Toy Story 3 debuted on June 18th
Pixar scored its biggest opening weekend (stretching from June 18-20) with an estimted $109 million [Update: Actual total is $110.3 million] for Toy Story 3. The animation studio’s prior largest weekend belonged to The Incredibles, which opened to $70.5 million in May of 2004. Toy Story 3, which was directed by Lee Unkrich, also had an opening day total of about $41 million, the most an animated film has made on its first day of release. The new adventure of Woody and the other toys has been receiving almost universal critical acclaim, with a current Tomatometer rating of 99% on the popular Rotten Tomatoes site.
With Toy Story 3, Pixar’s streak of 10 straight films debuting in first place at the weekend box office turned into 11 straight films. How does Pixar’s opening weekend for its new release stack up against the studio’s earlier releases? Here are their 11 films ranked according to the films’ opening weekend intake. It is important to note that these films are NOT adjusted for inflation, so many of the older films would be higher on the list with today’s higher ticket prices:
- Toy Story 3 (June 2010) – $110,307,189
- The Incredibles (Nov. 2004) – $70,467,623
- Finding Nemo (June 2003) – $70,251,710
- Up (May 2009) – $68,108,790
- WALL-E (June 2008) -$63,087,526
- Cars (June 2006) – $60,119,509
- Monsters, Inc. (Nov. 2001) – $62,577,067
- Toy Story 2 (Nov. 1999) – $57,388,839
- Ratatouille (July 2007) – $47,027,395
- A Bug’s Life (Nov. 1998) – $33,258,052
- Toy Story (Nov. 1995) – $29,140,617
Coming in next at the weekend box office was Karate Kid with an esimated $29 million and A-Team with about $13.8 million. The weekend’s other big release, Jonah Hex failed to bring in many moviegoers, accumulating just under $5.1 million in ticket sales. Cyrus, which was given a limited release, made $180,300.
On the horizon for Pixar is Cars 2, which has a current release date in June of 2011. Can they make it 12 straight?
UPDATE: Updated opening weekend total to actual amount of $110.3 million.
Source: Box Office Mojo
