Inside Out 2 opened with an astonishing $295m globally surpassing Dune 2 and Frozen 2’s record openings.
Pixar has made an epic comeback with the brand new Inside out 2, a sequel to Inside Out(2015). This new record is a high jump from the first film’s opening earning of $90m. The story follows Riley, a pre-teen and her five personified emotions, namely, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger. She navigates her life as the five emotions try to navigate her inside her brain. Yes! They all live inside her mind that looks like a control room! Pete Docter, the director, got the idea for the movie in October 2009 after noting down his own daughter’s behavioral changes while growing up. Many psychologists and neurologists were consulted by the makers to correctly portray the emotions inside a young girl’s mind. This became something fresh and new in the animated movie genre.
In the new sequel, Inside Out 2, Riley is now a teenager with four new emotions. They are Envy, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Anxiety. The massive opening day jump from $90m to $295m has created hopes for Disney to cross the $1bn mark as the first film had later reached a huge $858m worldwide. The new emotions and storyline expanded the target demographic. Riley in the first movie has changed and her new “awkward-teenager” phase was successfully portrayed. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Inside Out 2 started with $13 million and was already well ahead of expectations. Due to strong traffic on the next day, an estimate was made of an opening of at least $130 million to $140 million domestically. They also raked in a score of 93 % on Rotten Tomatoes. The sequel was able to collect $140 million internationally and with the whooping $155 collected in the US, it broke the records of Dune 2 ($185 million) and Frozen 2’s ($135 million) global box-office collection. It is predicted to reach the highest global opening for an animated feature film.
A simple concept was turned into a beautiful landscape of possibilities and Pixar yet again proved themselves to be a beast in the game. While the old cast of Amy Poehler (Joy), Phyllis Smith (Sadness) and Lewis Black(Anger) remained, new and fresh faces were added such as Maya Hawke(Anxiety), Ayo Edebiri(Envy), Adele Exarchopoulos(Ennui), Liza Lapira(DIsgust), Tony Hale(Fear) and also June Squibb(Nostalgia). Happy with the result of the first two movies, director Kelsey Mann has dropped hints about a future work as he wanted to portray Riley’s older experiences like high school or college. A person goes through several changes as they grow up and thus, it is very much possible to curate more ideas which is shown in the ending of the most recent movie where Riley’s new changes are implied.
Pixar is still a heavyweight in the animation industry and the success of Inside Out and Inside Out 2 has proved the possibility of blossoming a simple concept into an endearing movie that can be enjoyed by all ages.
