The 'Toy Story' spinoff is suffering at theaters thanks to brand confusion, fierce competition and far-right politicians.

Paramount insiders estimated that nearly 60 percent of the audience on opening weekend were kids and parents, proving that families were indeed willing to set aside concerns about the ongoing pandemic and return to theaters.

But when Pixar and Disney’s Toy Story spinoff Lightyear debuted in cinemas over Father’s Day weekend, only about 38 percent of those turning out were families, helping to explain why the movie launched to $50.6 million, instead of an expected $70 million to $85 million.

Representative Jim Jordan (Ohio), who is the minority ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and has 2.8 million followers, tweeted on June 21, “Buzz Lightyear went woke.

Disney went broke.” And a verified Twitter account for the GOP Judiciary Committee boasting more than 223,000 followers followed by tweeting, “make Toy Story great again.”.

There’s no hard-and-fast evidence proving that the political conversation hurt Lightyear, although the film did underindex by a fairly large margin in the Midwest, according to a source with access to Comscore regional data.

The film currently has a 76 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 86 percent.

In 2007, Pixar’s Ratatouille opened to just $47 million — as with Lightyear, headlines everywhere drew attention to the tepid number — but then started boiling its way to grossing $206.4 million domestically and $626.5 million, globally

Ironically, Toy Story 4 also drew negative headlines initially when opening to $118 million domestically, since pre-release tracking had suggested it would open closer to $140 million, if not higher

Just as this story went to press, Paramount announced that Sonic 2 has crossed the $400 million mark globally, becoming the only second family pic since COVID-19 to achieve that feat behind Sing 2