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Family-Friendly Movies Save Summer Box Office

Family-Friendly Movies Save Summer Box Office

By Movieguide® Staff

After a half year of some box office hits and many box office bombs, INSIDE OUT 2 — Pixar’s sequel to the smash family film from 2015 — is once again proving that kid-friendly flicks are most desired by worldwide audiences.

Hot on the heels of INSIDE OUT 2, DESPICABLE ME 4 is also set to be a hit, grossing about $75 million for the three-day weekend and $122.6 million total for its first five days. 

INSIDE OUT 2 has now entered the $1 billion movie club, and as of this writing, it stands with a worldwide box office gross of over $1,234,148,505. This is far more than the horror/thriller A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, which released 14 days later and currently stands at $180,220,031 at the box office. Conquering expectations, INSIDE OUT 2 has now become the fastest film ever to make $1 billion (in just 19 days). 

Currently, only one of the top 10 highest-grossing movies this year (BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE) is rated R. The rest of the films are classified as G, PG or PG-13:

  1. INSIDE OUT 2
  2. DUNE: PART TWO
  3. GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE
  4. KUNG FU PANDA 4
  5. KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
  6. BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE
  7. DESPICABLE ME 4
  8. THE GARFIELD MOVIE
  9. GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
  10. IF

Five of the above films are marketed as children’s/family movies (INSIDE OUT 2, KUNG FU PANDA 4, DESPICABLE ME 4, THE GARFIELD MOVIE and IF).

Paul Dergarabedian, a senior analyst for Comscore, stated, “Family movies have become the savior of box office this summer. Entering the summer, the marketplace was suffering a malaise: a year-to-date downturn, other movies not living up to expectations. If you had told me that INSIDE OUT 2 was going to make a billion dollars after three weekends, I would have told you you were out of your mind.”

In regard to the poor atmosphere around the box office, The Guardian stated, “A succession of hotly tipped blockbusters – THE FALL GUY, FURIOSA, IF – flopped…The last time early summer box-office takings had been so low was in 2000. Today, considerably more cheerful records are being broken, thanks entirely to children’s films.”

According to Forbes, DESPICABLE ME 4 sold more AMC merchandise than any other movie since the business launched its online store in 2022, with the exception of merch made for the TAYLOR SWIFT: THE ERAS TOUR film last year. It is gradually overtaking INSIDE OUT 2 at the top of the ticket charts, with many families who enjoyed IO2 returning for DM4.

“Success begets success,” says Steven Gaydos, the executive editor of Variety. “A rising tide lifts all boats.” The DESPICABLE ME series (including the MINIONS films) is now the top-grossing animated franchise of all time, with overall box-office results of close to $5 billion.

It seems that the trend is unstoppable: family and child-friendly films continue to garner the most success — and the results are consistent with the findings from the 2023 box office.

As stated in Movieguide®’s Report to the Entertainment Industry, 70% of the Top 10 Movies in 2023 had strong or very strong Christian, redemptive, biblical, or morally uplifting content and values. In contrast, only 30% of the Top 10 in 2023 had strong or very strong non-Christian, anti-Christian, false, or immoral content and values. 

Referring again to the box office data, Steven Gaydos remarks, “These look like good bets to people who invest in a big way with family movies.”

Movieguide® previously reported on INSIDE OUT 2’s success:

INSIDE OUT 2 dominated the box office over the weekend, earning a record-breaking start and once again proving that family-friendly movies will always be a hit with audiences. 

“INSIDE OUT 2’s success is definitive proof that Movieguide®’s advocacy work impacts Disney,” says Robby Baehr, Movieguide® CEO. “This is the first movie Pixar has released in years that doesn’t flaunt an immoral agenda. Instead, because of our Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry, Disney and Pixar chose to cater to families and focus on positive, uplifting messages, and it’s already paying out dividends.

It grossed $295 million worldwide during its debut weekend, taking $155 million domestically and $140 million internationally.

This start, when using “current exchange rates and in like-for-like markets,” is bigger than Teddy Bear Award® winner THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE, which previously held the title for the biggest animation opening. 


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