Amy Poehler and Maya Hawke voice Joy and Anxiety, respectively, in Disney and Pixar's “Inside Out 2.”
Disney| Pixar
Disney and Pixar's “Inside Out 2” is the newest member of the billion-dollar club.
The animated film grossed $1.014 billion worldwide as of Sunday, making it the top-grossing film of 2024 and the first film since Warner Bros.' “Barbie” to top the $1 billion mark at the global box office.
“On behalf of theater owners across the country and around the world, we want to congratulate Disney's 'Inside Out 2' for grossing $1 billion faster than any animated film in history,” said Michael O'Leary, president and CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners. “The film's stunning global success illustrates once again that audiences around the world respond to compelling, entertaining movies, and they want to enjoy them on the big screen.”
The billion-dollar benchmark is a much-needed win for Disney's Pixar animation hub. Pixar, once a highly successful studio, has suffered at the box office due to the pandemic. Many of the problems arose in part because Disney chose to debut a handful of animated films directly on the Disney+ streaming service during theater closures and even after cinemas reopened.
As a result, since 2019, before Inside Out 2, no Disney animated film from Pixar or its Walt Disney Animation studio has grossed more than $480 million at the global box office.
“Inside Out 2” also showed how important family audiences are to the box office. This underserved audience accounted for more than 70% of attendance at the film's domestic premiere, according to data from EntTelligence.
Although this audience showed up in droves for Universal's 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie', which grossed over $1.36 billion at the worldwide box office, had little for them to enjoy until the recent releases of Sony's “The Garfield Movie” and Paramount's “IF.”
“Inside Out 2” also drove the sought-after teenage target group to the cinema, with 14% of attendees aged 13 to 17. This younger generation has been largely absent from the market in recent years.
As the future of moviegoing, this demographic is particularly important to the industry, and getting them back on the big screen has become a top priority for studios and cinema operators.
Next up for families and teens is Universal and Illumination's “Despicable Me 4,” which hits theaters over the July 4 holiday weekend.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.
