The positioning of Disney’s next feature length animated film is worrisome. The movie will only have a single week of theatrical runway before Indiana Jones 5 debuts.
What in the world are the folks at Disney’s theatrical release scheduling team thinking? Elemental, Pixar’s next animated movie, is heading to cinemas across the world on June 16th. That means it will only have one week before Indiana Jones launches; expectations are that Indy will dominate the box office for at least one week. Even though there are no guarantees that Harrison Ford will have an astounding performance, it seems apparent that Disney has little hope in Elemental given that they’ll be competing with themselves after a single week.
One argument you might hear from some true-believers in Elemental’s chances is that the movie is aiming at a different demographic than Indy 5. Yet that also doesn’t make sense. All other Indiana Jones movies (sans perhaps Temple of Doom unintentionally) have been full-family fare at the cinemas. How many people today went to see Indiana Jones as a child and came away with their minds transformed? Then continuing in that same vein, surely we can presume that Elemental’s Father’s Day Weekend launch would indicate it’s a film well-positioned for dads and sons. Maybe that’s not true, but then why would you go for that weekend otherwise? If that turns out to be the case, Indiana Jones 5 and Elemental are going to be literally fighting against each other at the box office — and yet they’re from the same company.
You want more signs of worry?
Box office prognosticators are already assuming that Elemental won’t be in 2023’s Top Ten financially successful films. But do you know who they are thinking will have a great run? Disney’s biggest upcoming competitive film franchise: Mario / Nintendo.
Has Disney already conceded the 2023 animation crown to Illumination yet again?
There’s more box office weirdness for Disney. Indiana Jones 5 will perform according to its quality, more than likely, but even it will only have two weeks relatively free of major “knock-you-off-the-top” competition. Tom Cruise’s next Mission Impossible will come out two weeks after Indy. And with that, it may be a tough summer for Disney.
Thank goodness they still have Guardians of the Galaxy 3 to get them across the billion mark this year. Oh, and in case you forgot, they technically own a little movie known as Avatar: The Way of Water.
Who would have ever thought we’d see a Disney whose animated films were the weak spot in its portfolio?
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