Is Pixar's Comeback Happening?

Beloved animated movie, Inside Out, came back with its sequel this month and smashed box office expectations.

Debuting nine years after the original, Pixar's Inside Out 2 was forecast to make about $90 million in its opening weekend at the domestic box office.

Instead the movie blew that figure out of the water with a whopping $154 million, making it the second-biggest opening for an animated movie in the domestic market of all time, according to Box Office Mojo.

Those great results beg the question as to whether the movie will help to turn around the fortunes of animation studio Pixar and whether it could help spell an upturn for parent company Disney after a string of flops and disappointing financial results.

"Disney has much bigger problems," Alexander Ross, film industry expert at Yale University told Newsweek. "One successful picture to them is a drop in the ocean [for Disney]. All their boardroom issues aside, the company has completely lost its sense of direction."

Newsweek contacted Disney by email for comment.

Disney bought Pixar, which is responsible for mega-hits such as the Toy Story and Monsters Inc franchises.

Pixar's woes began during the COVID pandemic when Disney decided the films Luca, Soul and Turning Red should go straight to its streaming service, Disney+ despite cinemas beginning to reopen. But Disney+ has struggled to retain subscribers as CEO Bob Iger promises to return to making quality content rather than just churning out movies for the sake of trying to compete with other streamers.

After COVID, Pixar released Lightyear to theaters, its first movie since the pandemic, and because it was in the Toy Story universe it was thought to be a sure fire hit. But it only made $118.3 million at the U.S. box office, a paltry figure for a studio whose movies average at least $226 million locally, according to The Numbers and which has four movies in the top 50 highest grossing movies of all time.

Then earlier this year, Pixar announced there would be major layoffs within the studio, with the number at around 14 percent.

Inside Out 2 may be a sign of a Pixar resurgence, but its success is probably down to many other factors, including nostalgia, and this won't be enough to help fix Pixar's issues.

"The summer is still a great time to release a family picture and families still see going to the movies as part of their summertime entertainment portfolio, instead of just staying at home and endlessly streaming content," Ross said.

Hollywood insider, Matthew Belloni shared a similar sentiment.

"It [the success] says to me that when people decide they're in on a movie, it goes nuts like this," Belloni said on Tuesday's episode of his podcast, The Town, referring to the fact that Inside Out 2 was likely buoyed by the love for its predecessor.

He added: "I think they got teens too, who loved this movie when they were 10, 11, 12 and now they're 20, 21, 22, and they went this weekend."

Ross said that for Pixar to improve its fortunes it has to change how it makes its content.

"Pixar is hampered by its own creative inflexibility," he said. "Their insistence on working with in-house talent has long meant that they largely do not benefit from the input of the myriads of highly creative people in the film industry who work outside Pixar's portals."

Ross explained Pixar tends to only release tested content and scraps its "stinkers" and this "accounts for their outstanding batting average."

"Pixar is not smarter or better than most other content providers, they just don't tell if you if they have a stinker on their hands," said Ross. "So, it is nice for them to have a hit. It will give them some breathing room in the otherwise claustrophobic Disney space."

Correction July 9, 11:14 am ET: Added a missing word: "year"