Weekend projections: Inside Out 2 powers to spectacular $155-million opening

Inside Out 2 is blasting past expectations and headed towards a $155-million opening, according to Disney’s Sunday-morning announcement. That’s comfortably more than the $146.4 million The Super Mario Bros. Movie made on its opening weekend last year, and second only to Incredibles 2 on the list of biggest opening weekends for animated movies. The Incredibles sequel opened with $182.7 million back in 2018. Mario ended its domestic run with almost $575 million, and Incredibles 2 finished its run with $608.6 million. With stellar reviews, Inside Out 2 seems like a lock for $500 million, and $600 million at the domestic box office seems within reach.

Here’s how the weekend numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…

The distorting effect of Inside Out 2 is shown in how the other movies in the top 10 have performed compared to expectations. The Garfield Movie and IF both appear to have been quite badly hit by competing against a behemoth that’s targeted at a very similar audience. That’s to be expected, but the over-performance of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and Bad Boys: Ride or Die is something of a surprise. It’s a welcome one for sure, and is enough to take the weekend as a whole well beyond $200 million. Unsurprisingly, that’s the first time that landmark has been reached in 2024, and also the first time since Barbie and Oppenheimer were dominating the chart in July last year.

Inside Out 2 has an audience that skews female (62% vs. 38% male), and somewhat on the young side: 23% of the audience this weekend is 12 and under, 15% in the 13–17 age group, 18% from 18–24, 19% from 25–34, 15% from 35–44, 6% 45–54, and 3% 55 and older. Parents make up 23% of the audience, to go with the 23% “kids” audience (per Disney’s definition) of moviegoers 12 and under.

Disney are claiming the highest international and global animated opening of all time “assuming the same international release pattern and at current rates.” Standout territories are Mexico, with $30.2 million to date; Korea with $14.9 million; UK, $13.9m; Germany, $8.1m; Philippines, $6.7m; Central America, $6.3m; Australia, $5.5m; and Colombia, $5.1m.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com