Film Critic: How ‘Inside Out 2’ Can Top $1 Billion This Weekend

The big question at the box office is whether Pixar’s blockbuster sequel and 2024’s biggest hit, Inside Out 2, will top $1 billion this weekend, or cross that line Monday? Here’s how I think it will.

The Math

Inside Out 2 should enter its third weekend with somewhere around $860 million in the tank by the end of business Thursday, if not a few million higher. That means a 50% drop from last weekend would push the film to north of $990 million but still shy of $1 billion worldwide.

But a stronger hold could land Inside Out 2 closer to a $165 million weekend, which would give it a whopping $1.027 billion gross.

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Much depends on how close the film can get to the higher end of potential through Thursday, and of course whether there’s still enough audience who haven’t seen it — or who want another viewing — to maintain those remarkably small week-to-week declines.

There is a scenario that gets it to $1.035-1.04 billion worldwide this weekend. This is without considering early morning screenings in Japan and certain other territories, where Inside Out 2 will add additional revenue that would push the worldwide total even higher by 11:59:59 Hawaii time.

My Prediction

I conservatively expect Inside Out 2 will enter the weekend atop a mountain of $865 million in receipts, gross $160 million for the weekend, and finish at close of business Sunday with $1.025 billion.

I’ll call the low end at $1.01 billion, and the high end at $1.04 billion.

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The Counter-Programming

A Quiet Place: Day One looks headed for a debut somewhere around $100 million worldwide, but could come in as low as $80 or as high as perhaps $120 million. My sense, though, is we’re looking at right around $48 million domestic and maybe $45 million international, for a $90-95 million bow.

The PG-13 horror series gets most of its business dollars from North America, and there was a decline from the first film to the second across all categories — domestic, international, and worldwide. And I think the generally front-loaded nature of box office for the genre means A Quiet Place: Day One will see declines into Saturday and particularly Sunday due to some of the prospective younger viewership getting drawn into family group attendance to Inside Out 2, as well as the Pixar sequel enjoying the bulk of walk-up business among most demos.

Also potentially cutting into A Quiet Place: Day One’s momentum as counter-programming for adults and older teenagers who are skipping the Inside Out 2 crowd is the expansive western Horizons, which I think will wind up in $15 million range — hardly a notable performance in any positive sense, but it’s just enough to matter to A Quiet Place: Day One’s results, unfortunately for the latter.

It’s too bad the film Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot isn’t opening this weekend (from the same Angel Studios that released the very good film Sight earlier this year), as I suspect it would play well this weekend as a surprise counter-programming victor. It’s appeal as both an adult drama and family entertainment, coupled with the messaging falling right in line with criteria what I think is helping drive box office victory in the current era, and which cuts across racial demographics in viewership as well, giving it some important edge had it debuted this weekend instead of over the July 4th holiday.

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That’s easy to say as a hypothetical, of course, but I look at the attendance and demographics and see this weekend as an ideal calendar position for Sound of Hope, perhaps even with early previews starting midweek to help drive attendance off word of mouth and critics’ reviews, which so far have been positive.

Horizons cost $100 million, so I don’t see a scenario where it recoups the investment at the box office. But this also isn’t the type of movie made primarily to be a summer blockbuster, it’s a prestige film meant to be worth making and worth seeing regardless of costs or ticket sales, and it makes me wonder if perhaps a Thanksgiving or Christmas release for Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 might’ve been better to give it more room to earn an audience across along holiday season, and then build on that with an April or May release of Chapter 2, with hindsight.

Even better, if getting an opportunity to make Chapters 3 and 4 is a priority, might’ve been an ongoing series with two short seasons released per year — and I’m sure that, given the chance and budget to expand his story by an extra 45 minutes, he could create four seasons of five episodes each.

That’s a worthwhile investment for a high-end HBO original exclusive series that can be licensed into syndication, with plenty of potential spinoff potential and lots of likely Emmy attention in its future, and fits right into Warner Bros.-Discovery’s goal of building a top-tier HBO library of originals (albeit at the expense of their Max streaming service, which is fast becoming a Hulu-lite equivalent of cable bundling and pushing a lot of great projects into licensing deals instead of remaining at Max, often simply for fast cash).

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At any rate, Horizons doesn’t look to stir up much box office heat, but hopefully serves as a great example of how and why these sorts of ambitious projects should be considered for longer-form storytelling that is every bit as artistically valuable and brilliant as theatrical release, and where the measure of success isn’t inherently first and foremost purely the financial consideration of “did it pay for itself?” or at least “did it pay off any immediate favors for the studio?”

The $1 Billion Answer

All signs seem to point to another big performance for Inside Out 2 this weekend, and that why I expect it to come in north of $1 billion as it continues to break records in its climb up the box office charts and campaign for biggest film of 2024.