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[SidViscous]

Creative companies are neutered because of woke ideologies and corporate policies. They can't make anything that may offend anyone instead of just saying 'SAC UP and enjoy the show!'

I've heard this argument applied to comedy, which I can sort of understand, but even the classic Pixar movies were inoffensive and already quite progressive.

The blame surely lies with whoever is running the studio, they have hundreds of creatives working under them, probably have a pile of scripts to choose from, yet they pick ones like Lightyear and Elio, when random internet folk who don't have all the market research can predict them flopping from a mile away.

 

[wondermega]

I've a colleague working at Pixar (last I checked, it's been a couple of years) he was fairly disgusted with the politics over there, and at this point in it just for a paycheck. Sad. Pixar used to be such a shining beacon in the world of film/animation/computer graphics/on & on & on.

Last Pixar film I remember seeing was probably Incredibles 2? Major dropoff from the 1st one (vying for position of my favorite Pixar film, dunno if I will ever resolve that - perhaps Wall-E just on a technical level, if nothing else). Anyway whatever, things change, tasted come and go, and Pixar certainly had their time in the sun. Maybe they need to get burned to the ground to rise from the ashes. Anyway I am not going to speak to anything regarding this film since I know nothing about it, but at this point, why would I bother? Surely I am not the target demographic. It sounds like a few in this thread enjoyed it, so that's something..

 

[dragoonanime]

I really wish they would have stuck with the original story from the first teaser trailer that came out.

 

[OverHeat]

Wild Robot shit on this, dreamworks ftw!

 

[GymWolf]

Stopped giving a fuck about cg movies while i was in the middle of shrek 3, it sound like it was the smartest move...

 

[YCoCg]

Stopped giving a fuck about cg movies while i was in the middle of shrek 3, it sound like it was the smartest move...

There's a lot of good CG movies outside of Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks, Isle of Dogs by Wes Anderson is a good one (also check out Fantastic Mr Fox).

 

[GymWolf]

There's a lot of good CG movies outside of Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks, Isle of Dogs by Wes Anderson is a good one (also check out Fantastic Mr Fox).

I meant pixar\dreamworks movies.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

I've heard this argument applied to comedy, which I can sort of understand, but even the classic Pixar movies were inoffensive and already quite progressive.

The blame surely lies with whoever is running the Studio.

I can predict that Hoppers will be a 6 score movie.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Box Office: ‘28 Years Later’ Scares Up $30 Million Start, ‘Elio’ Lands Worst Debut in Pixar History With $21 Million

Universal's "How to Train Your Dragon" remake remained No. 1 in North America despite two newcomers, Pixar's "Elio" and Sony's "28 Years Later."

variety.com

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

The story follows Nero, a black cat living in Venice, who finds himself tangled up with a mysterious feline mafia. His life changes when he meets Maya, a young street musician. Together, they go on a journey of friendship, courage, and redemption

Pixar will explore a new artistic animation style, more painterly and emotional, very different from its usual CGI.

The visuals are expected to resemble a storybook in motion — expressive and poetic.

This is more interesting

 

[spookyfish]

Beanmouth roundly rejected by movie-going audiences.

This is a good thing.

 

[Vyse]

Didn't even know this existed. Not seen a single advert or article.

This was me. Just watched a trailer the other day. Feel like this was an afterthought or not a lot of faith behind it. Seems like most Disney movies these days. Moving forward it's going to be sequel city on existing IPs.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Disney destroyed Pixar when they sent every new Pixar film to streaming during the Corvid era

The studio never recovered from "Relegated to Disney+" status

Also a series of high profile woke bombs like Lightyear didn't help them

Now no one cares

Disney has destroyed so much value in the past 5 years, imagine controlling Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel and basically running all these incredibly loved and valued properties straight into the ground

 

[Hari Seldon]

I'm completely sympathetic to the "Pixar/Disney suck" argument. But I think the bigger issue is that there is an absolute massive bubble in marketing these days. When it pops it might take down the entire internet economy with it. But at some point people will figure out that the millions upon millions of dollars being spent on modern marketing is far less effective than a single old school TV commercial, and ad spend is going to massively plummet everywhere.

