It seems some sequels to animated mega-hits go up, and some just slump…
Also, disclaimer… Everything ahead refers to the DOMESTIC box office only…
Recently, we saw Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets 2 dipping quite a bit from its 2016 predecessor’s opening weekend gross. The original Secret Life of Pets opened with a massive $104 million, a record gross for a non-sequel animated feature film, beating the previous winner of that prize, Pixar’s Inside Out. (No, I don’t count Jon Favreau’s 99% animated Jungle Book remake, which – months prior to Secret Life of Pets – opened with $103 million. I’m strictly referring to “pure” animated movies, not faux-live action movies like that or Gravity.)
The Secret Life of Pets 2 opened well below that, with less than $60 million. A respectable but not all that great $46 million gross. Less than half the amount of what the original raked in… This struck me as a little unusual, because Illumination up until this point seemed to have a foolproof method. We saw the Despicable Me sequels/spin-offs defy some odds, even an original like Secret Life of Pets and especially Sing. It didn’t matter what kind of reception their movies got from critics, people flocked to them. They seemed to be animation the way the public wants it, innocuous but “funny enough”, cute for kids but has lots of “adult” jokes. (Read: Crude humor, quasi-relatable quips, and innuendos.) Almost all of their movies have easily cracked $200 million at the domestic box office alone, with one exception – a hybrid movie, Hop. Even Pixar has more than three movies in the post-Toy Story 2 line-up that missed $200 million domestically.
The Secret Life of Pets 2, I feel, opened significantly lower for a reason. Not quality, not the rather muted and unusual marketing campaign, not even clutter and competition… Maybe The Secret Life of Pets just wasn’t going to be a long-lasting flavor with audiences. It happens to great movies, so-so movies, bad movies, everything.
Two years ago, I made a chart on my old defunct blog that looked into all of this. It turned out, many animated sequels actually stay flat in both ticket sales and box office grosses. Some sequels gradually drop off, some steeper than others…
Another 2019 animated sequel performed similarly: The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. I loved The LEGO Movie 2 and felt it was almost on par with the great first LEGO Movie. Yet it barely coughed up $100 million domestically, while the original was well past that 2-3 weeks into its run. Some have argued that releasing two spin-off features – The LEGO Batman Movie and The LEGO Ninjago Movie – first was a factor, others suggested that waiting five years to put out the sequel did it, others pointed to the rather ho-hum marketing campaign. I think these things did play a part, but at the same time, I just think that The LEGO Movie and The Secret Life of Pets were kind of one-and-done things for chunks of audiences. Half of the audiences who were there for the first one didn’t feel the need to bother with a sequel in theaters. They probably said “I’ll wait till it comes out on video/streaming/whatever.”
Contrast that with Ralph Breaks The Internet from last autumn. Ralph Breaks surpassed its predecessor domestically, nearly equalling it in ticket sales. Now, being a Disney animated feature, it of course enjoyed an aggressive ad campaign (that heavily emphasized synergetic crissy-crossover stuff) and the original being a long-lasting flavor. Ralph Breaks The Internet debuted six years after the first film came out, so I think Ralph and Vanellope sort of stuck with those who saw their adventures back in 2012-2013. Those who weren’t going to bother with a sequel had a replacement, in people who became fans of the original AFTER the theatrical release of the movie. Discovering it through video, streaming, the parks, etc.
This sort of thing is also not limited to animated features. Plenty of live-action franchises come booming out of the gates, only to drop off when it comes to the sequels.
What determines an animated long-lasting flavor? Sometimes, quality just doesn’t do it. The Kung Fu Panda series, I feel, is a good example of this. I think most folks agree that Kung Fu Panda 2 is just as good as its great predecessor, if not even better… Yet, Kung Fu Panda 2 opened lower than its predecessor and made significantly less domestically… And this had 3D and IMAX 3D ticket prices on its side, a possible boost! Something the original Kung Fu Panda didn’t need. Kung Fu Panda, in 2008, made $215 million stateside off of a $60 million opening. Kung Fu Panda 2 made $165 million off of a $47 million opening. Then five years later, Kung Fu Panda 3 opened with $41 million and mustered up $143 million when all was said and done. A steady decline from sequel to sequel, in America. Here we saw a flavor that faded, but much more gradually than what we saw with Pets 2.
Other series? It’s more gradual, or the sequels don’t gross that much more than their predecessors. Examples of this include Hotel Transylvania, Rio, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. One time, we saw a gradual increase… That happened to be the Toy Story series, before Toy Story 4 came out.
