Lightyear (Opening Weekend Struggling to Outpace ‘Dominion’)

Pixar has announced an origin story for the Space Ranger made famous in the Toy Story franchise, Buzz Lightyear. Lightyear charts Buzz' course from test pilot to Space Ranger. The new feature film was announced by Pete Doctor, Pixar's Chief Creative Officer during Disney's annual investor day presentation held on December 10th. The picture will be directed by Angus MacLane, who co-directed Finding Dory. Chris Evans, of Captain America fame, will voice Buzz. The picture will release June 17, 2022.

"At first glance you might think, 'Well, this is a Toy Story film. Well, not so fast. See, back when we created the very first Toy Story, we designed Buzz Lightyear with the idea that he was a toy based on some really cool character from an epic, blockbuster film. Well, all these years later we decided it's time to make that film." He went on to describe Lightyear as a "science-fiction adventure film unlike anything we've done before."

Fans will wonder why Chris Evans takes over as the voice of Lightyear instead of the venerable Tim Allen returning. Given that this is an origin story for the Space Ranger, we can only assume the producers were looking for a slightly younger, but still commanding voice presence to give life to the character who is notionally the 'real' Buzz Lightyear that inspired the action figure. Since Evans has seemingly abdicated his duties carrying the shield, he should have the time on his schedule and the team at Disney found an easy way to shuffle his talents within the Mouse House, moving him over to Pixar.

The Toy Story franchise seems to have considerable space to work with to spin this story out. Some fans had considered, after the most recent outing, that the storylines could only go so far following the aging toys. Winding-back the clock to delve into the origins of the main characters would seem to give the creators broad license to tell new stories and more fully develop the world of the toys.

MacLane joined Pixar in 1997 and has worked as an animator on every Pixar feature from A Bug's Life through Toy Story 3. He also worked in character development on Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles. While his animation and character development work spans nearly all of the most well-known Pixar titles (and numerous shorts and lesser-known bits), he moved up to co-director on Finding Dory. While true fans of Toy Story may shudder at the notion of the animation shop plumbing the 25-year-old franchise for origin material, we can be confident that MacLane can be considered a true shepherd, not only of the franchise, but of the broader Pixar legacy.

No other information has yet been released regarding supporting cast or the broader story line. As the entire Disney 'family', including Marvel, Lucas, Pixar and the rest of the Mouse House has made massive news tonight, we can be certain more news on the development of this picture will be on the way in the coming months. Stay tuned.

UltimateMarvel wrote:So random but also interesting. Should've been Tim Allen though. You'd think if the action figure was based on a character from a film, they would have the actor do the voice for the action figure too.

Tyger wrote:It sounds like this will be the big blockbuster movie that they then made a cartoon and toy line of

Infinity isn’t a practical milestone at the box office, so Disney’s “Lightyear” will have to settle for a $20.7 million opening day and beyond.

Pixar’s spinoff of its “Toy Story” series blasted off on Thursday night with a respectable $5.2 million from preview screenings. However, the film is now tracking to come in below initial expectations, which initially pegged the film for a debut between $70 million and $80 million from 4,255 theaters in North America. What’s more, “Lightyear” is struggling to unseat Universal’s “Jurassic World Dominion” from the top slot of domestic charts during the dino-sequel’s sophomore weekend.

There’s certainly winning ways to look at the “Lightyear” opening, as its projected $52 million haul would easily mark the highest debut for an animated movie since the onset of the pandemic in North America. Family audiences have been somewhat skittish to return to the big screen as multiplexes have reopened, which had led Disney to rethink its release strategy, opting out of theatrical runs for Pixar’s most recent three animated features — “Soul,” “Luca” and “Turning Red” — and instead debuting them directly on the company’s streamer Disney+ to bolster subscriptions. After spending more than two years away from theaters, a $52 million opening would show that Pixar still has a place on the big screen.

However, it’s not difficult to imagine that Disney was looking to make a bigger splash with “Lightyear.” The spin-off may not even net half of the $120.9 million opening of 2019’s “Toy Story 4,” even though the sci-fi film is a spinoff of Pixar’s crown jewel franchise.

With a hefty $200 million production budget, “Lightyear” has a ways to go before landing itself securely in the black. The film looks to gain an extra bump from family audiences through Saturday matinees and Father’s Day business on Sunday. Critics have generally been favorable, as the film scored a 61% aggregate approval percentage from top critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences seem to like the movie too, with “Lightyear” netting an “A-” grade on Cinema Score, indicating generally strong approval.

“Lightyear” focuses on the origin of the Buzz Lightyear character, who was first in a movie before being made into the action-figure who befriended Woody in “Toy Story.” Within “Toy Story” canon, the character Andy saw “Lightyear” and procured a Buzz Lightyear toy as merchandise. Now, the public of our world can see the movie that lit Andy’s imagination ablaze.

Chris Evans takes over the voice role from originator Tim Allen, and the movie also stars the voices of Keke Palmer, Peter Sohn, James Brolin, Taika Waititi, Dale Soules, Uzo Aduba, Mary McDonald-Lewis, Efren Ramirez and Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Should the current projections for “Lightyear” hold, “Jurassic World Dominion” could be primed to repeat as the apex predator of the domestic box office.

Universal projects that its sixth entry in the “Jurassic” series will drop 61% from its massive $143 million debut last weekend, raking in $57.1 million over the three-day window. That’s a bit of a steeper drop than the ones that the franchise’s last two entries faced in their second weekends; 2015’s “Jurassic World” fell 49%, while 2018’s “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” went down 58.8%.

Even so, the projected $57.8 million haul for “Dominion” could be enough to secure a second weekend on top of domestic charts. The dino-sequel should expand its domestic gross to nearly $250 million through Sunday, already securely among the top four highest grossing movies at the domestic box office for 2022.

“Top Gun: Maverick” also continues to cruise along smoothly. Paramount is projecting a phenomenally slim drop of 23% for the three-day window, adding a $40 million gross.

The Tom Cruise sequel has become a veritable moviegoing phenomenon since blowing the top of the Memorial Day weekend box office record with a $160 million four-day debut. Since then, the film has enjoyed week-to-week drops of less than 50%, an atypically low figure for theatrical blockbusters. “Maverick” has rode the wave of spectacular word-of-mouth, becoming the highest grossing 2022 release in the U.S. this week by surpassing Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” And with business still booming, the sky seems to be the limit for “Maverick.”

Speaking of “Doctor Strange,” the superhero sequel seems primed to take fourth on domestic charts this weekend. The Marvel Cinematic Universe entry added an additional $1.1 million on Friday, expanding its domestic gross to $401 million.

Disney and 20th Century Studios’ “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” should round out the top five. The adaptation of the long-running animated series should push past a $30 million domestic gross through Monday.