 

[Dacvak]

Thats disappointing to hear. I was excited due to the film dealing with Aliens from Space. That's one of my favorite topics I like to watch on YouTube

What are your favorite channels/videos?

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

today's Disney ruins everything it touches

Lasseter era was beautiful, but now it's gone. Pixar was once an animation company that had a deep rooted family spirit to it, but it increasingly has the scent of committee work and political priorities. The faster it simply dies, the better for its legacy in the long run.

 

[HRK69]

Now no one cares

Bro… it just opened to $35–40 million

You don't get that kind of money from no one caring

People showed up. Families made plans. Tickets were bought

While not covering its massive $300M budget, its not the box office of a studio nobody cares about. You don't pull in that kind of opening if the audience has completely checked ou

Y'all say stuff like this just to sound like you're in the know, but the numbers say otherwise. Try facts next time

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Bro… it just opened to $35–40 million

You don't get that kind of money from no one caring

People showed up. Families made plans. Tickets were bought

While not covering its massive $300M budget, its not the box office of a studio nobody cares about. You don't pull in that kind of opening if the audience has completely checked ou

Y'all say stuff like this just to sound like you're in the know, but the numbers say otherwise. Try facts next time

LMAO are you projecting?

It's Pixars biggest bomb of all time and may be the overall biggest bomb of 2025. The box office numbers are disastrous, it opened to lower numbers than Snow Brown and the Seven Differently Abled Short People despite having a pretty similar or possibly higher budget

This movie is going to lose Disney a minimum of $100-200 million depending on how much they spent on marketing

 

[HRK69]

LMAO are you projecting?

It's Pixars biggest bomb of all time and may be the overall biggest bomb of 2025. The box office numbers are disastrous, it opened to lower numbers than Snow Brown and the Seven Differently Abled Short People despite having a pretty similar or possibly higher budget

This movie is going to lose Disney a minimum of $100-200 million depending on how much they spent on marketing

Projecting what, exactly? That people showed up and bought tickets? Pointing out that $35–40 million means people still care isn't projection, it's just facts.
Projection would be pretending your personal dislike = global indifference. Which… kinda sounds like what you're doing

Elio might bomb financially, that's a separate conversation about budgeting and ROI, not audience interest. You said "no one cares," but tens of millions in opening weekend proves that plenty of people do care, even if the movie flops.

Also, maybe cool it with the fake movie titles. You're trying way too hard to be edgy instead of being accurate.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

What are your favorite channels/videos?

For Aliens content? It's been hard to actually find good channels. The Why Files is great but AJ is more of a skeptic. He doesn't disbelieve everything though and has said there have been certain topics he was skeptical about that by the end of his research, he actually started to believe that it's real

I just subscribed to Joe Rogan and I wish he would have more guests that deals with Aliens

 

[StueyDuck]

Disney Meddling in an era where the people running Disney were clueless...

literally the only thing to blame Pixar's demise on.

Nothing will ever beat that swath of movies that apparently they all came up with at a single dinner after Toy Story's success.

it was something like Finding Nemo, Wall-e, Bugs life, Cars and maybe the incredibles that were all conceived at that one dinner.

I don't remember the exact details, so those could be wrong, but the point was that their was an OG team of pixar with immense talent that have mostly left the studio leaving them with Disney plants.

 

[SidViscous]

Disney Meddling in an era where the people running Disney were clueless...

literally the only thing to blame Pixar's demise on.

Nothing will ever beat that swath of movies that apparently they all came up with at a single dinner after Toy Story's success.

it was something like Finding Nemo, Wall-e, Bugs life, Cars and maybe the incredibles that were all conceived at that one dinner.

I don't remember the exact details, so those could be wrong, but the point was that their was an OG team of pixar with immense talent that have mostly left the studio leaving them with Disney plants.

Ratatouille was inspired by the restaurant too, they should really go back there!

