It was a tough weekend for Pixar as Elemental failed to deliver the already lowered opening weekend expectation numbers for the studio’s 27th feature. The movie, which is directed by Peter Sohn (The Good Dinosaur), brought in an estimated $33.5 million in its first four days at the U.S. box office from 4,035 theaters. Overseas, the movie took in $15 million, making it worldwide total an underwhelming $48.5 million. The domestic opening numbers fell below 2015’s The Good Dinosaur ($39 million) and 2020’s Onward ($39 million).
However, the audience scores for the movie have been quite positive. Elemental has received an “A” rating from CinemaScore. Critics were less kind to the movie, which looks at a forbidden love between a fire girl and a water boy from different worlds of elements, giving it a mediocre 76 % score on the review aggregator site.
Box office observers pointed out that one of the reason the film had a hard time attracting big audiences was because it was a complete original, and it wasn’t based on familiar properties such as blockbusters such as Sony Pictures’ Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse or Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movies. Another reason sited was that audiences have become accustomed to viewing Pixar movies at home on Disney+.
Elemental has two more weeks until it gets brand new animation competition from DreamWorks’ summer movie, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken.
Sources: Deadline.com, Variety, Box Office Mojo
