Inside Out 2 Edges Out A Quiet Place: Day One At The Box Office During Another Winning Weekend For Summer 2024
There was a lot of doom and gloom in the box office world last month as films like David Leitch's The Fall Guy and George Miller's Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga were unsuccessful kicking off summer 2024 with a bang – but everything has changed in June. Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah's Bad Boys: Ride Or Die kicked things off in a big way, Kelsey Mann's Inside Out 2 has turned out to be a phenomenal hit, and now Michael Sarnoski's A Quiet Place: Day One has set a new record for the hit horror franchise.
Check out the full domestic Top 10 for this past weekend below and join me after for analysis.
Inside Out 2 Hits $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
If you hadn't noticed, Inside Out 2 has proven to be an absolute force at the box office. The new Pixar movie had the distinction of being the first film since the pandemic to earn more than $100 million in its second Friday-to-Sunday, and people are not quickly losing interest. After a shockingly small 34 percent weekend-to-weekend drop reported last Sunday, its ticket sales only fell 43 percent this time around, and the film added approximately $57.4 million to its domestic earnings (per The Numbers).
To date, Inside Out 2 has made $469.3 million in the United States and Canada, which is big money even by Pixar standards. After less than a month in theaters, the new release is now the third biggest hit from the studio domestically, it having now having surpassed the $434 million that Josh Cooley's Toy Story 4 made in 2019. It won't be long before it surpasses Andrew Stanton's Finding Dory ($486.3 million) in the ranking, and after that, it's just Brad Bird's Incredibles 2 ($608.6 million).
(If you're curious and don't want to take the time to look it up yourself, Pete Docter's Inside Out finished its theatrical run in 2015 making $356.5 million)
But the film isn't just a huge winner at home. Globally, it has become just the fifth Pixar movie to earn a billion dollars worldwide, and according to Deadline, it's the fastest animated movie to surpass that milestone. It took only 19 days. For comparison, it took Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic's The Super Mario Bros Movie 26 days to hit that mark in 2023.
It should go without saying at this point that Inside Out 2 is now the highest grossing movie of the year. The film was previously sitting behind Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part 2, which finished its run on the big screening bringing in $710.9 million, but the new Pixar sequel is now wearing the year's box office crown, and it will be interesting to see what big upcoming 2024 movies will challenge it for the title. Certainly one contender is Shawn Levy's Deadpool & Wolverine, set for release in July, and the end of the year is packed with anticipated titles like Walt Disney Animation Studio's Moana 2, Jon Chu's Wicked, and Barry Jenkins' Mufasa: The Lion King.
As I've noted in my last two box office columns, however, things are going to slow down in the weeks ahead for Inside Out 2. There will still be plenty of kids and adults alike excited to continue see the emotion-driven animated adventure, Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage's Despicable Me 4 is targeting the movie's core demographic and is expected to lure a significant percentage away. The last four movies in the Despicable Me franchise made at least $900 million worldwide.
A Quiet Place: Day One Sets A New Opening Weekend For The Horror Franchise While Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One Gets Off To A Slow Start
The fact that Inside Out 2 is doing as well as it is means that the performance of A Quiet Place: Day One in its opening weekend is going to be a touch overshadowed – but it certainly shouldn't be ignored. The film did put up a challenge against the animated hit, earning second place in the domestic Top 10 by bringing in $53 million.
That's pretty significant when you consider that's the best opening so far for a movie in the Quiet Place franchise – and it's a franchise installment that doesn't include either Emily Blunt or John Krasinski. While Krasinski's A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II respectively made $50.2 million and $47.5 million in their opening weekends, the prequel starring Lupita Nyong'o was able to eclipse those numbers.
The title's predecessors were both able to make more than $160 million before the end of their theatrical runs, and we'll see if the most recent release has the staying power to put up similar numbers. It has a good amount of buzz going for it, as critics are showing a nice amount of appreciation and it has registered a "B+" grade from CinemaScore surveys.
Not doing quite as well is the other big wide release from this past weekend: Kevin Costner's Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1. The epic western is planned as the first installment of a four-part cinematic experience, but there is not a whole lot of immediate buy-in from audiences. Early numbers show that the movie was only barely able to take third place away from Bad Boys: Ride Or Die (in its fourth weekend of release) and made just $11 million. It's not a total disaster, as Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 reportedly had a combined $100 million budget, but it's unquestionably a rough start, and things may not improve soon. Unlike A Quiet Place: Day One, hype for the three-hour feature is not splendid, with it registering a "B-" from CinemaScore and extremely mixed reactions from critics.
With the Independence Day holiday coming up on Thursday, Hollywood is getting a jump start on things this week with Despicable Me 4 hitting theaters on Wednesday, July 3, and Ti West's horror film MaXXXine will serve as a bit of counterprogramming when it hits the big screen on Friday. As usual, I'll be back here on CinemaBlend next Sunday to report on the box office results.