pushing out content. With their release of Disney+ later this year, they’re also pushing out their live version remake of The Lion King, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and Frozen 2. It’s currently all hands on deck for the Disney crew. They’ve spent billions acquiring all of these properties and it has paid off for them in a major way.
“When you’re at the top of your game, that’s the blessing and the curse,” Dergarabedian said. “Everything you do is under a brighter spotlight.”
The problem with Toy Story 4 most likely is a little franchise fatigue. An $118 million opening weekend is far from being a failure, but there is just so much out there right now to choose from, especially with the likes of Godzilla and other mega-franchises still in theaters. Still, Toy Story 4 revealed the best opening of the franchise, so there should be no worries about whether this franchise is still a hit. It is.
