“Inside Out 2” was the biggest box office hit this summer, grossing about $650 million from domestic theaters and $1.6 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo data, shattering a long list of records for animated movies and helping to jumpstart a successful summer movie season.
Image from "Inside Out 2."
“Inside Out 2,” the long-awaited sequel to the 2015 Disney-Pixar animated film, took just one week to surpass “Dune: Part Two” as the highest-grossing film of 2024 at domestic theaters, and days later, surpassed the “Dune” sequel worldwide.
The summer’s second-biggest hit and the only Marvel film to hit theaters this year, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” is close behind “Inside Out 2” at domestic theaters, grossing $581 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” surpassed “Inside Out 2” to claim the biggest box-office debut of the year with $211 million in its domestic opening weekend, the sixth-largest opening weekend of all time.
The rest of the biggest box office hits released since Memorial Day were sequels, or entries in popular franchises, including “Despicable Me 4,” “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and “Twisters,” a standalone sequel to the 1996 hit “Twister.”
“A Quiet Place: Day One” and “Longlegs” were the summer’s biggest horror hits, with the latter being the only film in this summer’s top 10 highest-grossing films that isn’t a sequel or adaptation of existing material.
- “Inside Out 2” ($646.8 million)
- “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($581.1 million)
- “Despicable Me 4” ($349.2 million)
- “Twisters” ($249.9 million)
- “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” ($193.5 million)
- “A Quiet Place: Day One” ($138.9 million)
- “It Ends with Us” ($123.8 million)
- “The Garfield Movie” ($91.9 million)
- “Alien: Romulus” ($76.6 million)
- “Longlegs” ($73.6 million)
- “Inside Out 2” ($1.65 billion)
- “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($1.21 billion)
- “Despicable Me 4” ($887.1 million)
- “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” ($402 million)
- “Twisters” ($348.6 million)
- “A Quiet Place: Day One” ($261.6 million)
- “It Ends with Us” ($245.6 million)
- “Alien: Romulus” ($229 million)
- “The Garfield Movie” ($228.7 million)
- “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” ($172.8 million)
“Inside Out 2” offered a much-needed jolt to the summer box office, which begins with the critical Memorial Day holiday weekend—but this year’s Memorial Day box office was the worst in three decades as “The Garfield Movie” and “Furiosa” underperformed. The rough Memorial Day weekend followed several flops earlier in the spring, including “The Fall Guy” and “IF.”
“Inside Out 2” is the highest-grossing animated film of all time, ahead of the $1.45 billion earned by “Frozen II” in 2019. It’s also the tenth highest-grossing film of all time worldwide and the third highest-grossing film of the 2020s. “Inside Out 2” is the first animated film to gross $1 billion across international markets (excluding the United States).
The success of “Deadpool & Wolverine” ended a dismal streak for superhero movies at the box office. Since 2023, Marvel and DC both released a series of misfires, including Marvel’s worst-performing film “The Marvels,” and other disappointments “The Flash,” “Blue Beetle” and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.” Disney CEO Bob Iger said on an earnings call in May that Marvel will “reduce output and focus more on quality.”
Not every film released this summer was a hit. The well-reviewed “Furiosa” was the first big box office failure of the summer season, making just $32 million over the extended Memorial Day weekend, a dismal result for the film produced on a massive $168 million budget. Its total worldwide gross of $172 million is not even half of the $350 million to $375 million Variety reported “Furiosa” would need to gross to break even (though Warner Bros. told Variety the film has a lower break-even point). The first film in Kevin Costner’s planned four-part Western saga, “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1,” failed both at the box office and with critics. The film has grossed just $35 million worldwide despite a reported $100 million production budget, and its underperformance may threaten Costner’s plan for three sequels: “Chapter 2” was pulled from its planned August theatrical release. The film adaptation of the popular video game series “Borderlands” grossed just $26 million worldwide after its August opening with a reported $115 million production budget, not including the additional $30 million spent on marketing and distribution. Despite a star-studded cast led by Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis, the film also bombed with critics, earning just a 10% Rotten Tomatoes score.
‘Inside Out 2’: All The Box Office Records Pixar Sequel Has Broken (Deadline)
How the Summer Box Office Went From Tragic to Magic (The Hollywood Reporter)