Disney Lost a Ridiculous Amount of Money on 'Lightyear'

Disney has been at the top of the animation totem pole for years, but that might finally change. Companies like Dreamworks and Illumination have been chomping at the heels of Disney for quite a while now, and Illumination now has the bragging rights of the biggest opening for an animated movie in Super Mario Bros. The odd thing is that Disney has only had a few misses lately, and one of those was Lightyear, which lost the studio even more money than was expected.

Related: ‘Super Mario Bros Movie’ Defeats ‘Frozen 2’, Disney No Longer the Top of Animation

It could be that people are tired of seeing the Toy Story element, despite Pixar announcing that a fifth movie is in the works. Lightyear was just a bizarre take on everyone’s favorite Space Ranger. Chris Evans is a fan-favorite actor, but something was missing from the animated feature. It could be the silliness that has existed in the Toy Story franchise, as the spinoff was far more serious.

Whatever the case is, the movie bombed hard at the box office and was sadly added to the list of the biggest bombs from 2022. Deadline did an entire report about the lowest earners, and the Disney reboot was on that list. Though many knew the movie was certainly not a hit from watching it, the numbers have now been reported.

According to Deadline’s list, Lightyear lost Disney a reported $106 million. Through the promotions and release of the movie, Disney paid a whopping $373 million, but the Pixar venture only amassed $267 million in revenue. The film’s box office draw was only $118.3 million domestically and $108.1 million internationally.

To be fair, the movie was banned in China, a huge film market. Still, this Disney effort did not live up to expectations, and it could be cause the movie did feature the first same-sex relationship. That could also be why China decided to ban the film.

Despite those issues, Pixar and Disney bet big on Lightyear but came up short. It wasn’t Disney’s biggest loss, as Strange World lost an even bigger $152 million, but it has to hurt to see their animated movies not living up to the usual expectations.

Lightyear is now part of an exclusive list that includes The Good Dinosaur and Cars 3, as Pixar-produced movies that failed to break even in the theaters.

Despite these losses and the theory that Toy Story should be done, the CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, did announce that a fifth movie would be happening. He is likely banking on the fact that people love Buzz and Woody but not so much the Evans-voiced Buzz.

We will have to see what happens moving forward, but Disney animation continues to take a hit and one that it needs to rebound from relatively quickly.

Did you like Lightyear? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!