 

[jason10mm]

Old school Pixar told very universal, deeply HUMAN stories cloaked by enchanting characters and (for the time) exciting visual aesthetics. But now they started telling more narrow stories, overly focusing on human characters instead of fantasy ones, and their aesthetic has stagnated and been far surpassed by a half dozen other studios. It doesn't help that Disney puts out films that look and feel so similar to Pixar ones, to the point where most folks probably couldn't tell you which films were from which. So any failure from one carries into the others.

Pixar needs to stop all production, probably scrap 2-3rds of their output, and have a good think about what they want to do creatively. Alas, they will instead become (even more of) a sequel mill which will probably work for a few more films until they burn out of that goodwill as well. Wouldn't surprise me to see the studio folded and just absorbed into a larger Disney animation studio in the next 10 years.

 

[Trogdor1123]

34 million worldwide… oh wow… I thought it was domestic. Nope.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Disney just shotguns endless Marvel and animated flicks hoping they do well. These films have such a random mish mash of highs and lows in terms of quality and financial viability (sales) despite consistently having big budgets, I think they just churn them out for sake of keeping busy with a job knowing the corporate coffers are so big the company will always survive.

There was a time it seemed every Pixar movie was top quality and people wanted to watch them. Now it's a roll of the dice. What you got now is consistently high quantity, but not quality.

 

[p_xavier]

They lost me after the Panda movie about the girl's periods. Disgusting degenerate filth.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

They lost me after the Panda movie about the girl's periods. Disgusting degenerate filth.

The lost me with Soul.

I hate soul with all my soul.

 

[Doom85]

If one actually looks at the release schedule, Pixar actually hasn't increased output much more than normal. Only 2022 had two Pixar films released in it (sort of), all the others had one per year. 2026 may have two, but one could easily be delayed to the following year.

And of course, it's typical the films that underperform are talked about more than the ones that did well. The fact is Inside Out 2 was the highest grossing film of last year at 1.7 billion. Elemental was also a case of what seemed like a flop on opening weekend, but then it had legs and ended making up a small profit, though of course the latter details weren't discussed as much as its initial weekend (in fact, some people continued to be under the false impression the film flopped well after the fact).

The fact is post-2020, only Lightyear and now this film have underperformed. TWO films. Turning Red and Luca were released straight to Disney+ in most major countries. And two films post-2020 have been profitable, with Inside Out 2 being VERY profitable.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

34 million worldwide… oh wow… I thought it was domestic. Nope.

Yes, it's quietly a bigger disaster than Snow Brown

Snow Brown got all the attention because of stuff Rachel Zegler said but this one is actually going to be the bigger financial black hole for Disney

 

[Panajev2001a]

The fact is post-2020, only Lightyear and now this film have underperformed. TWO films. Turning Red and Luca were released straight to Disney+ in most major countries. And two films post-2020 have been profitable, with Inside Out 2 being VERY profitable.

Straight to Disney+ is not that great of a positive, unless subscribers numbers do not increase a looooot it is not sustainable. So out of that period of time we have two movies profitable and far more issues with the other movies especially creatively.

Lassiter being ousted did not really help…

 

[Outlier]

I guess I'd have to be a kid to find that soulless poster intriguing.

Like... all it shows me is that there are weird looking characters and maybe they'll do something, in the movie. lol

 

[YCoCg]

At least the Cat Mafia movie looks interesting next year.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

If one actually looks at the release schedule, Pixar actually hasn't increased output much more than normal. Only 2022 had two Pixar films released in it (sort of), all the others had one per year. 2026 may have two, but one could easily be delayed to the following year.

And of course, it's typical the films that underperform are talked about more than the ones that did well. The fact is Inside Out 2 was the highest grossing film of last year at 1.7 billion. Elemental was also a case of what seemed like a flop on opening weekend, but then it had legs and ended making up a small profit, though of course the latter details weren't discussed as much as its initial weekend (in fact, some people continued to be under the false impression the film flopped well after the fact).

The fact is post-2020, only Lightyear and now this film have underperformed. TWO films. Turning Red and Luca were released straight to Disney+ in most major countries. And two films post-2020 have been profitable, with Inside Out 2 being VERY profitable.