The press tried to spin Toy Story 4‘s *great* opening weekend haul of $120 million ($10 million up from the previous film) as a “disappointment”… That’s because some people unrealistically projected that it would open with well over $150 million… The biggest animated movie openers, sans Incredibles 2, have opened with less than $140 million domestically… In a world where movies have opened with over $200 million (and in one very special case, $350 million), that’s still not all that high up the ladder. Toy Story 4 stayed a little flat, its opening weekend ticket sales were a teensy bit below the third movie’s opening weekend ticket sales. (13.9 million tickets vs. 13.4 million tickets.) Still, it opened nearly on par with its 9-year-old predecessor, and the franchise as a whole is 24 YEARS OLD… That is DAMN impressive, I don’t care what you say.
It’s safe to say that Toy Story is a very long-lasting flavor. It might just be… Immortal?
Outside of the movies, it has a whole damn land in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, attractions elsewhere, two television specials, multiple short films, and merchandise out the wazoo. It’ll always be in the public conscious, and it helps that all four of the Toy Story movies are of very high quality.
Then there’s older animated movies… A lot of them are forever-lasting flavors in a different way. Hard to say, because a lot of older animated classics didn’t get proper sequels.
Disney’s a dead end in this context, because almost all of the Disney animated features received direct-to-video sequels instead of proper theatrical sequels made in-house at Walt Disney Feature Animation. One can only imagine what the box office would’ve been like for a proper Lion King II in 1998, an official sequel made by WDFA and spearheaded by much of the original team as possible. We will never know for this or the other films. Disney did release the intended-to-be-DTV sequels Return to Never Land and The Jungle Book 2 to theaters in the early aughts, but audiences weren’t swayed, and they both came up very short in returns. I think those floppy performances had a lot to do with the fact that they were direct-to-video tier movies, and adult audiences caught onto that. It didn’t help that they were sequels to decades-old movies, had noticeably inferior visuals (these were made on lower budgets than the original features), and different voice casts.
Perhaps the grosses of their respective remakes (particularly The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin) show just how long-lasting they are… Or they just show that general audiences always longed for “better”, “realistic” versions of crappy cartoons that they only half-like, and flocked in droves to see just that? Or is my inner cold cynic showing? Like… What would’ve happened if, instead of getting a photorealistic Lion King remake this year, we got an actual belated sequel to The Lion King? Suppose that the two direct-to-video movie follow-ups didn’t exist in this timeline… How would THAT have done theatrically? Who the heck knows.
For now, we have a handful of Pixar films. With each Toy Story sequel, the ticket sales and grosses jumped a good amount, and then with the newest entry, there was a microscopic dip. The Incredibles… Now that right there… The original Incredibles collected $261 million domestically in 2004, and that adjusted to roughly $350 million in 2018… Incredibles 2 made almost *double* that domestically, coming up to $608 million. It performed just like Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Austin Powers in “The Spy Who Shagged Me”, it made way more than its predecessor. That was a case of the first movie being A) a very long-lasting flavor, and B) a movie that garnered plenty of new fans over the span of 13 1/2 years. The superhero movie renaissance we’re going through now probably helped a great deal as well.
Finding Dory by contrast stayed flat. The massive amount of money it collected in 2016 is what Finding Nemo‘s original 2003 gross adjusts to in that same year. Monsters University made less than the original in ticket sales, though the domestic gross was a little higher. That’s probably because it was a prequel, and not a new adventure with a slightly less predictable outcome. Cars gradually fell off with each installment. For the public, that auto movie didn’t scream “sequel”.
We didn’t get that with many DreamWorks films. Shrek was a sleeper hit in 2001, the sequel made the original’s performance look like nothing three years later, but then afterwards, the sequels sharply declined in grosses and ticket sales. Puss in Boots did well stateside, but made way less than any of the Shreks, an expected performance given that it was a spinoff prequel. A fifth Shrek will probably perform like a nostalgia sequel, should it come out any time soon. Shrek still seems to have its fans, though, so it’s a flavor that’s still here in some way or another. How To Train Your Dragon declined with each movie, like Kung Fu Panda, but not drastically. Madagascar held on for the most part, the only drop-off being the Penguins spin-off. Who knows how Trolls World Tour and The Croods 2 will do next year, one a sequel to a fairly-recent film of theirs and the other a long-gestating sequel.
Illumination has other sequels coming up, like Sing 2 and Minions: The Rise of Gru, in addition to a planned Despicable Me 4. I wonder how Sing 2 will do in comparison to the first one. It could really drop off like Pets 2 did, or it could stay flat. Despicable Me slowly fades. That franchise has followed the Shrek trajectory: Sleeper hit first movie, even bigger sequel, third installment is a drop-off. By contrast, its spin-off arrived between movie 2 and movie 3, unlike the ogre series. The Puss in Boots spin-off arrived right after Shrek 4. Minions made less than Despicable Me 2, but more than the first and third movies.
Blue Sky’s Rio and Rio 2 made virtually the same amount in grosses and ticket sales. Ice Age slowly declined at first, then there was a sharp drop-off with the fifth film. That all occurred over the course of fourteen years. Blue Sky hasn’t done any other sequels besides those, and none have been planned since Ice Age 5’s release.
