In the past, the arrival of a big Pixar Animation Studios movie was a source of celebration and immediate box office success. Not so much this weekend, as Elio outright flopping on opening weekend solidified that Pixar just isn’t the box office draw it was decades ago. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s first concentrate on the number one movie in America for the second weekend in a row. How to Train Your Dragon grossed $37 million in its second frame, a 56% drop from last weekend. After strong weekday grosses (including a major Juneteenth boost), Dragon has grossed $160.48 million after ten days of release. That puts it above How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World’s lifetime domestic haul and it should surpass How to Train Your Dragon 2’s domestic cume within the next few days. What was true this weekend is true once more: this one’s a hit.
Though not as big as the initial buzz around its debut trailer would’ve suggested, 28 Years Later still had a terrific opening for an R-rated zombie movie sequel arriving 18 years after its predecessor. Bowing to $30 million this frame, 28 Years Later has already surpassed the $28.63 million lifetime domestic cume of 28 Weeks Later. It should get past the $45.06 million lifetime gross of 28 Days Later pretty soon.
The especially visceral violence and grim tone of 28 Years Later likely kept it from being as big of a crowdpleaser hit as Final Destination: Bloodlines, but otherwise, this was a robust start to a threequel to a saga that’s been out of commission for decades. Not flooding the market with endless 28 Days Later sequels and TV show spin-offs since 2007 lent a sense of specialness to this new follow-up. People were eager to see where the British apocalypse had gone since the events of 28 Weeks Later. You didn’t have to coerce people into buying a ticket or reassure them that this time the franchise was back on track.
In third place was Elio, which opened to only $21 million, the lowest domestic bow for a Pixar movie in history. Toy Story from November 1995 previously had that record with its $29 million debut and that feature burned off demand with a Wednesday launch. For comparison’s sake, here are some CG-animated movies Elio opened beneath:
Rise of the Guardians ($23.77 million)
The Emoji Movie ($24.53 million)
Gnomeo & Juliet ($25.35 million)
The Bad Guys ($23.95 million)
Open Season ($23.6 million)
Meet the Robinsons ($25.1 million)
The Garfield Movie ($24.01 million)
Smallfoot ($23.05 million)
Anecdotally, I personally saw more Elio marketing (including McDonald’s tie-in commercials, billboards, movie theater concession knick-knacks, etc.) than other 2020s Disney animated features like Strange World or Wish. However, that wasn’t enough to get Elio to the box office heights of the classic Pixar movies. Heck, it even opened 21% behind Elemental’s $29.6 million bow from two years ago. There were several problems Elio had to face, including sci-fi animation (unless it’s WALL-E or Monsters vs. Aliens) being a tough sell for family audiences and the film’s promotional campaign having limited adult appeal.
Is this another death knell for original animated movies? Not necessarily. However, Elio does reaffirm that selling such productions to the general public after a 15 years of studios conditioning audiences to only see franchise fare as “proper” theatrical entertainment is going to be arduously challenging. With an A CinemaScore and no Illumination tentpole launching over 4th of July, Elio will likely stick around a bit in the marketplace. However, it’ll require even better legs than Elemental or The Greatest Showman to get it anywhere near profitability.
Even with a new Disney film in the marketplace, Lilo & Stitch eased 38% this frame to gross another $9.7 million. It's now at $386.74 million domestically. Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning is developing solid legs after its opening, as it eased just 38% this weekend to gross another $6.55 million for a $178.37 million domestic total. Two more good weekend-to-weekend drops and this should get to $200 million domestically. Materialists generated some online discourse after its opening weekend, but its 52% second frame decline was standard for a romantic-drama. Grossing another $5.81 million it's now grossed $23.92 million after ten days of domestic release. Ballerina continues to fall sharply with a 54% third weekend drop for another $4.53 million and a $51.18 million domestic total.
Karate Kid: Legends is already getting knocked out of the marketplace, as it tumbled another 54% this frame and only grossed $2.4 million for a $49.37 million domestic haul. Final Destination: Bloodlines, in its sixth weekend of release, is winding down its domestic run, but it did gross another $1.9 million for a $134.8 million domestic total. Rounding out the top ten this frame was Kuberra, which grossed $1.75 million.
The Phoenician Scheme, in its third weekend of wide release, fell 56% to gross an additional $1.4 million for $16.2 million domestic. The Life of Chuck dropped 57% this frame to gross another $1.005 million for a 17-day total of $4.67 million. Bride Hard was the other big new wide release this weekend, opening in 1,165 theaters, yet it only grossed $932,000. Not much to talk about here, this was a minimally-marketed title with dismal buzz that just didn’t take off.
Sinners, in its first weekend out of wide release, grossed another $820,000 from 536 locations. Fun fact: its $1,529 per theater average this frame was bigger than the per theater averages of Bloodlines, Phoenician Scheme, and Karate Kid. Sinners is now up to $277.25 million. Thunderbolts*, in its eighth weekend of release, fell 57% to gross another $440,000 for a $189.51 million total.
Kino Lorber had two new arthouse titles this weekend. The 15th anniversary re-release of Dogtooth took in $10,126 from four locations for a $2,531 per theater average. New documentary Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, meanwhile, grossed $6,020 from a single location.
The top ten this weekend grossed only $120.6 million, rendering this frame a bit of a “calm before the storm” as the impending arrival of F1, Jurassic World Rebirth, and Superman wait in the wings. That meager haul, unfortunately, can be traced almost entirely to Elio’s poor opening. If the title had even made another $15 million (for a debut on par with The Wild Robot), the marketplace would be in much better shape.
Inevitably, this was way lower than usual for a late June weekend. This June 20-22, 2025 frame was the 25th weekend of the year. Compared to pre-COVID 25th weekends, 2025 delivered the lowest frame for this time of the year since June 2005 when Batman Begins led the marketplace for the second weekend in a row (and that's before taking inflation into account). When it comes to 25th weekends in the 2020s, this frame was down about 10% from June 24-26, 2022 when Elvis was the king of the box office. This frame was at least 13% ahead of the June 23-25, 2023 weekend when Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse returned to the top of the domestic box office,
June 2024 as a whole is down from past June’s thanks to the lack of a blockbuster on par with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Toy Story 4, or the Jurassic World trilogies installments. So far, the month's grossed $622.36 million and it's doubtful this June will exceed $900 million. Flops like Ballerina and Elio are weighing down the month, but a slew of big blockbusters are on the way to liven up July. Plus, May 2025 was immense enough to take off some of the pressure. Still, the shortcomings of this month should inspire studios not to rely on old franchises like Karate Kid and John Wick anymore and give Disney a wake-up call on learning to better market new Pixar titles.