Relase

Reception
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Release

Continuing a Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short film for its theatrical release, Presto. The film was dedicated to Justin Wright (1981–2008), a Pixar animator who had worked on Ratatouille and died of a heart attack before WALL-E's release.[5]

Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) built animatronic WALL-Es to promote the picture, which made appearances at Disneyland Resort;[61] the Franklin Institute; the Miami Science Museum; the Seattle Center; and the Tokyo International Film Festival.[62] Due to safety concerns, the 700 lb robots were always strictly controlled and WDI always needed to know exactly what they were required to interact with. For this reason, they generally refused to have their puppets meet and greet children at the theme parks in case a WALL-E trod on a child's foot. Those who wanted to take a photograph with the character had to make do with a cardboard cutout.[63]

Very small quantities of merchandise were sold for WALL-E, as Cars items were still popular, and many manufacturers were more interested in Speed Racer, which was a successful line despite the film's failure at the box office. Thinkway, which created the WALL-E toys, had previously made Toy Story dolls when other toy producers had not shown an interest.[62] Among Thinkway's items were a WALL-E that danced when connected to a music player, a toy that could be taken apart and reassembled, and a groundbreaking remote control toy of him and EVE that had motion sensors that allowed them to interact with players.[64] There were even soft toys.[65] The "Ultimate WALL-E" figures were not in stores until the film's home release in November 2008,[62] at a retail price of almost $200, leading The Patriot-News to deem it an item for "hard-core fans and collectors only".[64]
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Box-office performance

WALL-E grossed $223,808,164 in the USA and Canada and $297,503,696 overseas for a worldwide total of $521,311,860, marking it the ninth highest grossing film of 2008.[2]

The film premiered at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on June 23, 2008.[66]

In the USA and Canada, it opened in 3,992 theaters on June 27, 2008. During its opening weekend, it topped the box office with $63,087,526[67] which is currently the fifth-best opening weekend for a Pixar film[68] and the fourth-best opening among films released in June.[69] The movie earned $94.7 million in its first week and crossed the $200 million mark during its sixth weekend.[70]

Countries where it grossed over $10 million are the following: Japan ($44,005,222), UK, Ireland and Malta ($41,215,600), France and the Maghreb region ($27,984,103), Germany ($24,130,400), Mexico ($17,679,805), Spain ($14,973,097), Australia ($14,165,390), Italy ($12,210,993) and Russia and the CIS ($11,694,482).[71]
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Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on November 18, 2008. The various editions included Presto, a new short film BURN-E, the Leslie Iwerks documentary film The Pixar Story, shorts about the history of Buy n Large, the behind-the-scenes special features and a Digital Copy of the film that can be played through iTunes or Windows Media and compatible devices.[72] It sold 9,042,054 DVD units ($142,633,974) in total becoming the second best-selling animated DVD among those released in 2008 in terms of units sold (behind Kung Fu Panda), the best-selling animated feature in terms of sales revenue and the 3rd best-selling among all 2008 DVDs.[73]