Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Lightyear
Toy Story spin-off Lightyear was expected by many observers to continue the iconic franchise's financial success, yet the movie has been an undoubted disappointment at the box office. The film failed to replace Jurassic World Dominion as the number one movie in the US over its debut weekend, to the surprise of many observers. Naturally, this raises several questions about the viability of both the Buzz Lightyear character and wider Toy Story saga moving forwards.
Lightyear represents a radical departure from the tried and tested Toy Story formula. The opening explains that the movie was actually a favorite of previous franchise character and toy owner Andy Davis and served as the inspiration for the Tim Allen-voiced Buzz toy that features in the original four films. Lightyear's narrative, by contrast, revolves around a complex time-travel motif, seeing a new Chris Evans-voiced Buzz trapped on a remote colony, testing out time-altering rocket fuel and combating his arch-nemesis Emperor Zurg.
Since his inception, Buzz Lightyear has been one of Pixar's most iconic and enduring characters. Given this reputation, it's understandable that the studio had high hopes for a film focused on his story, away from the other key Toy Story players. However, it seems that this new approach may actually be behind the movie's relative failure to impress. Removing Buzz from his familiar surroundings – as well as updating and replacing key aspects of the character – seems to have put potential viewers off. This, coupled with narrative retcons and an absence of other classic characters seems to have contributed to Lightyear's downfall.
How Lightyear's Opening Box Office Compares To Toy Story Movies
Historically, the Toy Story movies have been among Pixar's most commercially lucrative releases. The four previous films grossed more than $3bn worldwide against a budget of around $720m, making the series the fourth highest-grossing animated franchise of all time. What's particularly noticeable is that each film has hitherto been able to improve upon the previous entry's box office performance. This culminated in Toy Story 4's impressive earnings of $1.073bn, marking the saga's financial high watermark to date.
Although it's only early days, Lightyear looks incredibly unlikely to repeat this success. After opening weekend, the film has grossed a comparatively paltry $51m at the US box office, combined with $34.6m overseas for a total gross of just $85.6m. By contrast, Toy Story 3 grossed over $110m over its opening weekend in the US alone, highlighting the disparity between Lightyear and other franchise-affiliated projects. Coupled with the movie's reported $200m budget, Lightyear's disappointing returns are potentially very concerning for Pixar.
Why Lightyear Underperformed At The Box Office
There are several possible explanations for Lightyear's underwhelming performance. The first, and arguably most important consideration is the nature of the story itself. Thanks to its slightly convoluted central narrative device, Lightyear is not a real origin story in the commonly understood use of the phrase. Instead of focusing on the origins of the Buzz that audiences are already familiar with, the movie focuses on an all-new version of the same character. While they share a name and elements of a backstory, the reality is that Lightyear is almost completely unconnected to the main Toy Story narrative, despite being part of the same series.
This introduces another key problem for Lightyear – its lack of recognizable Toy Story characters. Typically, origin stories and spin-offs can benefit from cameos and longer appearences from other familiar faces from the rest of a particular series. In this case, however, the nature of Lightyear's story prevents that from happening. Not only is the Buzz represented on-screen different from the version popularized by Tim Allen, but the story is missing much-loved figures like Woody, Jesse, Bo-Peep, Rex, Slinky, and Mr. Potato Head. This lack of connection to what have arguably always been Toy Story's greatest strength means that any discernable benefit Lightyear may have gained from being Toy Story-adjacent is lost.
With so many changes and complicated developments at play, an original take on an origin story like Lightyear would usually rely on positive critical reception and good word of mouth to propel it to success. Unfortunately, this is where the third major factor in its opening weekend failure comes in to play. Unlike the critically acclaimed and almost universally-adored Toy Story series, Lightyear has received a decidedly lukewarm response. The movie currently holds a 76% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes – comfortably the lowest in the franchise. Although its RT audience score is slightly higher, its IMDb rating sits at a mediocre 5.3, indicating an unfavorable audience reaction. This reception, coupled with the movie's inherent issues as an idiosyncratic sequel, could explain why Lightyear has so far underperformed at the box office.
What Lightyear's Box Office Means For Pixar
Lightyear's disappointing returns could have a major impact on future Pixar releases. One clear consequence could be in the way that they approach future spin-offs from existing IPs. Whatever Lightyear's flaws, there's no disputing that the movie takes a bold and innovative approach to telling an origin story. By exploring an alternate version of an iconic character, the studio opened up numerous possibilities for reassessing and even retconning elements of Toy Story lore. A prime example of this is Lightyear's treatment of Zurg, who has been reimagined as an older, alternative version of Buzz himself. However, whether or not such bold narrative decisions are worth it has been rendered somewhat redundant – the movie's lack of financial success means that Pixar is now far less likely to take similar risks in the future, potentially compromising the level of innovation on display in future projects.
More broadly, however, Lightyear's failure could prompt the continuation of a worrying recent Disney trend – consigning Pixar releases to the Disney+ streaming service, rather than showing them in cinemas. Recent projects such as the critically-acclaimed Turning Red only received a very limited theatrical run, with the movie itself promoted extensively as a Disney+ exclusive free of charge. For a famous studio responsible for some of the biggest animated cinematic hits of all time, being relegated to the small screen can understandably be viewed as something of an insult. Disney's wider plans for the studio remain largely unknown. Nevertheless, Lightyear's poor opening weekend box office performance could be an ominous sign for anyone who enjoys the full Pixar cinematic experience.