Audiences Reject Recycled Releases As ‘Soul,’ ‘Spider-Verse’ Post Dismal Weekend Box Office Numbers

Disney’s theatrical release of Pixar’s Soul, available on Disney+ since December 2020, had a shocking weekend at the domestic box office, grossing just $131,000 from 1,350 theaters for a $97 per-theater average. That was the lowest average of any film whose numbers were reported this week and nearly a 70% drop from the previous week.

Disney will be hoping for better when it releases Turning Red on February 9 and Luca on March 22, but things don’t look promising after two terrible weeks for Soul.

The weekend was only slightly better for Sony, which re-released one of its own films over the weekend, Oscar contender Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Screened in a much more modest 466 theaters, Across the Spider-Verse only grossed $150,000, or $321 per theater, the third lowest of any film that reported numbers over the frame.

The first quarter of 2024 has very little to offer in terms of animated features playing in cinemas, and re-releases perhaps seemed like a potentially good idea, given the circumstances. However, that strategy has proved fruitless, with holdovers from late 2023 massively outperforming films that audiences have been able to watch at home for months and years already.

The top-performing animated film of 2023 so far has been Illumination’s Migration, which finished its fifth weekend in theaters in fifth place. The film grossed $5.3 million at the domestic box office over the weekend, down just 15% from the previous week. Its lifetime domestic gross now sits at $94.6 million. Combined with Migration’s $97 million international haul, the film has grossed $191.6 million worldwide.

Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron continued its record-breaking North American theatrical run with another $814,529 over the weekend, bringing its domestic total to $43.2 million after seven weeks in theaters.

Dreamworks’ musical sequel Trolls Band Together, which recently crossed the $100 million lifetime mark in North America, grossed $350,000 from 478 theaters during its 10th week in cinemas.

Wish limped towards the end of its domestic run with $151,000 grossed from just 185 theaters. While the film has been a complete flop in the U.S., Wish has done much better abroad and finished the weekend in tenth place thanks to $6.1 million grossed from 51 international markets. The film’s global tally now sits at $191.6 million. While that is on par with the totals of Trolls and Migration, those films were made for a fraction of what Disney spent on Wish.