Skimming all their movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pixar_films

The majority of their movies get good critic reviews. Most are 90%+. But sales can be hit and miss now, especially adjusted for inflation. All those old movies adjusted for inflation are about 2x what they should be. And most would be $1B+ if they had USA prices now. Skimming avg ticket price links, movies were about $5-6 back then. Recently $9-11. Excluding limited release box office movies making low $$$ due to streaming/covid, Pixar movies now make hit and miss money compared to the old movies. It seemed to start with The Good Dinosaur.

In terms of quantity, 2015 is when they started churning out 2x movies per year sometimes. From 1995 to 2014, they had 14 movies over 19 years. They skipped years sometimes. From 2015 to 2025, they've done 15 movies in 10 years. And looking at the 2026 coming soon section at the bottom of the link, they got 2 more in 2026. And both are theatrical movies, not straight to streaming.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Just going by the pic, it was crazy when I saw that stuff. Never knew pistol pros did that weird eyewear shit. Looks retarded and a cheat IMO. Not sure why that would even be allowed.

Kim Yeji: Olympic Medalist and Her Unique Glasses

Kim Yeji. Laser Cataract Surgery. Cataract surgery & procedure for cataracts from cataract surgeons at Baltimore.

precisioneyemd.com

It would be like a weightlifter using some hydraulic robot arms to lift.

 

[Hudo]

The last Pixar movie I genuinely enjoyed was Up.

 

[Just_one]

The Nemo/Wall-E/Up era was Pixar at their best.

Also , i´ve said this a couple years ago , there are way many animated movies these days

 

[kruis]

The Nemo/Wall-E/Up era was Pixar at their best.

Also , i´ve said this a couple years ago , there are way many animated movies these days

The competition is also much stronger: the Miles Morales Spiderverse movies, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Wild Robot, Flow

 

[CompleteGlobalSaturation]

Does this movie have any 'woke' themes? It looks interesting; my son might enjoy it based on a quick read of the synopsis.

 

[Doom85]

Straight to Disney+ is not that great of a positive, unless subscribers numbers do not increase a looooot it is not sustainable. So out of that period of time we have two movies profitable and far more issues with the other movies especially creatively.

Lassiter being ousted did not really help…

That wasn't my point. My point was we can't say for certain how those films would have done if they had gotten a proper theatrical release. After all, the general response to Elemental pre-release was in the "eh" range, yet the film managed to do okay.

Creativity is subjective (and I wouldn't put any Pixar decade on this perfect pedestal some here are due to nostalgia, the Cars movies exist purely to sell toys, A Bug's Life is just an underwhelming knockoff of Seven Samurai, Brave was mostly okay but ultimately forgettable, and The Good Dinosaur was 98% mediocre), hence why I only brought up box office. Creatively speaking, I'm far more critical of the animated films that Illumination has released over the past decade compared to Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks. The last Illumination movie I can call charitably call "good" is the first Sing film, and since then their films have ranged from slightly below average to absolute shit to me. It's a shame, their animation teams are pretty good at their jobs, but even the weakest Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks scripts look like a David Fincher script compared to the high school dropout-level effort that the Illumination writers puts into most of their scripts.

Of course, Illumination films still do quite well at the box office, but that just proves why this notion that box office = quality that some try to push is laughable. After all, people may not be wanting to talk about it, but the fact is the Lilo and Stitch live action remake did extremely well at the box office (900+ million on a 100 million budget), and the How to Train Your Dragon live action remake is off to a very strong start as well. This is despite the fact that live action remakes would be considered here the height of a lack of creativity, and yet, the box office numbers show plenty of people want some of these remakes regardless.

Oh, and remember, Lasseter may have directed the first two Toy Story films, but he also directed A Bug's Life and the first two Cars films (the second Cars film is considered by a decent amount of people to be the worst film Pixar ever made, in fact Cars 3 more or less doesn't even acknowledge it happened though it is presumably still canon). And he hasn't exactly been working wonders at Skydance since he started there after he was fired from Pixar, I've not seen either of their first two films but they seem to have a general mixed response. I feel his firing is just used as an oversimplification to "explain" how some feel about some or most of Pixar's films after his firing.

