Can ‘Elemental’s Slow Box Office Climb Convince Hollywood to Reconsider How It Measures Success?

It’s a strange summer for Hollywood. DC Studios’ most expensive project ever has failed to find an audience, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is struggling to earn back its ludicrously massive budget, while Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, Barbie, and Oppenheimer are being counted on to prove the power of the theatrical experience and the importance of fresh, original filmmaking. On top of that, two of Hollywood’s major unions are now on strike simultaneously, as the Screen Actors Guild has joined the Writers Guild of America on the picket line. Change is on the horizon, in more ways than one.

Amidst all the chaos, however, is a piece of news few could have seen coming. Elemental, Pixar’s latest animated outing, has become a slow but steady box-office contender. When Elemental first premiered in the U.S. in June, many predicted that its underwhelming opening weekend revenue of $29 million would lead to dire overall results. And yet, since then, the film has proven to have remarkable staying power—Collider reported that it earned $28 million in its fifth theatrical weekend, nearly matching its opening weekend earnings.

On July 18, 2023, Box Office Mojo listed Elemental as having earned a worldwide total of $313 million, surpassing The Flash‘s global total ($267 million), Indiana Jones 5‘s current worldwide total ($303 million), and even Pixar’s last major theatrical outing, Lightyear, which earned a sum of $226 million. It’s a strange yet significant comeback for a movie that many quickly deemed a “flop,” and it will almost certainly turn out to be Pixar’s most financially successful production since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So what happened? In truth, it’s hard to say. Few would argue that Elemental is Pixar’s greatest achievement, especially when compared to some of the studio’s more recent triumphs, like Encanto. The marketing has been middling—some have even said it’s downright illegal—and Elemental‘s critical reviews have been mixed, highlighting the idea that the film would have been better off focusing on one narrative or social allegory rather than multiple.

Perhaps, then, Elemental‘s slow-burn success is the result of the best kind of marketing there is—word of mouth. The film debuted in some markets in June, and others in July, allowing audiences a generous amount of time to listen to the opinions of their friends, both in real life and online, and decide whether this was a movie they wanted to spend their hard-earned money on. Critical reviews don’t always match audience perception (as Rotten Tomatoes has proven again and again), and general viewers will have undoubtedly found something to enjoy or even love in Pixar’s latest adventure.

So much pressure nowadays is put on movies to perform well during opening weekend. The Twitter feeds and email inboxes of entertainment journalists everywhere are filled with box office trackers, predictions, and analyses, and audiences are urged to support their most anticipated movies—and streaming shows—as soon as they are released for fear of not getting a sequel or another season or even witnessing the shut down of your local cinema. There’s a strange social and capitalist pressure that’s becoming consistently more off-putting. But maybe, just maybe, Elemental‘s surprising journey can help change the tide.

Companies like Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, and Disney have been canceling and even removing movies and shows from circulation that have only been available for a handful of weeks. There’s no window left to discover anything organically, and that has to change. Many stories need time to find their audience. Not every potential consumer is aware of every production all the time. Marketing before release is vital, yes, but there’s a public conversation to be had, too. Office watercooler chats, family gatherings, and online discussion forums provide viewers with the tools to discover new narratives and characters that they may have never heard of otherwise, all because their cookie-curated social media and Netflix algorithms were incapable of pointing them in the right direction.

Hopefully, the long, slow, and steady success of movies like Elemental, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and last year’s Top Gun: Maverick will signal to Hollywood that there are other avenues to explore. Releasing films on digital six weeks after their theatrical debuts only encourages audiences who would otherwise go see a movie in cinemas to avoid a trip to their local multiplex, but Hollywood’s current state of play is on the edge of a precipice. As more movies and shows are delayed due to the strikes, and studios become desperate to hold on to their audiences, maybe they’ll finally start to see not only the true worth of the creatives and performers that make these productions possible but the value of understanding that some stories are meant to simmer rather than boil, too.

(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)