There’s plenty of reason for Disney  CEO Bob Iger and his merry executives to pop champagne bottles today. Inside Out 2, the Disney Pixar animated feature film from this summer, has released onto Disney+ streaming — to say it is popular is not really articulating it well. Rather, one might say that the record-breaking box office performance of the movie is continuing apace in the digital space. Still… not everyone is excited. In releasing the gargantuan viewership data for Inside Out 2, Disney has also managed to out both Star Wars and Marvel as having lost their popularity with modern audiences.

First, let’s get to the good news for The Walt Disney Company. Both Inside Out 2 and Deadpool and Wolverine are real returns to form in terms of eliminating divisive agenda content and winning with mainstream consumers. Here’s the phenomenal statement Disney released regarding Inside Out 2 on Disney+ for its first five days:

INSIDE OUT 2 – FOGHORN’S JOY – In Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” newly minted teenager Riley (voice of Kensington Tallman), her besties Bree (voice of Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) and Grace (voice of Grace Lu), and their hockey team the Foghorns win the championship. Directed by Kelsey Mann and produced by Mark Nielsen, “Inside Out 2” releases only in theaters June 14, 2024. © 2024 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Following a record-breaking theatrical run, Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2—the highest-grossing animated movie of all time—set even more records with its Disney+ debut.

 

Inside Out 2 drove 30.5 million views* globally on Disney+, based on five days of streaming, making it the No. 1 film premiere on Disney+ in 2024, the No. 1 theatrical film premiere on Disney+ since Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Encanto (2021), and the No. 1 film premiere of all time on Disney+ in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) and LATAM (Latin America). Additionally, excitement for the sequel drove viewers to revisit the original in huge numbers: since the first Inside Out 2 teaser trailer premiered to record numbers, there have been more than 121 million views of Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out (2015) globally on Disney+.

 

The coming-of-age comedy Inside Out 2 takes place inside the mind of newly minted teenager Riley (Kensington Tallman), just as Headquarters undergoes a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions. Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira) are unsure how to feel when those new Emotions—Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Adebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser)—arrive.

 

Inside Out 2 is directed by Kelsey Mann, produced by Mark Nielsen, and executive produced by Pete Docter, Jonas Rivera, and Dan Scanlon. It features a screenplay by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein, from a story by Mann and LeFauve, and music by Andrea Datzman.

 

Released in theaters June 14, Inside Out 2 continued to set new records throughout the summer. In addition to opening to record numbers, it enjoyed a massive second weekend and crossed the $1 billion mark in just 19 days—faster than any other animated film ever. It remains the highest-grossing movie of 2024, and the only animated film to cross $1 billion internationally. The film has been a hit with audiences and critics alike, as it’s Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes™, has an “A” CinemaScore, and boasts a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 95%.

 

* A view is defined as total stream time divided by runtime.

There’s no denying that Inside Out 2 is doing a tremendous job in the race for ratings. Conversely, however, this does shine a light on two properties of once-hyper-popular franchises that continue to wither with agenda-driven narratives. Let’s examine in detail.

According to the press release by Disney, Inside Out 2 earned 30.5 million views over 5 days. That’s an average of 6.1 million views per day. Even better, it’s content that is likely to drive consumer product purchases (that’s fancy talk for toys, folks). If we assume for a moment that Inside Out 2 garnered the same average views per day for an additional two days, that would bring Inside Out 2 to a blistering 42.7 million views in its first week of release on Disney+. Despite the large consensus that Inside Out 2 is not one of Pixar’s best films from a quality perspective (it’s more middling), it’s easily a behemoth for consumption.

But how does it stand in comparison to Star Wars and Marvel on Disney+? 

Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.

To determine what a hit looks like versus a flop, let us turn to the most recent big budget series on Disney+ from Kathleen Kennedy and Kevin Feige. As we’ve reported exclusively here on That Park Place, Star Wars’ The Acolyte had a budget of about a quarter billion dollars… and that’s not including its marketing. While we don’t yet know the budget for Agatha All Along by Marvel, the production quality for both series look similar. At least for The Acolyte, that means its budget is in line with the estimated costs for Inside Out 2.

So what did Disney get for those budgets?

To review our findings in the past, not what they received for their Inside Out 2 ROI.

If we divide the viewership measured for The Acolyte by the number of days for which we are given, we discover that The Acolyte averaged 2.22 million views per day in its first five days. If we divide the viewership measured for Agatha All Along by the number of days for which we are given, Marvel’s new series only picked up 1.32 million.

In other words, Inside Out 2 approximately tripled the viewership of The Acolyte and quintupled the viewership of Agatha All Along. When combined with the knowledge that Inside Out 2 is a likely-powerhouse for moving merch (as will be Deadpool and Wolverine), it’s easy to see why it’s such a winner compared to the other two big Disney+ releases for the quarter. Not only are Agatha and Acolyte duds for viewership, they’re duds for third party partners and retail sales as well.

My retail insider has said since the launch of Star Wars Outlaws they’ve seen VERY low sales.

One store in particular with heavy foot traffic has sold ZERO physical copies after release. https://t.co/amDXJi8iij

— Stuttering Craig (Official) (@StutteringCraig) October 1, 2024

The bottom line is that Disney clearly has a path forward in which they stop the flow of flops at the box office, stem the stalled streaming content, and reinvigorate their consumer division. It’s a simple strategy of excluding division from their entertainment output. When Disney stays clear of sociopolitical fire, their revenue streams go red hot. Inside Out 2 is evidence of it… but so are the mishaps that are hampering Disney+ growth. Here’s to a Disney that returns to a mainstream middle, sensible center approach to economic growth. Like Riley from Inside Out 2, Wall Street would likely jump with Joy were that to happen.