Looks like $13M in Thursday previews for “Inside Out 2,” and it’s a kids movie, which makes this tally even more impressive given that most of the Thursday showings occurred after 3PM. It’s being set up for a potential $110-120M opening weekend.
Pixar has released 27 movies since 1995, but only 4 of them had a $100M+ opening weekend: “The Incredibles 2”, “Finding Dory”, “Toy Story 4,” and “Toy Story 3.” It does look as though “Inside Out 2” will be the fifth one to reach that milestone. Notice, all five movies are sequels.
Excellent initial audience reception as well — it’s looking at a potential “A” CinemaScore. The reviews, although not as great as the original, are also positive, The film currently has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes (7.3 average score) and 74 on Metacritic.
Overall, this is great news for theaters as there are now two hit movies playing this weekend — the other being “Bad Boys: Ride or Die.” Next Friday, it’ll be a quieter set of releases as Russell Crowe’s “The Exorcism” and Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders” are the only big releases.