Pixar's Pixar's original movies are capable of inciting both laughter and tears, which is why they're successful. Inside Out 2 captured everything that made Pixar great, and in doing so restored the company to its throne atop the animation world.

Inside Out 2's massive box office haul and universal acclaim could not have come at a better time, as Illumination and Dreamworks Animation have both released huge hits in recent years that called into question the dominance of the House of Mouse and its animation subsidiary, Pixar. Inside Out 2 not only represented a return to the box office standards of yesteryear, but also a return to the universal fan and critical adoration that Pixar is known for. Its streaming success was anticipated upon its Disney Plus release, but the animated sequel has sured conservative viewership estimates already.

Inside Out 2's Viewership On Disney Plus Continues Its Success For Pixar

After Breaking Box Office Records, It's Dominating On Disney Plus

After smashing records as the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, Inside Out 2's Disney Plus debut also set the record for the platform in 2024 with 30.5 million views in its first five days. Unsurprisingly, it's the biggest theatrical streaming hit that Disney Plus has had in nearly three years. Viewers would need to go all the way back to 2021 to find a movie to match it, when Encanto hit the platform in December 2021 and went on to be the most-streamed movie of the year in 2022.

Inside Out 2 grossed over $1.6 billion at the box office, but its instant streaming success might be an even bigger win for Pixar considering that Pixar has more movies coming in the near future. Inside Out 2's viewership speaks to the movie's rewatchability, which has typically been a hallmark of Pixar films. The strong first week for the animated sequel indicates that Inside Out 2 should stand up over time, like its predecessors in the Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Monsters, Inc. franchises, which will keep audiences interested in the original Pixar movies like Elio and Hoppers.

Pixar Desperately Needed Inside Out 2's Record-Setting Success

It Had Fallen Short Of Its Own Standards Since Toy Story 4

With those new movies on the horizon, Pixar was in desperate need of a big box office and streaming win after a rough couple of years (at least, rough by Pixar's standards). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney made the decision to release three Pixar movies exclusively on Dinsey Plus, skipping a theatrical release entirely. While Soul, Luca, and Turning Red all received positive reviews that were more in line with Pixar's typical Rotten Tomatoes scores, they lacked the built-in audience created by a widespread theatrical release that movies like Encanto or Inside Out 2 received.

Book-ending those straight-to-streaming releases were Onward and Lightyear, both of which fell short of Pixar's typical box office and critical standards. While neither movie was a disaster by any means, when the benchmark is unparalleled animated hits like Toy Story 4 or Incredibles 2, Onward's $141.9 million box office gross and Lightyear's $226.4 million box office gross were undoubtedly disappointments. It should be noted that Onward's box office run was cut short by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but regardless of the reason, it did not fetch the return Pixar wanted.

Inside Out 2 Shows Why Pixar Movies Shouldn't Have Gone Direct To Streaming

The Quality Of Pixar's Three Direct-To-Streaming Movies Could Have Made Them Box Office Hits

Where Disney and Pixar may have erred is in designating three extremely high-quality movies as direct-to-streaming. After seeing Onward fail due to the pandemic, it's easy to imagine why Disney would not run the risk of putting more high-potential movies in theaters. They put them on Disney Plus to show the value of the streaming platform, which was still in its first two years of existence, and encourage s to sign up for monthly and annual plans, which could wind up fetching just as much as a box office run, but sustained over a longer period of time.

Disney did release Soul, Luca, and Turning Red in theaters for brief runs in 2024, although none of the three produced anywhere near the box office gross they might have had if they hadn't hit Disney Plus first.

If Inside Out 2 proved anything, it was that Pixar still has legitimate box office weight on its own, and that the box office is influenced by quality and word-of-mouth; Lightyear and Elemental were box office duds, but they boast two of the lowest Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer scores of Pixar's entire filmography. Soul, Luca, and Turning Red, on the other hand, boast a 95%, 91%, and 95%, respectively. Had Disney decided to wait and release those movies in theaters, they could have had three massively profitable movies on their hands.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes