After two and a half years without a Disney/Pixar movie in theaters, the release of "Lightyear," a Toy Story spinoff criticized for featuring a lesbian kiss, was one of the company's most disappointing in years.
The disappointing start came after controversy over Disney's decision to include a kiss between a lesbian couple in the film.
Lightyear, which had a budget of $200 million, opened on June 17 in 4,255 theaters in the United States and in 43 markets abroad. However, 14 Muslim-majority countries banned the film from being shown in their theaters because the film included a lesbian kiss.
The spin-off is also unlikely to open in China, which became the world's biggest box office since 2021.
According to the Deadline website, Lightyear grossed $51 million in the United States in the first three days of its release, a very low number considering that projections pointed to between $70 million and $100 million in its opening weekend.
“Given that this intellectual property was built on the foundation of the Toy Story brand, it is clear that many expected much more. Lightyear overall was down on its global start: it got $85.6 million versus the high estimate of $135 million that we reported,” he said.
The Toy Story spin-off started in second place, behind Jurassic World: Dominion, which made $57 million in its second week of release.
This would be the second time in Pixar's filmography that they started in second place at the box office. The first was 2015's "A Great Dinosaur," which only made $39.1 million in its opening weekend and was a huge box office flop.
"Lightyear" has been the center of controversy for several months before its premiere, since it had been warned of content that supports a lesbian relationship. Many parents, as well as pro-family leaders and associations, have rejected the film and announced that they would not take their children to see it.
The Family Ecuador association rejected Lightyear's projection, considering that the film is an "ideological attack."
Martha Villafuerte, president of Familia Ecuador, questioned: "Do we agree that we do not agree with the level of aggressive and saturated indoctrination in children's movies lately?"
“The fear of expressing it so as not to be attacked as ‘homophobic’ is outrageous. This is not a movie "suitable for all audiences", "criticized Villafuerte on her social networks.
Giuliana Calambrogio, a Peruvian mother of 8 children and a Master's in Marriage and Family from the University of Navarra, told ACI Prensa that "above all things, the innocence of children must be protected."
In addition, she asked not to put minors "in situations in which they will have a conflict between what is natural and those situations in which, although they happen, they are not part of the common."
"A child between 4 and 6 years old is at the age of imaginary thinking, believes in unicorns, fairies, Santa Claus," she pointed out.
"For this reason, some take advantage of this age to introduce the idea of gender, of homosexuality, and try to normalize it," she criticized.
According to the Dominican priest Fray Nelson Medina, Lightyear's blind defense corresponds "to one more episode of a massive campaign, now global, that seeks to progressively and irreversibly limit the rights of parents to make the decisions that belong to them by natural justice on the education of their children”.
The priest told ACI Prensa that the imposition of "dogmas about how they want us all to understand human sexuality, and imposing their hegemony over the minds of children, marginalizing and penalizing parents in the process."
