Pixar’s smash-hit sequel has reached yet another record milestone for Disney, as Inside Out 2 became the first-ever animated feature to surpass $1 billion in international box office. Already in an elite club of just 55 films to gross over $1B globally (international plus domestic), which includes just 11 animated features (eight of them from Disney/Pixar), the Kelsey Mann-directed emotional journey is now also one of just 12 films to hit the overseas B.O. milestone, and the only animated one.
(Once again, the contested nature of Disney’s 2019 The Lion King remake raises quibbles, as the photoreal CG feature hit $1.1B internationally — however, the studio classifies this blockbuster as a “live-action” feature.)
Inside Out 2 had already been crowned the biggest release of 2024 and the highest-grossing animated feature of all time (surpassing 2019’s Frozen II in its sixth week), and now sits on a comfortable $1.649 billion globally ($1.002B international / $ 646.3 million domestically). The film has set opening and total take records in a number of overseas markets; to date, its strongest performances have been in Mexico ($1.2.2M), Brazil ($80M), the U.K. ($72.7M), France ($62.6M) and Korea ($60.8M).
Previous records set by the return of Riley’s emotions include being the fastest animated film to hit $1B globally (19 days), the biggest global animated opening of all time ($292M) and second-biggest animated opening domestically ($154M).
Meanwhile, a piece of animation history proves its enduring popularity as LAIKA’s 15th anniversary re-release of Coraline — in a stunning remaster of the shot-in-3D stop-motion animation — continues to outpace expectations. Directed by Henry Selick, the acclaimed film reported a global weekend take of $3.2M on Saturday (+54% over the prior day) and is forecasting $2.4M for Sunday, with an expected weekend gross of $7.7M putting the big-screen return at $37.7M over 11 days.
Saturday’s U.S. box-office total of $2.1M added to Friday’s take and Sunday’s forecast of $1.55M brings the Stateside weekend total to $5M. Including Canada, the total domestic weekend forecast is $5.71M.
International box office (including Canada) for Saturday was $1.1M, and Sunday is forecast at $843K for a weekend total of $2.68M. In the U.K., Coraline surpassed ET in the all-time top re-releases list, where it is now second only to last year’s Titanic re-release. Coraline has also out-earned its original release gross box office in Mexico and is close to surpassing the 1.6M total admits from 2009.
LAIKA’s blue-haired heroine is still due to open her 15th anniversary encore in overseas markets including France.
[Sources: Variety, LAIKA]
