Nolte: Woke ‘Lightyear’ Second-Weekend Box Office Hits Record Pixar Low

Dave J Hogan/Getty Images/Disney
Dave J Hogan/Getty Images/Disney

Now that their woke animated feature Lightyear has taken a record dive at the box office, the child groomers at the Walt Disney Co. must be truly bummed.

Lol.

Other than Onward (2020) — which doesn’t count because the coronavirus derailed its second weekend — LIghtyear currently holds the record for the worst second-weekend box office dive in Pixar’s 25-year history.

After opening to a disastrous $51 million, in its second weekend, Lightyear earned just $17.7 million, which is a crash of 65 percent.

This is a Toy Story movie. Lightyear is part of the most popular and iconic animated franchise in the universe, and after ten days and two weekends, it still sits at a pathetic $88.8 million domestic. Worldwide, it’s earned just $152 million.

The production alone cost $200 million. Add another $100 million for advertising. In order to break even, Disney needs to see a worldwide take of at least $550 to 650 million, which will not happen. So Lightyear will probably lose more than $100 million.

Yes, Onward took a 73 percent dive in its second weekend, but that doesn’t count. Onward opened in early March of 2020, the same week the coronavirus struck, and everything started shutting down.

So, by any fair measure, Lightyear holds the Pixar record for the biggest second-weekend box office drop.

Congrats.

Great job, Disney.

Way to destroy your biggest animated franchise after destroying your Star Wars film franchise.

What did Disney expect after adding a homosexual plot line to a children’s movie?

Pixar/Disney

Disney is supposed to protect the innocence of children, not shatter it, and not put parents in a position where they have to explain human sexuality before their children are ready.

You know, I dashed into a Jurassic World Dominion matinee this weekend. The movie is unforgivably stupid, the worst of the six, and the legacy characters are wasted as comic foils. But guess who steals the movie? Actress DeWanda Wise, who plays one of that devil-may-care-mercenary-pilots-with-a-heart-of-gold. She’s beautiful, charismatic, rises above some embarrassingly awful dialogue and scenes, and her character just happens to be a lesbian.

Jurassic World Dominion handled this exactly right. There’s no off-putting homosexuality. This character is not defined by her sex life. Instead, she’s an appealing, intelligent, humorous, sympathetic, fully-dimensional human being who just happens to be gay. Best of all, it’s handled so well that small children are unlikely to even pick up on it, which is how it should be in mainstream movies.

Anyway, Minions: The Rise of Gru hits theaters Friday, which means Lightyear is officially dead meat. And as far as I know, The Rise of Gru doesn’t contain any same-sex sex, so it has that going for it.

Watching Disney crash and burn is almost as much fun as watching CNN crash and burn.

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

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