 

[Doom85]

In terms of quantity, 2015 is when they started churning out 2x movies per year sometimes. From 1995 to 2014, they had 14 movies over 19 years. They skipped years sometimes. From 2015 to 2025, they've done 15 movies in 10 years. And looking at the 2026 coming soon section at the bottom of the link, they got 2 more in 2026. And both are theatrical movies, not straight to streaming.

You might want to look at the years more closely.

First of all, it took Pixar three years after Toy Story 1 to make A Bug's Life. They obviously were still getting used to being time efficient with the technology. And quite frankly, if stuff like A Bug's Life (let's remake Seven Samurai with bugs!) and Cars 1 and especially 2 (let's sell toys! Now let's make them spies or some shit, who cares?!) is among those films of 1995-2014, it shows less output doesn't always guarantee consistent story quality IMHO.

Also, 2015-2025 would be a span of 11 years, not 10. Not a major difference, but still.

I already discussed how only two Pixar films post-2020 were actual theatrical films that underperformed. We cannot know how two of them would have done as they did not get normal theatrical releases thus only wild speculation can be made how they would have done theatrically.

If we're talking 2016-2020:

Finding Dory - 1+ billion on a 200 million budget
Cars 3 - 380 million on a 175 million budget (this is one where merchandise sales are very relevant, seriously, in the US, some toy stores would devote an entire aisle to Cars alone)
Coco - 810 million on a 175-225 million budget
Incredibles 2 - 1.2 billion on a 200 million budget
Toy Story 4 - 1 billion on a 200 million budget
Onward - 140 million on a 175-200 million budget, however this March 2020 film did not get to last long in theaters due to this being the beginning of COVID in many areas
Soul - 150 million budget, and was released straight to Disney + in December 2020, however when it got a theatrical release in 2024, it managed to make 120 million despite having been on streaming for three years by that point

So basically, we have one sequel (Cars 2) that did okay at best, and one original film, Coco, that did great, possibly Soul did great as well but it's hard to know for sure as we don't have exact streaming viewing figures of the film (if someone claims otherwise, triple check that shit, from my understanding, people claiming to know exact streaming viewing numbers of most films or shows are making shit up) though it's reasonable to say it probably did at least decently if it could still manage to make that much theatrically after three years of it being available on streaming. But ultimately, I would say Soul can't be fully ranked one way or the other, and this is especially true for Onward given its circumstances in March 2020. And the other sequels? Massive successes.

Post-2020, we have two straight to Disney + releases, so it's hard to gauge how they would have done with normal theatrical releases, two films, one original, Elio, and one spinoff, Lightyear, that did poorly, and one original film, Elemental, that did decently and one sequel, Inside Out 2, that was a MASSIVE success at 1.7 billion.

So I really think we're jumping to conclusions to claim after only FOUR theatrical films, two successes and two not-successes, that they've started a "hit or miss" phase in terms of box office, especially as shown, 2016-2019 definitely can't qualify as part of said phase. If the trend keeps going, sure, but it seems premature to call it such this early.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

even the classic Pixar movies were inoffensive and already quite progressive.

I wouldn't say so -- not by today's standards.

The classic Pixar films seemed to be aimed at universal human experiences (primarily centered on family) and did not participate in any hand wringing over representation or diversity in today's terms.

if you look at Toy Story, the boy and his mom depict a very typical White-suburban 80s/90s life. There is zero apology for this, nor for his heroes being essentially "cowboy and space man", zero need to try and inject anything else into that picture.

Finding Nemo is just "a dad and his son" at the core. The original Incredibles was also utterly unapologetic in the fully traditional aspects of its family structure. UP is simply beautiful at its core in its depiction of the life of Ellie and Carl, but in a maturely handled way that today's Pixar couldn't fathom.

If anything, a sentimental depiction of traditional family is the core of all their classic films, and it never tried to shove in some apology for it, nor even the slightest injection of diversity for its own sake. Today, it doesn't feel like that at all... it feels like committee work, calculated, and childish in its surface emotionalizing instead of the mature emotional core of a more tempered family arc.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You might want to look at the years more closely.

