Following an entire year without a billion-dollar movie, it looks like Disney is back on great track having two movies that crossed the billion mark this year. We’re naturally talking about ‘Inside Out 2’ and ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ both movies a terrific success with the audiences.
Pixar’s latest hit has earned $652.6 million in the U.S. and Canada and $1.030 billion internationally, bringing its global total to $1.682 billion.
Now some interesting insider reports were brought to light by IGN. Apparently, animators who worked on ‘Inside Out 2’ were instructed to make Riley, the protagonist of the movie “less gay” in order to avoid the catastrophic failure that ‘Lightyear’ was following a same-sex kiss included in the movie.
The film was banned in several Muslim-majority countries due to a same-sex kiss scene between characters Alisha Hawthorne and her partner Kiko. China requested the removal of the same-sex kiss scene, but Disney chose not to comply with this request. The same-sex kiss scene was initially cut from the film but was reinstated after Disney’s response to the Florida Parental Rights in Education bill, amid internal debates within the company.
Following all these controversies, ‘Lightyear’ earned $118.3 million in the U.S. and Canada, and $108.1 million internationally, totaling $226.4 million globally. It was the fourth highest-grossing animated film of 2022 in the U.S. and the fifth worldwide. However, ‘Deadline Hollywood’ reported that the film resulted in a $106 million loss for the studio after accounting for all expenses and revenues.
Insiders claim that the movie caused loads of issues for the development of ‘Inside Out 2’:
“It is, as far as I know, still a thing, where leadership, they’ll bring up Lightyear specifically and say, ‘Oh, Lightyear was a financial failure because it had a queer kiss in it. That’s not the reason the movie failed.
The development was reportedly affected by hesitance to include LGBTQ themes. Sources indicate that there were repeated notes to make Riley, the main character, appear “less gay,” leading to numerous edits, especially after the WGA strike ended in September 2023. Efforts were made to ensure that the relationship between Riley and Val, a new character in the sequel, seemed as platonic as possible, including adjustments to lighting and tone to minimize any hint of romantic chemistry.
One source described these efforts as excessive work to prevent any perception of Riley and Val as being in a non-heteronormative relationship.
Mind you, Riley is not canonically gay. In the film, what you saw, nothing about Riley says that she is gay, but it is kind of inferred based on certain contexts. And so that is something that they tried to play down at multiple points.
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