Inside Out 2 had a massive opening weekend in North America as it earned $155 million and had the second-biggest opening of all time for an animated film behind the $182 million Incredibles 2 brought in back in 2018.
As reported by Comscore, Inside Out 2 also secured the biggest domestic opening of 2024 and became the first film to cross $100 million in its first few days since Barbie. Furthermore, Inside Out 2 brought in $140.0 million internationally and $295.0 million globally, which gave it the best opening ever for an animated film.
This marks a big win for Pixar following a rough few years that began with the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic caused Disney and Pixar to release Onward digitally just two weeks after it arrived in theaters and also led to its next three titles – Soul, Luca, and Turning Red – being released only on Disney+.
Lightyear marked Pixar’s return to theaters in 2022, but it only managed to earn $226 million globally. Elemental started the upswing for the beloved studio, as it grossed nearly $500 million globally and marked the biggest original animated movie since Coco in 2017.
Looking ahead, Pixar is hard at work on Elio for 2025 and Toy Story 5 for 2026. Farther ahead, Pixar president Jim Morris said it plans to make three movies every two years and put a bigger focus on existing franchises like The Incredibles and Finding Nemo.
Hopefully, Inside Out 2 is the start of another successful run for Pixar and it won’t have to deal with layoffs like it recently did in May.
In our Inside Out 2 review, we said, “While its chaotic new cast serves a clear purpose, Inside Out 2 is more metaphor than meaning. It explains plenty about the confusing emotions associated with puberty, often in intelligent ways, but it rarely lets them be felt or experienced, the way its predecessor did. It also fails to live up to Pixar’s own high watermarks for emotionally driven tales of adolescence – movies like Luca and Turning Red – so it feels like a step down in several regards.”
Bad Boys: Ride or Die took second place with $33 million, which is a 42% drop from its opening weekend. It also crossed $100 million in North America and earned enough to reach $214.6 million globally.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes placed third with $5.2 million, The Garfield Movie finishing fourth with $5.0 million, and The Watchers rounded out the top five with $3.6 million.
For more, check out our behind the scenes tour of Pixar’s studios, our rankings of the best Pixar movies, and why Pixar’s Pete Docter doesn’t want the studio to do live-action remakes.
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Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.