First of all, it took Pixar three years after Toy Story 1 to make A Bug's Life. They obviously were still getting used to being time efficient with the technology. And quite frankly, if stuff like A Bug's Life (let's remake Seven Samurai with bugs!) and Cars 1 and especially 2 (let's sell toys! Now let's make them spies or some shit, who cares?!) is among those films of 1995-2014, it shows less output doesn't always guarantee consistent story quality IMHO.

Also, 2015-2025 would be a span of 11 years, not 10. Not a major difference, but still.

I already discussed how only two Pixar films post-2020 were actual theatrical films that underperformed. We cannot know how two of them would have done as they did not get normal theatrical releases thus only wild speculation can be made how they would have done theatrically.

If we're talking 2016-2020:

Finding Dory - 1+ billion on a 200 million budget
Cars 3 - 380 million on a 175 million budget (this is one where merchandise sales are very relevant, seriously, in the US, some toy stores would devote an entire aisle to Cars alone)
Coco - 810 million on a 175-225 million budget
Incredibles 2 - 1.2 billion on a 200 million budget
Toy Story 4 - 1 billion on a 200 million budget
Onward - 140 million on a 175-200 million budget, however this March 2020 film did not get to last long in theaters due to this being the beginning of COVID in many areas
Soul - 150 million budget, and was released straight to Disney + in December 2020, however when it got a theatrical release in 2024, it managed to make 120 million despite having been on streaming for three years by that point

So basically, we have one sequel (Cars 2) that did okay at best, and one original film, Coco, that did great, possibly Soul did great as well but it's hard to know for sure as we don't have exact streaming viewing figures of the film (if someone claims otherwise, triple check that shit, from my understanding, people claiming to know exact streaming viewing numbers of most films or shows are making shit up) though it's reasonable to say it probably did at least decently if it could still manage to make that much theatrically after three years of it being available on streaming. But ultimately, I would say Soul can't be fully ranked one way or the other, and this is especially true for Onward given its circumstances in March 2020. And the other sequels? Massive successes.

Post-2020, we have two straight to Disney + releases, so it's hard to gauge how they would have done with normal theatrical releases, two films, one original, Elio, and one spinoff, Lightyear, that did poorly, and one original film, Elemental, that did decently and one sequel, Inside Out 2, that was a MASSIVE success at 1.7 billion.

So I really think we're jumping to conclusions to claim after only FOUR theatrical films, two successes and two not-successes, that they've started a "hit or miss" phase in terms of box office, especially as shown, 2016-2019 definitely can't qualify as part of said phase. If the trend keeps going, sure, but it seems premature to call it such this early.

And then going from 1995 to 2014, that's 20 years.

Makes no difference about early films and tech because from 1995-2014, they had many years with no movies, even including 2014. And no double movies per year. 2015 and onward it's been 4 years with double movies. 2026 too (both theatre releases) which will make it 5. The production rate based on releases and years is literally about double.

The money part, you missed out on 2015, which is Pixar's first double movie year, since Good Dinosaur did poorly (among of the worst box office and rated movies). Also, many of the early movies did even better when factoring in lower ticket prices. Some older movies like Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3 did about $1B each and they came out 15-20 years ago at lower prices. Early movies had lower budgets too. It wasnt till Ratatouille 2007 where budgets amped up to $150M+. Since then, most movies have a ballpark budget of $200M-ish. Before Ratatoulle, budgets were about $100M or less.

I already said covid related movies should excluded from sales analysis.

But lately, 3 financial bombs out of 4 isn't good. At the bottom of the Pixar link I originally pasted, I missed this good recap chart. Not only does it show critic scores but audience scores. It's been trending down. The last 4 films have especially bombed down. Before that, Critic reviews were consistently high except Cars movies always seem to be lousy compared to the rest. And audience scores have been trending down since Cars 2. With the last 4 movies really sinking. Even Inside out 2 only had a 73 audience score though it made great money.

