The success of Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2 continues to dominate the global box office with an estimated $1.217 billion, flying past DreamWorks’ Minions as the 5th highest-grossing animated film, only about $58 million behind Disney’s Frozen. Facing competition four weeks into the film’s record-breaking run, Despicable Me 4 did not stop the runaway train that is Inside Out 2, despite grossing $200 million worldwide for itself on its debut weekend.
Inside Out 2 continues to follow the personified emotions of Riley: Joy, Anger, Fear, Sadness, and Disgust, as they pilot Riley, now 13 years old, toward her entrance into high school. Riley and her friends, Bree and Grace, are invited to an ice hockey camp for the weekend. Riley, hoping to get a spot on the high school’s team, the Firehawks, wants to leave a good first impression. The night before camp, a “Puberty Alarm” sounds off in Riley, and workers enter, upgrading the emotion console where the personified emotions operate.
Four new emotions arrive — Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui — and cause problems for the original emotions. From here, the plot follows the shenanigans that Riley gets into at the hands of her new emotions, examining how this affects Riley, her friendships, and the original emotions as she tries to fit in and find who she wants to be.
The first Inside Out is sitting at 21st in highest-grossing animated films, and the success of its sequel is astounding. With a budget of $175 million, the film has grossed over a billion dollars in the green. High gross usually means high reviews, and Inside Out 2 is no different. Showing a remarkable 94% from Metacritic, 98% from Rotten Tomatoes, and an 8.1/10 from IMDB, critics are nothing short of loving the film. With another huge box office hit under Pixar’s belt, the studio focuses on its next film, Elio, with a release date of June 13, 2025.