Sony Animation more or less has made sequels that stayed flat, again the aforementioned Hotel Transylvania flicks and the two Cloudy movies are fine examples of this. Smurfs declined sharply from one to two to the reboot. Maybe the Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse sequel will outgross its leggy predecessor, maybe not. They’re more focused on originals now, which is smart.
Walt Disney Animation Studios is in a new era now, where all sequels to their films are made in-house, after two decades of direct-to-video sequels. Ralph Breaks The Internet matched its predecessor, Frozen II may see a small dip because the first one was just too big to begin with, any future sequel will be interesting to track. Would a theoretical second Zootopia or Big Hero 6 perform on the level of the original? Or drop off? Make way more? Who knows! Again, some sequels can be rather unpredictable. That flavor could very well be pretty strong. Is your movie a stick of Juicy Fruit or an ever-lasting gobstopper?
The 2000s and 2010s undeniably were a big boom period for animated movie sequels, no doubt spurred by the success of Pixar’s Toy Story 2. Prior to Toy Story 2‘s holiday 1999 release, most animated movie sequels either failed to match their predecessors or outright flopped. Animated sequels won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, though I can imagine some studios easing up on them because it turns out, not all animated features are long-lasting flavors with the public. Sure, they make easy money for the studios, but sometimes more originals is the key. Some of Pixar’s recent originals outperformed some of their recent sequels, sometimes domestically, sometimes overseas. Inside Out and Coco smoked Monsters University and the Cars sequels, for example, and didn’t look too shabby – what with their huge $800m+ worldwide grosses – next to the likes of Toy Story 3, Finding Dory, and Incredibles 2. Basically, what it comes down to is this, a lot of animated movies can be lightning in a bottle. Sure, sequels will make some coin, but most of the time… The original often remains the highest-earning one in the series, or the sequel doesn’t earn that much more.
There’s really no animation glut, nor is there a problem with sequels in general. You also have to factor in moviegoers, who save their money for as many movies as they can see. Many moviegoers, especially groups and families, have to narrow their options. I read a statistic that said the average American family hits the movies *four* times a year. Four times. I’d imagine a lot of those slots go to other “event” movies like Marvel Cinematic Universe installments, Star Wars movies, other blockbusters, and especially certain non-Marvel/Star Wars Disney releases.
- This year, Disney only had one flop (Tim Burton’s Dumbo), another movie of theirs that was expected to bomb (the Aladdin remake) has more than made back its budget, and it looks as if they have at least one more for the rest of the year. Everything else on their docket is a guaranteed smash hit.
- Fox, now owned by Disney, had a cult favorite in Alita: Battle Angel, everything else this year hasn’t performed up to snuff, including Dark Phoenix‘s disastrous run. It remains to be seen how the likes of Ford v. Ferrari and Spies in Disguise will perform. Some of Fox’s movies don’t fit Disney’s “tentpole” ambitions, but if Disney is smart, they should use the Fox movies for their “smaller-scale film” slot that they left vacant after quietly phasing out Touchstone.
- Warner Bros. did fine with Shazam! and Detective Pikachu so far, though lost money on both The LEGO Movie 2 and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Perhaps It: Chapter 2 and possibly Joker could be their mega-hits for this year.
- Universal did good so far, with How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Us, and Glass. Nothing of Marvel caliber, though. Last year, they had that with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. This year? Well, Hobbs & Shaw should make plenty overseas, and there could be a sleeper buried somewhere in their 2019 line-up. Maybe Cats?
- Sony is collecting big coin from Spider-Man: Far From Home, obviously. Men In Black International has kind of fizzled. Outside of these and the forthcoming Jumanji sequel, Sony had one small hit so far, with Escape Room.
- Paramount has been having it rough… While What Men Want did okay, they had a huge flop in Wonder Park, Rocketman has already made back its budget but looks to make a mere fraction of what Bohemian Rhapsody pulled in last holiday.
- Lionsgate scored the summer surprise with John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.
If anything, the other studios are having trouble keeping up with Disney, whose “events” are hogging up people’s money. Again, when your options are limited and you settle for must-sees like Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Aladdin (to say nothing of Toy Story 4, The Lion King, Frozen II, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker), there’s little room for other flicks… Not even The Secret Life of Pets 2, a sequel to a massive smash hit, could weather Disney’s storm and get tons of families in the seats. Regardless of what we may think of Marvel movies, Star Wars movies, live-action/photorealistic remakes, the like… Disney knows how to get audiences, and it’s why they win each and every year. They rely on a lot of proven brands, or… Again… Long-lasting flavors.
But again, we can’t just put the blame on Disney’s dominance. I think it’s just one factor of many… That, the long-lasting flavor theory, and moviegoers spending wisely with what they have…