List of Pixar films - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You can see in the chart, it's like Pixar performs in waves and it's getting worse. That golden age (around their first 10 years performed great in money and all reviews), then another wave of good, then since covid it's been getting sketchier. One thing that is consistent too is whenever a Cars movie pops up, it doesnt do great sales or reviews wise vs the avg Pixar flm.

Also, if you look at the awards chart at the bottom, old Pixar films used to be part of many awards (or at least be considered). Again, once Cars 2 came out, everything sunk.

I'm no Pixar pro, I'm just going on skimming stats. And it looks like once Cars 2 came out, that's when things have started going south.

 

[Doom85]

And then going from 1995 to 2014, that's 20 years.

Makes no difference about early films and tech because from 1995-2014, they had many years with no movies, even including 2014. And no double movies per year. 2015 and onward it's been 4 years with double movies. 2026 too (both theatre releases) which will make it 5. The production rate based on releases and years is literally about double.

The money part, you missed out on 2015, which is Pixar's first double movie year, since Good Dinosaur did poorly (among of the worst box office and rated movies). Also, many of the early movies did even better when factoring in lower ticket prices. Some older movies like Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3 did about $1B each and they came out 15-20 years ago at lower prices. Early movies had lower budgets too. It wasnt till Ratatouille 2007 where budgets amped up to $150M+. Since then, most movies have a ballpark budget of $200M-ish. Before Ratatoulle, budgets were about $100M or less.

I already said covid related movies should excluded from sales analysis.

But lately, 3 financial bombs out of 4 isn't good. At the bottom of the Pixar link I originally pasted, I missed this good recap chart. Not only does it show critic scores but audience scores. It's been trending down. The last 4 films have especially bombed down. Before that, Critic reviews were consistently high except Cars movies always seem to be lousy compared to the rest. And audience scores have been trending down since Cars 2. With the last 4 movies really sinking. Even Inside out 2 only had a 73 audience score though it made great money.

List of Pixar films - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You can see in the chart, it's like Pixar performs in waves and it's getting worse. That golden age (around their first 10 years performed great in money and all reviews), then another wave of good, then since covid it's been getting sketchier. One thing that is consistent too is whenever a Cars movie pops up, it doesnt do great sales or reviews wise vs the avg Pixar flm.

Also, if you look at the awards chart at the bottom, old Pixar films used to be part of many awards (or at least be considered). Again, once Cars 2 came out, everything sunk.

I'm no Pixar pro, I'm just going on skimming stats. And it looks like once Cars 2 came out, that's when things have started going south.

You might want to apply inflation to the budgets too, it's throwing your numbers way off. You claim Ratatouille was the first 150 million budget, but I only had to look at Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc and adjust their budget numbers by inflation to know that's incorrect. So no, Pixar budgets actually haven't massively increased.

Regardless, you're forgetting Pixar had far less competition in those early years. Disney themselves wouldn't start making very successful 3D animated movie until the 2010s, and Illumination wouldn't rear its ugly head until 2010.

3 financial bombs? There's only Lightyear and Elio in terms of theater releases. What other Pixar film are you talking about. Elemental was not a bomb.

Where are you getting your audience scores? Rotten Tomatoes is the only one I trust as it requires one to have purchased a ticket to submit a score, thus preventing false ratings by people who haven't even seen the movie.

And Inside Out 2?

Inside Out 2 | Rotten Tomatoes

Discover reviews, ratings, and trailers for Inside Out 2 on Rotten Tomatoes. Stay updated with critic and audience scores today!

www.rottentomatoes.com

91 critic score, 95 audience score.

I dunno why you're bringing in awards here, most question them anyway. Heck, Brave won the Animated Oscar for the year of its release despite most agreeing Wreck-it-Ralph and Paranorman were much more deserving, never mind the baffling decision of The LEGO Movie not even getting a nomination.

 

[Sgt.Asher]

I first learned of Elio from a ziploc commercial. I didn't know it was pixar until right before release, It looked like a cheap shit Illumination movie.

 

[Doom85]

I first learned of Elio from a ziploc commercial. I didn't know it was pixar until right before release, It looked like a cheap shit Illumination movie.

