Don’t be afraid to catch feelings. Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” just scored the biggest box office opening day of the year so far, earning a spectacular $62 million across Friday and preview screenings from 4,440 locations. It will have no trouble blasting past the $82.5 million debut earned by “Dune: Part Two” to overtake it as the biggest domestic opening of 2024. It’ll also be the first release to notch a nine-figure domestic opening in nearly 11 months — the last one to get above $100 million was “Barbie” last summer.
It’s a welcome bounce back for Pixar Animation Studios, which has struggled at the box office in recent years after Disney sent films like “Turning Red,” “Soul” and “Luca” directly to Disney+ during the COVID pandemic, a decision that Pixar head (and the director of the original “Inside Out”) Pete Docter says “trained” audiences to watch the studio’s features on streaming.