While Disney hasn’t completely abandoned the summer box office, it did eliminate a major element of its traditional release strategy by moving Pixar’s “Luca” from theaters to Disney+. Not only did Disney lose box office revenues from the industry’s most reliable animated hit-maker, but it also deprived studios of a good test for U.S. families’ willingness to return to movie theaters in the midst of an ever-wider post-pandemic reopening.
So far, there have been a handful of family films that have performed decently given the restrictions of the pandemic recovery period. Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s “The Croods: A New Age” legged out for months while infections skyrocketed during the winter, grossing $58 million domestically and $170 million worldwide.