Honestly, this is what makes the estimates for the marketing budget kind of suspect. Most seem to agree that Disney was far more focused on advertising the Lilo and Stitch live action remake over Elio. While Elio will still be a bomb, I don't think the marketing budget is as massive as the estimates are claiming.

 

[killatopak]

I dunno, The last time I actually felt excited about a Disney kids film was Toy Story 3.

Maybe because I grew up and isn't the target audience anymore but I think this feeling that anything Disney puts out is must see is gone. I think Disney+ plays a large role as well.

 

[kpopSuperstar]

Wild Robot shit on this, dreamworks ftw!

Was that the one where the animals stopped eating each other and lived in peace? the only thing I could think of at the end was that they are all gonna starve and die in a week.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You might want to apply inflation to the budgets too, it's throwing your numbers way off. You claim Ratatouille was the first 150 million budget, but I only had to look at Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc and adjust their budget numbers by inflation to know that's incorrect. So no, Pixar budgets actually haven't massively increased.

Regardless, you're forgetting Pixar had far less competition in those early years. Disney themselves wouldn't start making very successful 3D animated movie until the 2010s, and Illumination wouldn't rear its ugly head until 2010.

3 financial bombs? There's only Lightyear and Elio in terms of theater releases. What other Pixar film are you talking about. Elemental was not a bomb.

Where are you getting your audience scores? Rotten Tomatoes is the only one I trust as it requires one to have purchased a ticket to submit a score, thus preventing false ratings by people who haven't even seen the movie.

And Inside Out 2?

Inside Out 2 | Rotten Tomatoes

Discover reviews, ratings, and trailers for Inside Out 2 on Rotten Tomatoes. Stay updated with critic and audience scores today!

www.rottentomatoes.com

91 critic score, 95 audience score.

I dunno why you're bringing in awards here, most question them anyway. Heck, Brave won the Animated Oscar for the year of its release despite most agreeing Wreck-it-Ralph and Paranorman were much more deserving, never mind the baffling decision of The LEGO Movie not even getting a nomination.

My mistake. Metacritic scores, not audience scores.

And Elemental at $500M is not good performance for a Pixar movie in modern day. That movie is among the worst performing movies in their entire catalog excluding covid years. Only did better than original TS and Bug's 30 years ago, Cars movies (which all seem to do lousy), Good Dinosaur and Buzz. $500M is probably the equivalent of $250-300M 30 years ago.

We can agree to disagree. But compared to Pixar's older gen of movies, their older movies rated and sales consistently well. Pixars movies now are hit and miss and they make way more movies including 2x years as they pump them out like Marvel movies, which they never did their first 20 years. And sprinkled throughout their history no matter when it releases, all 3 Cars movies do poorly in reviews and money.

As the recap links I posted above, once Cars 2 came out in 2011 is when RT, MC and $$$ generated really got shakier. Just by luck at that year is the mid way point between TS 1 and now. First half did consistently better.

 

[Jinxed]

I didn't even know this existed. Pixar is basically irrelevant in our household now. It's honestly kind of sad, we went from watching Cars non-stop me and my son and treating every new Pixar release as a family event to this...

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I didn't even know this existed. Pixar is basically irrelevant in our household now. It's honestly kind of sad, we went from watching Cars non-stop me and my son and treating every new Pixar release as a family event to this...

Was always surprised Disney never became a giant video game maker. On paper, you'd think with all the legacy franchises they got they'd be able to release top notch games skewing to younger gamers. Then have a department that makes games for older people.

If they got giant money for animation, TV, movies, theme parks, it doesn't sound impossible to spend money to build a giant gaming department. Instead, it seems they prefer licensing out an IP to a game studio and ride the wave of royalty fees instead controlling the content's quality.

They got so many big budget products, their commitment to marketing (like Elio as there is no way they spent tons of money on this as many people have said they never heard of it) is hit and miss. If this was Toy Story, everyone on Earth would know about it. Elio is a huge budget movie and marketing seems muted unless just by luck all of us (me included) who thinks there's been limited marketing are all wrong and just missed all the promotions on TV and the net or cereal boxes.