Pixar\u2019s upcoming original movie Hoppers looks set to revitalize the studio\u2019s original slate when it hits theaters in just over a month, on March 6.<\/p>\n
With a domestic opening weekend projected<\/a> to reach $40 to $50 million, Hoppers could be a test of whether Pixar can regain its once-great box office momentum with new stories rather than relying on sequels. In recent years, the studio\u2019s franchise films have massively outperformed its original projects, making Hoppers\u2019 promising early numbers especially significant. By comparison, that would double the studio\u2019s last original, Elio, which opened with a historically bad<\/a> $20.8 million.<\/p>\n A successful run for the film could signal renewed audience interest in fresh Pixar concepts and help boost Disney\u2019s confidence in the studio\u2019s future original releases.<\/p>\n Pixar\u2019s recent original films have tended to open far lower and underperform in the long term compared with its sequels, reflecting a broader challenge facing original studio animated features.<\/p>\n Elemental, the studio\u2019s most successful original in years, opened with $30 million in its first weekend. If Hoppers opens at the low end of current estimates, it would significantly overshadow that figure. A $40 million opening would put it on par with Pixar\u2019s last pre-pandemic release, Onward <\/a>($39 million), and if it reaches the higher estimate, it could match Coco <\/a>($50.8 million). To find an original Pixar release that opened significantly higher than current estimates, you would have to go all the way back to 2012, when Brave debuted at $66.43 million.<\/p>\n If Hoppers has any kind of legs, it could become the studio\u2019s most successful original film in almost a decade, since Coco finished its domestic run at $210.5 million and $796 million globally.<\/p>\n Perhaps a key advantage is that Hoppers will be released in a corridor not previously explored by Pixar, which has traditionally favored summer slots for its films. This shift in release window could give the movie more room to build momentum through positive word of mouth before bigger spring and summer releases arrive.<\/p>\n The stakes are high because Pixar built its reputation on innovative, standalone storytelling, yet audience habits and competition have shifted in recent years. Hoppers blends Pixar\u2019s somewhat original storytelling approach (\u201cThis is like Avatar,\u201d the film\u2019s first trailer joked) with a lo-fi sci-fi concept designed to appeal to family audiences, and industry observers will be watching closely to see whether it can help reestablish the studio as the box office powerhouse it once was, or whether Disney may demand another half-dozen Toy Story films from its subsidiary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pixar\u2019s upcoming original movie Hoppers looks set to revitalize the studio\u2019s original slate when it hits theaters in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-264861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}