2024's Top Trending Movies Confirm Pixar Is Truly Back After A Disappointing 4 Years

While Inside Out 2’s box office success and critical performance were already great news, 2024’s top trending movies are what prove that Pixar is truly back on top. While almost all of Pixar's movies have fared well with critics, the studio has not been so fortunate at the box office. 2015’s The Good Dinosaur under-performed with both critics and audiences upon its release, proving that it was not only Pixar’s spinoffs and sequels that had a hard time equaling the critical success of their earliest original offerings.

Related Every Upcoming Pixar Movie & TV Show Here is every upcoming Pixar movie and TV show slated for release over the next few years, from new originals like Elio to sequels like Toy Story 5.

Meanwhile, the 2020s were outright brutal for the previously reliable studio. 2020's fantasy adventure Onward brought together two of the most profitable movie stars of the year, Chris Pratt and Tom Holland, for a comedic fantasy adventure that seemed certain to be a hit. However, Onward made only $142 million on a budget of over $175 million when it arrived in theaters in March 2020. Admittedly, the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the industry was a factor in Onward’s failure, but Pixar’s fortunes didn’t improve when 2022’s Turning Red grossed a disastrous $21 million on a budget of $175 million.

Inside Out 2 As 2024's Top Trending Movie Prove The Pixar Comeback Is Real

Inside Out 2 Managed To Top 2024’s Google Trends For Movies

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Luckily, 2024 has seen Pixar’s fortunes improve immeasurably. The phenomenally successful Inside Out 2 earned over $1.69 billion at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing animated movie of all time in the process. To make matters even better for the studio, Inside Out was 2024’s top trending movie according to Google. The rest of the search engine giant’s top ten list includes blockbusters like Dune: Part Two, Twisters, and Deadpool & Wolverine, as well as a few unexpected indie hits like Terrifier 3 and Saltburn. However, Inside Out 2 took the top spot.

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This is great news for Pixar, whose losing streak couldn’t be attributed entirely to COVID-19. Although Turning Red’s financial failure was certainly caused in part by the pandemic’s continuing impact on the industry, 2022’s Lightyear proved that even the studio’s most reliable franchises weren’t always guaranteed to spawn hits. Although it fared fine with critics, Lightyear was a financial failure that couldn’t match Pixar’s first TV show when it came to recapturing the humor and knockabout fun of the Toy Story franchise. Meanwhile, the comparatively underwhelming Rotten Tomatoes rating of 2023’s Elemental further evidenced the studio’s problems.

Why Pixar Has Had A Difficult 4 Years

Onward’s Failure Preceded Some Major Financial Flops For Pixar

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Although Turning Red succeeded with critics, Elemental’s reviews consistently compared the movie unfavorably to earlier Pixar hits. Similarly, although Elemental was a sleeper hit at the box office and eventually earned almost $500 million, Lightyear’s good reviews couldn’t save it from financial catastrophe. Ever since 2020’s Onward, Pixar has struggled to make movies that succeed with critics and audiences alike, even though this was once the studio’s forte. A glance at the most successful animated movies of all time proves Pixar’s great reviews rarely stood in the way of mainstream financial success before 2020.

Google's Top 5 Trending Movies From 2024 Movie Box Office Inside Out 2 $1.699 billion Beetlejuice Beetlejuice $451 million It Ends with Us $350 million Saltburn $21.1 million Dune: Part Two $714.4 million

Incredibles 2, Toy Story 3, Toy Story 4, Finding Dory, Inside Out, Coco, Monsters University, and Up are all among the 30 most financially successful animated movies of all time, and this highlights a fascinating trend in the studio’s offerings. Not only were Pixar’s sequels seeming immune to the law of diminishing returns faced by most franchises, but the studio’s sequels often did better than their predecessors with both critics and viewers. This is part of what made Lightyear’s failure as a spinoff so concerning, particularly when Toy Story 5’s pre-production is already underway.

Pixar's Next Movie Can Complete The Studio's Return To Greatness

Pixar’s Upcoming Original Movie Will Be An Even Bigger Test

Since then, the incredible success of Inside Out 2 has reshaped the studio’s fortunes. Inside Out 2’s mammoth success means Pixar is back on top and its reliance on sequels is as safe as ever. While the Cars sequels didn’t live up to the original movie, they did earn Pixar a lot of money, and Cars was never considered a standout in the studio’s canon in the first place. However, it is important to note that Inside Out 2’s success alone isn’t the ultimate test of the studio’s future potential.

2025's upcoming Pixar movie Elio will be the biggest test of the studio’s future, as the original movie does not have an existing franchise to rely on.

After all, Inside Out 2 is a sequel to an already successful movie. 2025’s upcoming Pixar movie Elio will be the biggest test of the studio’s future, as the original movie does not have an existing franchise to rely on. Set to be released in June 2025, Elio focuses on Elio Solis, a young boy who must act as Earth’s Ambassador when aliens abduct him and introduce him to the Communiverse of assorted alien species. The success or failure of this upcoming original movie will test whether Pixar's Inside Out 2 success was a fluke.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes