‘Elemental’ Projected to Earn $40 Million Box Office Opening, Ranking Among Pixar’s Lowest

With the Tony Awards – and a seriously orange New York City sky – prompting some Broadway productions to reduce their playing schedules last week, total box office and attendance was down a bit, with the 33 shows taking in $30,961,479 for the week ending June 11.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter It was positioned as the first big blockbuster battle of summer. But this weekend’s showdown between “The Flash” and Pixar’s “Elemental” isn’t shaping up to be one for box office record books. Both of the mega-budgeted tentpoles are tracking for lackluster starts, with “The Flash,” starring Ezra Miller as the title DC superhero, targeting $70 million and “Elemental,” an animated adventure about opposites who attract, aiming to collect just $35 million. Insiders and analysts are split on the final weekend number for “The Flash,” with some expecting an even softer $68 million and others projecting as much as $85 million. “The Flash” is landing on the big screen without a traditional promotional push from Miller, who has been a controversial figure in the lead-up to the film’s release. The actor, who was arrested several times in the past few years, released a statement in August to apologize for their behavior and say they were in treatment for “complex mental health issues.” Miller attended the premiere of “The Flash” on Monday, marking their first public appearance in two years, but stopped short of engaging with the press.

McKinley Franklin editor It’s time to take a dive into the Communiverse.  Disney and Pixar have released the first official trailer for the upcoming animated science fiction feature “Elio,” which is set to debut on March 1, 2024.  “Elio” spotlights the story of an underdog character of the same name who suddenly finds himself transported into the Communiverse, a world encompassed by out-of-this-world, extraterrestrial characters. Upon arrival, Elio is mistakenly identified as Earth’s ambassador, a role in which he’s not quite ready to take on. “For centuries, people have called out to the universe looking for answers — in Disney and Pixar’s all-new movie ‘Elio,’ the universe calls back! Elio must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, survive a series of formidable trials and somehow discover who he is truly meant to be,” reads the film’s official logline.

There’s something particularly tragic about a boring Pixar movie, especially one that hardly carries any of the tenets that have made the animation company so legendary. It’s unfortunate when any good-willed film is bad, of course, but with all the good graces previously engendered by Pixar, watching the culmination of years of animation hardly add up to a memorable experience is a bummer.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” enjoyed a $38.9 million (RMB276 million) opening weekend in mainland China. The score was comfortably the biggest by any film between Friday and Sunday and the second biggest opening by a Hollywood film this year in the territory. Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway suggests that the film accounted for some 63% of China’s nationwide gross box office over the weekend. Giant screen systems provider, Imax reported that the film earned $5.9 million of the total from its screen network in China, or some 15% of the China total.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” kicked off at the international box office with $110 million from 68 markets, including a decent $40 million start in China. The seventh installment in Paramount’s action franchise also pulled in $60 million in its North American debut, bringing its worldwide tally to a solid $170 million. Overseas audiences will be key to the theatrical success of “Transformers,” which cost $200 million. Prior entries in the 16-year-old series have earned as much as 70% of overall box office returns outside of the U.S. and Canada. At the international box office, ticket sales for “Rise of the Beasts” are pacing 32% below “Bumblebee,” which is the most recent entry in the series. The newest chapter has managed to set franchise records in eight smaller markets, including Indonesia, Argentina and Peru. The Autobots will take the box office milestones where they can get them.

Rotten Tomatoes. “Rise of the Beasts” will need that audience buzz as it faces competition for the 18-34 demographic — which made up 54% of its opening day audience — from Warner Bros.’ “The Flash” next weekend.

Karen Idelson While debates about the use of A.I. take center stage across the entertainment industry, the technology has been quietly assisting animation and visual effects crews for years. It had made some of the most astonishing visual images possible when artisans have been asked to do what was previously thought impossible. When helmer Peter Sohn wanted characters based on the elements of fire, water, air and earth for his new film “Elemental,” VFX supervisor Sanjay Bakshi and his team at Pixar looked to A.I. to make the process smoother. The look of the characters depended on adjustments that would align them with Sohn’s vision. “We used A.I. for a very specific kind of problem, and we used a machine learning algorithm called neural style transfer,” says Bakshi. “Our animation is so highly scrutinized. We go through so many review cycles for every shot and the animators are really handcrafting it and there’s not a lot of places where machine learning is applicable in the current form.

