The problem with 99% of streaming-only movies is that they don't have the cultural impact that creates long-term value. The marketing blitz isn't there. The experience isn't the same because it typically doesn't become a social outing unlike seeing movies at a theatre. And they mostly look super basic, like that Chris Evans/Ana de Armas movie that looks like it was made by an A.I. after someone wrote 'generic action comedy with two hot leads'.

So then down the line, no one is going to be subscribing to these services just so they can see these streaming-only movies that were instantly forgotten. No one is clamoring for a video game adaptation, or a novelization, or theme park ride, etc etc aka all the ways big franchises produce revenue outside of their box office runs.

The Pixar brand was already damaged by mediocre and unnecessary sequels IMO. They peaked circa Up, where they had a flawless run (yes even Cars) and showed they could truly take any wild concept and make a beloved smash out of it. Inside Out is their last true classic IMO.

It's just too bad that there's no major animation studio now that has their level of quality in the 2000s. Illumination is prolefeed (I hope I don't get banned for saying that, I got banned from Box Office Theory forums for calling the MCU prolefeed).

Coco is amazing! My second favorite after Ratatouille

Yeah watch yourself when talking about Coco.

Soul and Turning Red were both amazing too, but yeah, even a 10/10 tv movie still feels like a tv movie in the long run.

We rag on WB alot (deservingly so) but atleast they gave people the option to see it in theaters. What would have been the harm in letting Turning Red make $50-100M with a dual release?

No harm at all, but they wanted to boost Disney+, so we know why they didn't give it a theatrical release. They wanted to show subscribers that D+ gets exclusive made-for-cinema content.

I don't know how Pixar gets out of this rut, but I hope they do.

Lol Pixar fired the director of Lightyear hahahaha

Idk what they were thinking with Lightyear tbh... shame that was Pixar's return to cinemas and not Soul. Lightyear wasn't horrible but certainly one of Pixar's worst.

Elemental looks very unispired although the animation looks great as usual. I'm not expecting it to do much more than Lightyear's total. Hopefully it doesn't go sub-100m total.

Lightyear feels so much like a movie where an original Pixar version got interfered with by Disney.

Well you can understand why they thought Buzz Lightyear had greater prospects than a film about an ageing black jazz musician.



What?! Elemental looks inspired?? It looks as generic as hell. You gotta be messin' with us here

That was a typo. If you're gonna nitpick most posts I make on here just ignore me sheesh

Oh my god, another snowflake. I reply to a few comments and suddenly you're being bullied.

Noted on the typo.

75 jobs cut at Pixar, the first in 10 years. They have 1200 people so small but clearly ALOT is on the line with Elemental. The last time was after they postponed A Good Dinosaur.

Bob Chapek in a short period probably destroyed 30 years worth of work from different parts of the business. It almost feels like Pixar is going to have to completely start from scratch again to rebuild an audience theatrically. Feels very much like A Bug's Life Days where we saw Pixar have 1 hit but were wondering if they could pull it off again.

Elemental will bomb. I'm expecting a $30m/$90m kind of run. It's almost criminal what Chapek did to Pixar (though Iger probably wouldn't have been much better). All that for a streaming service that ended up being a money sink. Though the Lasseter factor should not be underrated here (he might have sucked as a person but it's now undeniable that he was the soul of this company).

Just bring Lasseter back!

Nah. Pixar needs Docter and may be Stanton/Bird to make movies. Lasseter by himself was not good and you dont want the creep back anyway. Look at what he did with his 1st movie at skydance.

But didn't he get fired for like, literally giving someone a hug? I remember reading about it and it seemed very hysterical witch hunt me too stuff. Lasseter is probably an aspie (I am too fyi) and as such probably didn't get some basic social cues but who gives a fuck. A once in a generation storyteller >>>> an upset useless intern who thought "his hug lingered too long".

EDIT: found the Guardian article where they explain why they fired him, it was literally for hugging people too long. I guess Pixar deserves this floppage and destruction of their brand after all. Good riddance. It's too bad there's no bulletproof animated studio to replace it. Miyazaki has gone MIA. Illumination is low mentality prolefeed. Dreamworks is N/A living off of Shrek 2 royalties. Where are the Wallace & Gromit guys? There's an opening in the market right now.

As much has been said about Pixar getting destroyed by Disney+, they were definitely having issues that culminated in a Lightyear type situation pre-pandemic. People were definitely starting to go to theaters less by March but even in a best case, Onward probably would have topped out at maybe $150M. It's a bit mind boggling it had the same budget as TS4 at $200M with that much talent involved.

The Good Dinosaur (2015), Cars 3 (2017) and a heavy reliance on sequels were showing the shift.

-From 1995-2009, Pixar only had 1 sequel (Toy Story 2) and 9 original films.
-From 2010 - 2019, Pixar had 7 sequels and 4 originals.
-From 2020 - 2022, they had 4 original movies and 1 spinoff over a 28 month period across Disney+ and theaters.

Pixar went from the "original film" animation house, to the "sequel" to the "watch us on streaming" house. Definitely was mentioned but need to limit to 1 film per year as well as they were pushing them out way too often.

Elio looks decent, though the plot clearly looks to be a liar revealed story.

Elio teaser is really good. I am optimistic for its prospects. Also it should hopefully get an open window. I have a feeling Spiderverse will move considering its only 70% done and we have WGA strike slowing it down as well.

I feel like if someone from Disney's leadership team read through this thread earlier they could have helped their company make $100M.

This was the nail in the coffin for Pixar. Soul and even Luca were understandable but making Turning Red, which would have had really good legs, into a tv movie just completely warped the brand.

Lol yup. Turning Red would've done the same streaming numbers on D+ regardless. Just idiotic in general.

Pixar movies I've seen and not seen. I need to catch up on the pandemic and post-pandemic ones (except Lightyear lol). Will probably never see Cars 3 and Monsters Univ based on tepid WOM.

Elemental

Lightyear

Turning Red

Luca

Soul

Onward

Toy Story 4

Incredibles 2

Coco

Cars 3

Finding Dory

The Good Dinosaur

Inside Out

Monsters University

Brave

Cars 2

Toy Story 3

Up

WALL-E

Ratatouille

Cars

The Incredibles

Finding Nemo

Monsters, Inc.

Toy Story 2

A Bug's Life

Toy Story

I BLAME BOB CHAPEK!!! to boost Disney+ he made them drop Soul, Luca and Turning Red to streaming only. and droping Raya and the Last Dragon day and date theater/D+, therefore conditioning the audience to think of Pixar as a streaming studio. No longer an event to see in theaters. With Iger back he will have to re-condition the general public from that thought. And I think he can with movies like Inside Out 2 and another Toy Story movies. As well as Frozen 3 and Zootopia 2.