Pixar's Elemental Passes $300 Million At The Global Box Office In Major Reversal Of Fortune

Just a few weeks ago, industry analysts such as myself were looking upon the opening weekend box office numbers for Pixar's "Elemental" and mourning what appeared to be another financial disappointment. The $200 million budgeted Disney film from the storied animation house opened against "The Flash" and had to settle for a rather distant second place with a $29 million start. It seemed like a relative disaster given the studio's past and the competition coming down the pipeline this summer. Yet, here we are a month later, and the film has experienced an absolutely remarkable reversal of fortune. So much so that it has now sailed past the $300 million mark worldwide and maybe, just maybe, will call itself a bona fide theatrical success when all's said and done.

According to Box Office Mojo, "Elemental" has now earned $311.6 million worldwide, putting it above "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" ($302.3 million) to make it the ninth highest-grossing movie of the year thus far. A very solid $8.7 million fifth weekend domestically helped put the animated original over the top, representing just a 13% drop from the prior weekend. The movie also pulled in a stellar $28.2 million overseas, which was just a 6% drop. So yeah, audiences are catching onto this one in a big, bad way. The fact that it has managed to hold well enough week-to-week to put it above "Indy" at this stage in the game is nothing shy of outstanding.

Director Peter Sohn's fantastical film about forbidden love between a fire-based being and a water-based being is benefiting from tremendous word of mouth. It carries an A CinemaScore and a 92% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics were generally positive as well, and you can read our 7 out of 10 review right here.

That is the key difference right now when it comes to how this movie has managed to overcome disaster. For the sake of contrast, "The Flash" has fallen from grace in spectacular fashion and has already firmly fallen out of the top ten on the charts. It will soon disappear from theaters altogether as it's already available on VOD and probably won't reach $300 million worldwide in total. Moviegoers simply weren't all that positive about it. "Elemental," meanwhile, has an excellent shot at hitting $400 million worldwide at this point, and if things continue to go extremely well, it could (emphasis on could) get closer to $500 million. Legs like this are extremely rare, but it almost always comes down to genuine buzz from moviegoers. That's what we're seeing here. 

If that happens, Disney and Pixar could count this as a straight-up win. Even on a $200 million budget, $500 million would be enough to get the film to profits, particularly after VOD, Blu-ray sales, and the value it brings to Disney+ are factored in. But even if it gets to $400 million, it would save the film from being an outright disaster. More importantly, it is enough to demonstrate that audiences will still show up for Pixar films in theaters — when provided the opportunity.

Fortunately, Disney CEO Bob Iger has already acknowledged that sending original Pixar films such as "Soul" and "Turning Red" to Disney+ did damage to the brand. The company is now looking to course correct, and this movie's crazy turnaround is proof that Pixar can still absolutely be a viable, theatrical brand. This is turning into the feel-good story of the summer.

"Elemental" is in theaters now.