According to Disney’s own numbers, Elemental had the most-watched Disney+ premiere of 2023 so far.
The company announced today that Elemental pulled in 26.4 million views in the first five days since its Sept. 13 release on the service. That, says Disney, makes it the most-viewed animated movie premiere since Turning Red in March 2022, and the most-viewed Disney+ movie premiere of all time in Latin America (also just ahead of Turning Red).
That also puts Pixar’s latest well ahead of The Little Mermaid, which Disney recently touted as its biggest Disney+ premiere since 2022’s Hocus Pocus 2. According to Disney, The Little Mermaid racked up 16 million views in its first five days.
It’s worth noting, however, that streaming numbers remain something of the Wild West, and more transparency in streaming viewership has become a key sticking point in the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes. And Disney, which has struggled with financial losses around Disney+, has every reason to play up a success.
Even still, Elemental has had a pretty striking comeback story. It debuted at the Cannes Film Festival to lackluster reviews and opened to a disappointing $29.5 million in June. It had legs at the box office, however, managing to stay strong enough in the ensuing weeks to nearly get to the $500 million mark at the worldwide box office, per Box Office Mojo, and Pixar president Jim Morris insisted in an interview with Variety that it would end up being “profitable.”
In his 6/10 review of Elemental for IGN, Jordan Hoffman wrote that while “visually, Pixar is in absolutely top form with the creation of Element City and its inhabitants… the story is way too thin and none of it makes any sense.”
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
