Disney blames Pixar for "making a movie about a rat in a kitchen and expecting it to out-gross a bevy of sequel movies".

Pixar blames Disney for putting together "a crappy marketing campaign."

I say "it still made $200 mil. Get over it."

http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2007/09/04/toon-tuesday-why-ratatouille-s-good-but-not-great-box-office-numbers-are-now-causing-problems-for-disney-s-marketing-staff.aspx

Jim Hill
Toon Tuesday: Why "Ratatouille" 's good-but-not-great box office numbers are now causing problems for Disney's marketing department
Jim Hill talks about all of the finger-pointing that's going on in Burbank & Emeryville, as execs try to find someone to blame for this Pixar picture's perceived under-performance

By now, you've probably heard that -- over this past weekend -- "Ratatouille" finally officially achieved really-for-real blockbuster status. Earning over $200 million during its initial domestic run.

Mind you, it did take this new Brad Bird film quite a while to reach that milestone. As you can see by the chart below ...

"Finding Nemo": 20 days
"The Incredibles": 22 days
"Cars": 30 days
"Monsters, Inc.": 30 days
"Toy Story 2": 44 days
"Ratatouille": 65 days

... Of the six Pixar films that earned at least $200 million over their initial domestic runs, "Ratatouille" took the longest. In fact, I've been told by several Disney insiders that the studio was so concerned that this animated feature might not achieve blockbuster status before the Labor Day Weekend was over that the Mouse actually increased the number of theaters that "Ratatouille" was being shown in. Bumping up the number of screens that this Pixar picture was being screened on this past Friday from 956 to 1068.

"Ah, but what does that matter how long it took, Jim?," you say. " 'Ratatouille' has finally officially achieved blockbuster status. Isn't that something worth celebrating?"

Well, the Walt Disney Company would certainly like you to think so. Which is why -- over the next few days -- you're going to see the usual self-congratulatory full-page ads in the trades. Not to mention those press releases that talk about how happy the studio supposedly is with the way that "Ratatouille" has performed to date.

Of course, were you to ask the people who work in Mickey's marketing department about what Mouse House senior management really thinks about this particular Pixar production's box office performance, you'd hear a very different story. One that involves a lot of finger-pointing as well as people attempting to shift blame to other departments at the studio.

"But why would people want to assign blame when it comes to 'Ratatouille' 's domestic box office performance?," you ask. Well, you have to understand that -- up until this last Brad Bird film -- Pixar productions have always finished in the Top 5 during their initial domestic runs.

Don't believe me? Okay. Let's go to the charts. "Toy Story" was the No. 1 film domestically back in 1995 ...

Top Five Films of 1995
"Toy Story": $191.7 million
"Batman Forever": $184.0 million
"Apollo 13": $172.0 million
"Pocahontas": $141.5 million
"Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls": $108.3 million


"A Bug's Life" came in fourth in 1998's domestic box office derby ...

Top Five Films of 1998
"Saving Private Ryan": $216.5 million
"Armageddon": $201.5 million
"There's Something About Mary": $176.4 million
"A Bug's Life": $162.7 million
"The Water Boy": $161.4 million


"Toy Story 2" came in third back in 1999 ...

Top Five Films of 1999
"Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace": $431.0 million
"The Sixth Sense": $293.5 million
"Toy Story 2": $245.8 million
"Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me": $206.0 million
"The Matrix": $171.4 million


"Monsters, Inc." finished fourth back in 2001 ...

Top Five Films of 2001
"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone": $317.5 million
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring": $313.3 million
"Shrek": $267.6 million
"Monsters, Inc.": $255.8 million
"Rush Hour 2": $226.1 million


"Finding Nemo" was No. 2 back in 2003 ...

Top Five Films of 2003
"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King": $377.0 million
"Finding Nemo": $339.7 million
"Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl": $305.4 million
The Matrix Reloaded": $281.5 million
"Bruce Almighty": $242.8 million


"The Incredibles" came in fifth back in 2004 ...

Top Five Films of 2004
"Shrek 2": $441.2 million
"Spider-Man 2": $373.5 million
"The Passion of the Christ": $370.2 million
"Meet the Fockers": $279.2 million
"The Incredibles": $261.4 million


While "Cars" grabbed the 3 spot in last year's domestic box office derby.

Top Five Films of 2006
"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest": $423.3 million
"Night at the Museum": $250.8 million
"Cars": $244.0 million
"X-Men: The Last Stand": $234.3 million
"The Da Vinci Code": $217.5 million


Whereas "Ratatouille" ... Well, as of yesterday, this Pixar production found itself dropping down to No. 8 ...

