Ever since Hoppers joined the 2026 movie schedule, I’ve had my eyes on it, with hopes that it could be the movie that shows me there’s more great original Pixar films to be uncovered. Now that the movie is out, it’s getting rave reviews and is close to hitting one big win. Overall, I’m so happy to see the beloved studio’s hard work on an original idea is turning into a Hollywood success story again. Let’s get into it:
The Big Milestone Hoppers Will Probably Hit Soon
Now that the box office numbers for Hoppers are starting to roll in for its opening weekend, The Hollywood Reporter is saying that the Pixar comedy is expected to make $40 million or more domestically. That’s a big deal because it would mark the first original animated movie to hit those heights since 2017. The last movie to accomplish that was Pixar’s own Coco!
While there’s been a number of big animated box office winners in the past nine years, the keyword here is “original” – meaning it’s not based on any prior IP or franchise. In a market that’s been inundated with sequels, spinoffs and remakes, what’s going on with Hoppers this weekend shows there’s a hunger from audiences to take a chance on unfamiliar stories/characters – it just has to be the right one.
This exciting start for Hoppers comes after critics have agreed in calling it Pixar’s “best this decade,” and it’s earned an impressive 94 % from both reviews and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m so happy that a movie people are genuinely loving is about to earn this win.
This Is The Great News For Pixar I’ve Been Hoping For
The 2020s for Pixar have been interesting, considering the animation studio had to start off things during the pandemic, where its first three movies of the new decade (Soul, Luca and Turning Red) were originals but all debuted for those with a Disney+ subscription rather than hitting theaters. Then, their first theatrical movie in three years, Lightyear, really didn’t do well – and was low for the studio quality-wise in my opinion.
Then, Pixar started picking up some momentum with Elemental, which performed better at the box office than expected with $496 million worldwide, but didn’t make the kind of impact that previous Pixar films had made. When the first sequel of the 2020s came out, Inside Out 2 became the biggest animated movie ever, as it cracked over $1.6 billion. The last Pixar movie before Hoppers was Elio, which bombed at the box office with the worst Pixar opening ever.
After all of that, seeing Pixar finally breaking through with what looks to be a win – and not just for another sequel – brings me hope that we could enter a new era of Pixar where original movies are part of what makes them awesome again. It’s been kind of a bummer to see the studio have to tread back and forth to old waters in order to make a commercial impact anymore, and here’s hoping this is the first of many more fresh successes.
As we watch Hoppers this weekend, I’ll be trying to figure out where it should go on our ranking of every Pixar movie.
