Disney-Pixar’s Lightyear isn’t quite going supersonic at the box office. The Toy Story spinoff is coming in under expectations in its debut weekend, after a $20.5 million Friday, including $5.2 million from Thursday previews. Going into the weekend, the projections ranged from $70 million and $80 million from 4,255 North American theaters.
Dinosaurs and dads are to blame. Holdover hits Jurassic World Dominion and Top Gun: Maverick are likely eating into Lightyear’s family-friendly demographic, with both films over-performing while the animated spinoff struggles. Lightyear marks Pixar’s return to the big screen after the animation studio’s controversial decision to release its last three films—Soul, Luca, and Turning Red—on the Disney+ streaming platform. It made sense for Pixar to save Lightyear for theaters, considering the popularity of the Toy Story franchise.
Spinoffs can’t be expected to perform as well as the franchise proper, but one would’ve expected Lightyear to be more Minions than Penguins of Madagascar. By comparison, Toy Story 4 made nearly $121 million in its opening weekend back in 2019, before finishing, like Toy Story 3, with over $1 billion worldwide. As things stand, Lightyear is looking at around half of that figure in its opening weekend, with estimates pegging its three-day debut in the $51 million to $55 million range.
Essentially a movie within a movie about the fan-favorite Buzz Lightyear character, the film received a warm A- CinemaScore from opening day audiences, even if the reviews were objectively the least positive of any film in the Toy Story franchise. But with Pixar’s goodwill and positive word-of-mouth, the $200 million Lightyear could continue performing in the coming weeks, at least until Minions: The Rise of Gru arrives in the first week of July.
If current projections hold, Jurassic World Dominion could be looking at another top place finish in its second weekend, after vastly exceeding expectations a week ago. With $15.7 million on its second Friday, the film is looking to add at least another $57 million over the next couple of days, a number that could balloon to $66.3 million over the four-day Juneteenth weekend. The film recently crossed the half-billion mark worldwide, despite franchise-low reviews. This takes Dominion’s running domestic total to $257 million.
With an estimated 23% drop and nearly $11 million on Friday, Top Gun: Maverick is looking at a $40 million fourth weekend, with the projections for the extended weekend going up to $46.5 million. This will take the film’s running domestic total to $468 million, bringing it within touching distance of the half-billion mark stateside. Maverick is already the year’s biggest film domestically, and has made over $800 million worldwide. It’s all but guaranteed to hit the $1 billion mark at this point, which will be a first in star Tom Cruise’s career. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
