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#2) Moana (2016)

Though doing a movie about Mexico’s Day of the Dead and Disney doing a movie about a non-white culture is nothing new, this is Pixar’s first attempt at both. Pixar loves their white people! Toy Story had a white family; Nemo was held captive by white men; most of the heroes in The Incredibles were white; Pixar’s first princess in Brave was white; the girl in Monsters Inc was white; Up was lifted by an old white man. You see where I’m going with this? Until now, Pixar has been the leading innovator of animation but one of the most culturally backwards creators. After Lasseter helped Disney revamp their animation division with the likes of white princesses in Tangled and Frozen, we finally got a more ethnic computer generated heiress with 2016’s Moana. It was gorgeous, funny, heartwarming and packed full of musical action. But just like Coco, Moana’s stellar reviews couldn’t stop controversy before its release. Disney had a minor marketing blunder with the reveal of insensitive Moana costumes for Halloween but was able to overcome that to become a respectable holiday hit. Can Coco do the same?

Disney isn’t new to different cultures or controversy. Pixar is. Disney took elements from the Pacific Islander culture and turned it into a movie about honoring your roots, exploring the world beyond the ocean, and that women can be warriors and leaders just like men. Coco is still about a male but I’ll take the racial half-step in the right direction. Since you can’t really talk about the success or failings of a cultural movie without looking at least a little racist, let’s look at the numbers. Moana is rumored to have cost $150 million. You need three times the cost in worldwide earnings to turn a profit. It opened to $55+ million over three days, $80+ million over the long holiday weekend, earned just under $250 million in the US and $643 million worldwide. It was all much less than Frozen but better than Tangled, and it ended in profit. Pixar’s budgets tend to be higher than Disney’s but I imagine smaller numbers across the board for Coco. Profit is not a guarantee at this point and, sadly, Pixar hasn’t had the best track record recently.

#3) The Good Dinosaur (2015)

Pixar’s first financial flop stomped its way into cinemas with a disappointing $39 million three-day debut. It’s five-day Thanksgiving came in at $55 million. It finally went extinct with a measly $123 million domestic total and $332 million worldwide. There is no excuse for this but, also, no real explanation. The entire Ice Age franchise is built on bad movies making money because dinosaurs are enormously popular around the globe. Jurassic World, anyone? The five Ice Age films have the following averages: $158 domestic total and $643 worldwide. The Good Dinosaur may not have been nonsensical fun for kids like the Ice Age films, but it’s 77% positive reviews bests Ice Age’s 46% average. The real kicker here is the budget difference: The Good Dinosaur’s $200 million price tag vs Ice Age’s $86 million average cost. I point this all out to remind you all that, like Lasseter himself, Pixar is not bulletproof. Maybe The Good Dinosaur failed because Inside Out was also came out a few months prior and one Pixar release a year is enough. If that’s the case, then the disappointing results of Cars 3 from this summer don’t bode well for Coco. I have a feeling Coco’s numbers will more likely reflect Pixar’s dead dino instead of Disney’s lively Moana, but not even Disney can sell every culture.

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