Pixar returned to theaters in 2022 after a long absence due to the coronavirus pandemic and the decisions of Disney in favor of streaming. Lightyear broke the curse and hoped to take off at the box office and be the number one animated film of the year. It’s not a spoiler for anyone to say he didn’t make it.
With a production budget of close to $200 million, Lightyear failed to gross more than $226.4 million, which probably wasn’t even enough to cover the off-budget promotional costs.
Despite Buzz being a main character in Toy Story, the “movie that made Andy want the toy” didn’t measure up to any of the installments in the star franchise of Pixar.
Theories about Lightyear’s failure range from everything from “punishment” for including a kiss between two women to the box office coincidence with the smash hit Top Gun: Maverick.
Lightyear fails to connect with Toy Story fans
However, Peter Doctercreative director of Pixar and responsible for the script of the first two Toy Story films, believes that Lightyear’s problem is precisely not having managed to connect with the toy saga.
In an interview with The Wrap, the producer did not want to belittle the film directed by Angus MacLanebut stresses that the public found a movie science fiction that didn’t have enough allusions to Toy Story.
Docter explains that many viewers expected to see a story more related to what they knew from the Toy Story movies.
He points out that, despite the fact that Lightyear’s promotional material emphasized “the movie that Andy saw and it made him want the toy of Buzz“It was not enough to alleviate the absence of Woody, Rex and company.
Lightyear had no luck at the box office, although it would perform better upon its arrival on Disney Plus. The irony wanted Pixar to work better in streaming, when the objective of the Buzz Lightyear movie was precisely to move away from direct releases on Disney +.
