The Pixar unit of Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) has been responsible for massive box office hits like the Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Monsters Inc. franchises. The latest Pixar film is breaking records, but not in a good way.
What Happened: New Disney film "Elio" from Pixar struggled in its box office debut, ranking third behind "28 Years Later" and the live-action family-friendly, "How to Train Your Dragon."
"Elio" grossed $21 million domestically during its opening weekend, which is the worst open for a Pixar film in modern history, as reported by Variety. Estimates for the film predicted it would open with $25 million to $30 million domestically.
Adding in $14 million from international theaters, the film grossed $35 million worldwide in its opening weekend.
This is the only Pixar film set for a 2025 release and will hurt Disney in comparable sales as it goes up against the 2024 hit "Inside Out 2," which grossed $1.69 billion worldwide. Outside of "Inside Out 2," the Pixar unit has struggled to produce hits in recent years, with several of the original films sent to the Disney+ streaming platform instead of theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The miss by "Elio" comes with kid-friendly movies showing strong performance in 2025 for movie studios and movie theater chains like AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE:AMC) and Cinemark Holdings (NYSE:CNK).
"How to Train Your Dragon" topped the box office for the weekend with $37 million, adding to its impressive $83 million debut from last week. Domestically, the film has made $160.4 million to rank seventh in 2025.
In fact, five of the top 10 grossing films in 2025 are kid-friendly, including several from Disney. "A Minecraft Movie" ranks first at $423.9 million, followed by Disney's live-action "Lilo & Stitch" at $386.7 million. "How to Train Your Dragon" ranks seventh followed by 2024 carryover "Mufasa: The Lion King," which has made $126.4 million in 2025 and "Dog Man," ranking 10th.
Along with a strong showing of kid-friendly movies, Disney shows a strong dominance among the top-grossing movies with "Lilo & Stitch" in second, "Captain America: Brave New World" in fourth, "Thunderbolts" in fifth and "Mufasa" in ninth. Just outside of the top 10 is "Snow White" at 11th with $87.2 million domestically.
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What's Next: The new low for Pixar breaks the 2023 domestic total of "Elemental," which opened with $29.6 million domestically. That film went on to manage a respectable box office before it left theaters thanks to strong reviews.
"Elemental" grossed $155 million domestically and $496 million worldwide. With a strong "A" rating on CinemaScore and 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for "Elio," Disney will be hoping for a similar rebound for its latest Pixar film.
Disney shareholders looking ahead at the 2025 release schedule likely aren't too worried about the weak "Elio" opening. While the film being a big miss is definitely worrisome, it comes with Disney having more blockbusters set for release the rest of the year, including:
- "The Fantastic Four: First Steps": July 25
- "Tron: Ares": Oct. 10
- "Zootopia 2": Nov. 26
- "Avatar: Fire and Ash": Dec. 19
Disney hit $2 billion at the domestic box office in 2025 for the second time since 2019. With a strong lineup of films and a total already over $1 billion year-to-date, the media giant could hit this milestone again.
Expectations were not overly high for "Elio" given it was an original film and not from an existing franchise. The lineup above shows films from existing franchises and proven success, which sets Disney up for a potential strong second half of 2025.
DIS Price Action: Disney stock was trading down 1.07% at $116.37 on Monday at publication versus a 52-week trading range of $80.10 to $120.50. Disney stock is up 5.7% year-to-date in 2025 and up 14.8% over the last year.
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