Pixar’s upcoming original movie Hoppers looks set to revitalize the studio’s original slate when it hits theaters in just over a month, on March 6.
With a domestic opening weekend projected to reach $40 to $50 million, Hoppers could be a test of whether Pixar can regain its once-great box office momentum with new stories rather than relying on sequels. In recent years, the studio’s franchise films have massively outperformed its original projects, making Hoppers’ promising early numbers especially significant. By comparison, that would double the studio’s last original, Elio, which opened with a historically bad $20.8 million.
A successful run for the film could signal renewed audience interest in fresh Pixar concepts and help boost Disney’s confidence in the studio’s future original releases.
Pixar’s recent original films have tended to open far lower and underperform in the long term compared with its sequels, reflecting a broader challenge facing original studio animated features.
Elemental, the studio’s most successful original in years, opened with $30 million in its first weekend. If Hoppers opens at the low end of current estimates, it would significantly overshadow that figure. A $40 million opening would put it on par with Pixar’s last pre-pandemic release, Onward ($39 million), and if it reaches the higher estimate, it could match Coco ($50.8 million). To find an original Pixar release that opened significantly higher than current estimates, you would have to go all the way back to 2012, when Brave debuted at $66.43 million.
If Hoppers has any kind of legs, it could become the studio’s most successful original film in almost a decade, since Coco finished its domestic run at $210.5 million and $796 million globally.
Perhaps a key advantage is that Hoppers will be released in a corridor not previously explored by Pixar, which has traditionally favored summer slots for its films. This shift in release window could give the movie more room to build momentum through positive word of mouth before bigger spring and summer releases arrive.
The stakes are high because Pixar built its reputation on innovative, standalone storytelling, yet audience habits and competition have shifted in recent years. Hoppers blends Pixar’s somewhat original storytelling approach (“This is like Avatar,” the film’s first trailer joked) with a lo-fi sci-fi concept designed to appeal to family audiences, and industry observers will be watching closely to see whether it can help reestablish the studio as the box office powerhouse it once was, or whether Disney may demand another half-dozen Toy Story films from its subsidiary.