‘Elemental’ Earns $2.4 Million at Thursday Box Office

thewrap.com:

on Rotten Tomatoes) and little being sold beyond “Hey, it’s the next Pixar film!”), the Peter Sohn-directed flick could struggle to match the $29 million Fri-Sun debut (amid a $39 million Wed-Sun launch) of “Toy Story” back in 1995, let alone the over/under $39 million Fri-Sun debuts of “The Good Dinosaur” in 2015 and “Onward” (which opened a week before COVID shut down the world) in 2020.Just running the numbers, if “Elemental” legs over the weekend like “Lightyear” ($51 million from a $5.2 million Thursday), it’ll open with just $23.5 million by Sunday night.

Being more optimistic, however unlikely, if “Elemental” legs like “Cars 3” ($53 million/$2.6 million), well, then it opens with $49 million and you can ignore the next few paragraphs of doom-n-gloom.Generally speaking, animated movies tend to make less of their money on Thursday night, since general audiences are more inclined to wait until the proper weekend to take their kids.

However, the franchise-friendly likes of “Toy Story 4” ($120 million/$12 million) and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” ($120 million/$17.4 million) tended to play closer to live-action franchise installments, as did “Lightyear.” Splitting the difference, if “Elemental” earned 7.5% of its overall weekend take on Thursday, that’s still an underwhelming $32 million weekend.

The picture debuted to muted response as the Cannes closing night flick only for its overall critical reception to improve after more domestic critics sampled the goods.