The opening weekend can really make or break a film – no matter how good it is. And the audience turned out in huge numbers for the release of Inside Out 2 this past weekend. The Inside Out sequel, released in the UK and Ireland on 14 June, drew an audience paying over £11 million – this accounted for 71 per cent of all ticket sales across the weekend.
On a wider scale, the sequel opened to an estimated worldwide $295 million over the weekend, which makes it the highest global animated opening of all time.
And, bursting out of our inside-out work clothes — it’s the way we dress here at TnP — we have to say that, in our TnP June issue, we noted: “what we really need is a good blockbuster of Barbie-esque proportions,” while also pointing out that “Disney Pixar’s Inside Out 2 was due later in the month.
Oh and, among the oh-so-positive mainstream media (this success helps us all in the toy industry) Variety’s headline stated: “Inside Out 2 shatters box office expectations […] biggest debut since Barbie” And now it actually has achieved the biggest box office opening since Barbie, are we proud of our observation? Oh yes we are.
But not as happy as Pixar must be after a series of recent disappointments. The film also generated the biggest ever Saturday in the UK and Ireland for any Pixar film, which is a staggering feat when you think of all the Pixar classics over the years including the likes of Up, Ratatouille and The Incredibles. So, it’s safe to say that it is going down a storm with audiences young and old.
And this is good for the whole toy industry worldwide and, more specifically, us in the UK.
