When Disney Pixar released its latest project, an animated film called "Elemental," the initial reaction was more than a little lackluster. The film, which had a $200 million budget, boasted the worst opening weekend in Pixar's history, bringing in less than $30 million domestically.
Analysts at the time looked at the definitive flop as a bit of an inflection point for Disney (DIS) -). Tom Rogers, the founder of CNBC and former president of NBC Cable, said at the time that "It looks as if they have a creative slump issue in the animation area. Those things are fixable, but they gotta fix it."
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But in the weeks since the film opened (and flopped) in theaters around the world, it has remained a persistent force, bringing in $148 million in ticket sales in North America and $425 million in ticket sales worldwide.
Pixar president Jim Morris told Variety Aug. 9 that "it should do better than break even theatrically." And that's before the revenue from "streaming, theme parks and consumer products. This will certainly be a profitable film for the Disney company."
Morris explained that finding theatrical success now requires audiences to get over two significant roadblocks: one, the cost of taking a family to see a movie, and two, the Covid-era adjustment to new movies coming straight to streaming on Disney+.
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"We have a little work to unring the bell and motivate families to go to the theater and not wait a few months to see it on Disney+," he said. "We make our films for the big screen. We love for people to see them with an audience."
And that hefty budget, Morris explained, is due in main part to the fact that Pixar and Disney Animation make their films in the U.S.
"One of the ways you make these films for less money, and almost all of our competitors do this, is to do work offshore. It’s only us and Disney Animation that makes animation films in the U.S. anymore with all of the artists under one roof," he said. "'Elemental' was particularly expensive because all the characters have visual effects."
It was recently reported that Disney created an AI task force whose goal is to study the different ways the technology can be applied across the company's many verticals, a move that remains active even as actors and writers are striking to impose guardrails on AI in Hollywood.
