Pixar’s new animated film Elementary debuted with $30 million in ticket sales at the U.S. and Canadian box office over the weekend, according to estimates from distributor Walt Disney Co. on Sunday.
The opening number for the United States and Canada fell short of box office predictions and ranked among the lowest ever for a film from Pixar, the acclaimed animation studio behind Toy Story, Finding Nemo and other classics.
Elementary, a story about overcoming foreign differences, added $15 million overseas for a worldwide total of $45 million, Disney said. The film has just opened in three major international markets and will expand to other countries in the coming weeks.
Pixar is looking to bounce back from the box office disappointment of its 2022 release Lightyear, its origin story The history of games hero Buzz Lightyear. The film brought in US$226.7 million in worldwide ticket sales, a fraction of 2019’s US$1 billion Toy Story 4.
Its director and producer Lightyear were laid off last month, Reuters first reported, as Disney cut 7,000 jobs across the company in an effort to cut costs.
Elementary takes place in Element City, where the characters of Fire, Water, Earth and Air live together. An unlikely friendship between Fire and Water borrows from director Peter Sean’s relationship with his Italian-American wife, which he initially hid from his parents. – Reuters
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