It’s no secret that Disney has ruled the animated feature roost for many, many years. It all began with the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. For nearly 40 years, it’s charmed visitors with out-of-this-world adventures and fantastic friends. The recent opening of Disney’s latest original film, “Elio,” on June 20 has raised concerns about the studio’s current trajectory amid a changing entertainment landscape.
While it was able to do that artfully quite historically, Disney finds itself in some very deep waters now. “Elio,” which follows a young boy who is accidentally pegged as Earth’s ambassador to the universe, debuted to soft ticket sales, grossing $21 million in its first three days. All told, this would be a record low for Disney, which has seen similar diminishing returns with original animated fare. By contrast, sequels to past blockbusters are still the studio’s most sure thing in an environment that’s getting more and more cutthroat.
In the past decade, Disney has produced a slew of successful original films, including “Frozen,” “Wreck-It Ralph,” “Zootopia,” “Inside Out,” and “Coco.” As consumer habits shift and competition intensifies, the studio has increasingly relied on existing stories with established fan bases. The evidence is everywhere—in 2024, zero of the top 20 films were even original storylines, let alone female- and BIPOC-led.
Disney is coming under scrutiny for leaning heavily on sequels as it’s crammed into a narrow strip of franchise content. Industry analysts have noticed this emerging trend. Peter Csathy, chairman of Creative Media, remarked, “For audiences, sequels are comfort food.” This unfortunate sentiment shows an increasing bias among audiences toward known stories and away from new ideas.
Though “Elio” was a box office bomb, the film is not without hopes of a second life. Since Disney’s films tend to have much longer runs in theaters, they continue to add ticket sales long after their opening weekends. Plus, the major streaming platforms can add even more opportunities for viewership after the theatrical run ends.
Against that backdrop, the disappointing performance of ‘Elio’ is especially stark. By contrast, Disney’s former lowest-opening feature, ‘Elemental,’ opened to $29.6 million in 2023. Doug Creutz, an analyst at TD Cowen, pointed to another significant trend. She emphasized that an analysis of animated film box office recovery post-pandemic reveals a drastic and alarming increase in disparity between performance of original IP versus sequel films. This increasing delta presents a growing challenge for studios looking to increase their IP portfolios.
Even with these depressing omissions, hope springs eternal, especially when it comes to Disney’s original fare. The studio’s highly-anticipated sequel, Inside Out 2, has the world a-tingle with pre-release hype. The Musical has already been a box office hit, grossing $154.2 million in domestic ticket sales just weeks after its 2024 release. This success demonstrates that while original films may struggle initially, they can still resonate deeply with audiences if executed well.