J. Kim Murphy The summer season has its first genuine battle for top of the heap, as “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” looks to fend off last week’s top release “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” “Rise of the Beasts” put its foot on the gas with $25 million on its opening day, a figure that includes $8.8 million in Thursday previews. The film is projected to land near a $60 million opening through the three-day frame, which would land at the higher end of estimates heading into the weekend. Once a box office juggernaut, Paramount has attempted to reengineer the “Transformers” franchise for future longevity. The first three entries, directed by Michael Bay, each crossed $300 million in North American grosses, while threequel “Dark of the Moon” and its follow-up “Age of Extinction” both surpassed $1 billion worldwide. But Bay’s final production, 2017’s “Transformers: The Last Knight,” saw diminished returns, finishing with $130 million stateside and $605 million worldwide — almost half of the $1.1 billion in ticket sales earned by “Age of Extinction.” Paramount released the spinoff “Bumblebee” in 2018, produced on a comparatively smaller budget and met with $467 million worldwide.

“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” began its domestic box office sprint on Thursday with $8.8 million in preview screening grosses. That is on par with (sans inflation) the $8.8 million earned via Tuesday previews for “Transformers: The Last Knight” in June of 2017 and the $8.75 million Thursday preview gross of “Transformers: Age of Extinction” in 2014.

The first round of box office projections for Disney/Lucasfilm’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” have arrived, and they are predicting a significant drop from the film’s 2008 predecessor “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” with an opening weekend of around $60 million. By comparison, “Crystal Skull,” which opened on the Thursday before Memorial Day 15 years ago, earned a Fri.-Sun.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Crime action film “The Roundup: No Way Out” dominated the South Korean box office on its official opening weekend with a thumping $21.9 million performance. The film, the third in a franchise that pits a heavy-fisted cop, portrayed by Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee), against colorfully devious rogues, crushed all competing titles by taking an 88% market share. In terms of admissions, it attracted 2.82 million into cinemas between Friday and Sunday. The film’s official opening was on Wednesday (May 31). But it also enjoyed wide previews through much of the preceding week. Adding in the weekday takings and the preview activity, “The Roundup: No Way Out” has a current aggregate of $34.1 million and has sold a total of 4.51 million tickets, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council.

Broadway box office overall held steady last week, even as the recent Tony Award nominations already seemed to lose some of their power to boost ticket sales. Some shows with nominations saw declines at the box office, from Good Night, Oscar and Some Like It Hot to Leopoldstadt and New York, New York.

Brent Lang Executive Editor How high can “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” climb? The sequel to 2018’s Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is getting a lift from good buzz and residual fondness for its predecessor, one of the inaugural cinematic forays into all things multiverse. And while reviews are still embargoed, critics flipped for the first one, so assuming the follow-up sticks the landing, the notices could propel “Across the Spider-Verse” ever higher. But it’s a crowded marketplace and five years has passed since audiences were first introduced to Miles Morales and a wide web of Spider-People. Plus, there’s been an ever expanding array of superhero films and streaming shows to turn to, increasing the competition for moviegoers who like their heroes costumed and masked.

Disney’s live action movies are huge money makers!

“The Little Mermaid” made moviegoers want to be under the sea on Memorial Day weekend.

Rotten Tomatoes. Those are the scores this remake will need to keep legging out against a crowded June slate that starts next weekend with “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” But here comes the bad news: “The Little Mermaid” has posted an international opening of just $68 million from 51 markets.

A brand new clip for Disney Pixar’s upcoming animation/comedy “Elemental” was unveiled by its stars at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival during a photocall on Friday.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter There were more than a few misty eyes in the audience at the premiere of Pixar’s animated adventure “Elemental,” which closed out this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The sweet opposites-attract love story proved charming to attendees, closing out the festival with a five-minute standing ovation. At least one grown man in the orchestra was wiping away his cascading tears as the credits began to roll. It’s safe to assume he wasn’t alone in his emotional response to the film. “My heart is about to explode,” said ”Elemental” director Peter Sohn. “This film has been about the richness of diversity. Our lives are better when there are different points of view.”

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic I reckon there are more ideas per second of screentime in “Elemental” than any other Pixar movie to date. So why does this imagination-teasing opposites-attract rom-com feel like a misfire? No one can accuse director Peter Sohn (“The Good Dinosaur”) or his team of under-thinking the ultra-creative studio’s latest high-concept feature, which takes the four elements as identified by various ancient cultures — Fire, Water, Earth and Air — and reimagines them as uneasy neighbors in a crowded modern metropolis. But fun as it can be to soak in the movie’s cheeky sense of detail (from flame-retardant costumes to blink-and-you-miss-them background puns), the whole scenario seems forced: so much world-building to tell a story better suited to flesh-and-blood human characters.