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 Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer 
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Waitress in LA

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Post Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Pixar was known for box office dominance on the animation front in the 2000’s, with most of their films having solid $60M+ openings and then long legs to $200M+ totals (except for Ratatouille which only did $47M but had legs and continued their $200M streak). WALL•E opened to $63.1M, 3rd-highest for Pixar, but many expected it to open to $70M+ and potentially challenge The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. But it was still solid. However, while it had an excellent opening, its legs weren’t as strong or what you would expect from such an acclaimed film. It had $223.8M in the US which was a 3.55 multiplier, the lowest for a Pixar film at the time. Even Ratatouille which underwhelmed at the start had better legs (4.39) but at least WALL•E managed to beat Ratatouille’s total ($206.4M). Overseas WALL•E did pretty low compared to Nemo ($528M), Incredibles ($371M), and Ratatouille ($417M) with $297.5M for $521.3M globally. This may have been because of the Great Recession at the time, but it still feels like an underperformance given the big $180M budget (and also because Kung Fu Panda being from DreamWorks who didn’t have any major hits outside of the Shrek franchise made $416.3M OS) and it feels like it should have done $250M+ in the US since the family competition (Kung Fu Panda) had already released a month before. What are your thoughts?


Last edited by FedoraTheExplora on Thu May 27, 2021 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.



Thu May 27, 2021 10:00 pm
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KJ's Leading Idiot

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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
It did well IMO and even over-performed over its OW. Its legs were inline with Pixar standards mostly because the movie is slow in the first half which probably didn't translate well with young kids. Overseas as you already mentioned was most likely muted because of economy. $521m from $180 is almost three times so I think that's a good and profitable result in the end.


Thu May 27, 2021 10:05 pm
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Waitress in LA

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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Jack Sparrow wrote:
It did well IMO and even over-performed over its OW. Its legs were inline with Pixar standards mostly because the movie is slow in the first half which probably didn't translate well with young kids. Overseas as you already mentioned was most likely muted because of economy. $521m from $180 is almost three times so I think that's a good and profitable result in the end.


Interestingly 2008 was the only year since 2006 where no film made over $500M overseas. The closest was The Dark Knight ($469.7M). There were quite a few $400M+ overseas films that year (like TDK, Indiana Jones 4, Mamma Mia, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar 2, etc.) but no $500M overseas film.


Thu May 27, 2021 10:42 pm
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Did not like Wall-E when it came out. Good film in general but not really a crowd pleaser IMO.


Thu May 27, 2021 11:30 pm
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
I don't think it's that unpopular. My expectations were certainly higher at the time, and its underperformance kinda killed my interest in box office for a few weeks (until TDK revived quickly revived it).


Fri May 28, 2021 6:26 pm
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Waitress in LA

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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Jiffy wrote:
I don't think it's that unpopular. My expectations were certainly higher at the time, and its underperformance kinda killed my interest in box office for a few weeks (until TDK revived quickly revived it).

Maybe a lot of kids were bored by the silent first 40 minutes but idk


Sat May 29, 2021 1:19 am
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Yeah this isn't unpopular at all. It was a great movie, but its marketing was weaker and had no real characters for audiences to connect with (Most adults found it to be more of a Johnny 5 knock off.) But the answer is in your explanation. It's international appeal was mostly on Brand alone and it was the first real time other big animated films were released around the same time. I think Indy was the biggest of the year at 473 OS.

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Sat May 29, 2021 4:34 pm
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Its also a hard sell and not your usual colorful movie that can keep young ones in check. For such a difficult subject matter even a live action movie would have struggled to get past $500m. So from BO perspective I think it did really well. Expectations are anyways individual.


Sat May 29, 2021 7:20 pm
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Waitress in LA

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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Thegun wrote:
Yeah this isn't unpopular at all. It was a great movie, but its marketing was weaker and had no real characters for audiences to connect with (Most adults found it to be more of a Johnny 5 knock off.) But the answer is in your explanation. It's international appeal was mostly on Brand alone and it was the first real time other big animated films were released around the same time. I think Indy was the biggest of the year at 473 OS.

Actually I think TDK edged out Indy but BARELY (TDK $469.7M and Indy $469.5M).


Sat May 29, 2021 8:23 pm
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Indy made 473. TDK got closer after a re-release but Indy had always won that year OS.

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Sat May 29, 2021 10:01 pm
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
The sky was falling around here during Wall-E's weekend and subsequent drops. We had high high hopes for it.


Sun May 30, 2021 2:04 pm
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Agreed - overall it underperformed given the hype.

In the end it barely edged out Ratatouille which opened badly but had great legs the year before.

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Wed Jun 02, 2021 9:50 pm
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Underperformed expectations for sure. BUT I do not see how its BO total is underperformance given the subject matter.


Wed Jun 02, 2021 9:52 pm
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
Sure but it's also Pixar's most ambitious, conceptual, high art movie and has more in common with indie artsy animated stuff like Triplets of Belleville than your average Hwood animated blockbuster. It also basically has no dialogue. So $520M isn't that bad?

At the end of the day it's a classic and will be watched for generations/studied in film studies courses as a groundbreaking animated film, whereas, idk, Shrek 3 or whatever will be utterly forgotten.

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Thu Jun 03, 2021 2:25 pm
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Post Re: Unpopular opinion: WALL•E was an underperformer
I think Shrek 3 is actually remembered pretty well as the best example of all of Dreamworks worst qualities x10


Thu Jun 03, 2021 2:30 pm
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