Top Ten Films of 2007
(As of 9/03/07)
"Spider-Man 3": $336.5 million
"Shrek the Third": $321.0 million
"Transformers": $310.5 million
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End": $308.2 million
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix": $286.6 million
"300": $210.6 million
"The Bourne Ultimatum": $202.6 million
"Ratatouille": $201.0 million
"The Simpsons Movie": $178.4 million
"Wild Hogs": $168.2 million

... having just been knocked out of the No. 7 berth by "The Bourne Ultimatum."


And given the domestic market is now pretty much tapped out for this particular Pixar production (Just last week, "Ratatouille" was struggling to pull in $120,000 - $130,000 for its stateside weekday performances. And given that most of the kids in the U.S. are headed back to school today, you can now expect this movie's numbers to fall straight through the floor) and given that there are still 17 movie-going weeks left in 2007 ... It is quite possible that -- between now and New Year's Eve -- three more movies that can gross over $200 million domestically will come along. With one of those films most likely being Walt Disney Pictures' "Enchanted."

The way I hear it, the folks up in Emeryville are not happy about this prospect. Not just because "Ratatouille" has already been knocked out of the Top 5. But because -- for the first time ever -- there is the very distinct possibility that this animation studio's latest release will not be in the domestic Top 10 as 2007 draws to a close.

This is why there's now a new party line when it comes to discussing "Ratatouille" 's box office performance. Nowadays, Pixar die-hards don't really like to talk about how this Brad Bird film did during its domestic run. They'd much rather prefer to discuss how well this animation studio's latest release is doing overseas.

Of course, the only problem with doing that is that it then opens the window to comparing "Ratatouille" 's grosses to those for "The Simpsons Movie." And while it no longer seems likely that this 20th Century Fox release will be able to eclipse that Pixar picture's domestic earnings, "The Simpsons Movie" is still kicking "Ratatouille" 's butt overseas (i.e. Having earned $291.0 million versus $172.3 million to date).

Then when you factor in that "The Simpsons Movie" allegedly only cost $75 million to produce ... Well, that means that this Fox film will be in the black a whole lot sooner than "Ratatouille" will. Which -- given that this Brad Bird film (due to all of its production problems) reportedly cost $150 million to complete -- is something of a sore point with the suits back in Burbank.

And speaking of people being sore ... Let's get back to all that finger-pointing that's been going on in Burbank. All because the folks up in Emeryville are reportedly blaming the Mouse House's marketing team for "Ratatouille" 's under-performance at the box office.

As the story goes, the people at Pixar are now supposedly saying that this Brad Bird film didn't do as well as it could have domestically because Disney dropped the ball. They insist that Mickey's marketing staff didn't put together a really effective promotional campaign for this particular Pixar production.

As you might imagine, claims like this make the folks who actually work in Disney's marketing department completely crazy. As one studio insider that I recently spoke with put it:

We put together the best possible campaign that we could for 'Ratatouille.' Sure, this movie got great reviews. But this was a very difficult picture to sell during an incredibly competitive summer. To be honest, we're lucky that this movie did as well as it did.

Pixar is now claiming that we didn't put together a good enough trailer for 'Ratatouille.' They say that this is the main reason that their newest movie didn't do as well domestically as 'Cars' did. Which is why they're now being complete b*stards about the 'WALL-E' trailer. Insisting that only they know the proper way to promote their next picture.

Our counter-argument is that if we didn't put together the campaign that we did for 'Ratatouille,' putting that 9-minute excerpt out there on the Web, holding those sneak previews two weeks out, that there's no other way that we could have built better word-of-mouth for this movie. If we hadn't done that level of promotion, spent that money the way we did, they'd have been lucky if this film had done 2/3rds or 3/4ths of the business that it eventually did stateside.

But because Pixar never, ever makes mistakes, we're now the ones who have to take the blame. But that's okay. Let them call the shots on "WALL-E" 's marketing campaign. Next year, they'll be the one who'll be taking the fall when that Andrew Stanton film doesn't measure up to expectations.

Because if you thought that it was tough to sell a movie where a rat runs loose in a kitchen, wait 'til you try & come up with an effective marketing campaign for a movie that stars robots who don't talk. Which is set on a version of Planet Earth that's just this abandoned trash heap that's floating in space. Try selling that as a fun summer film for the whole family to see.

I know, I know. This is probably far too downbeat a story for all you dyed-in-the-wool Disney & Pixar fans out there. Who just want to celebrate the fact that "Ratatouille" finally achieved really-for-real blockbuster status during its initial domestic run.

Well, based on what the folks in Disney's marketing department have been telling me ... This time around, it's only the fans who are celebrating. Meanwhile down in Burbank and up in Emeryville, people are still trying to figure out what went wrong with "Ratatouille." They want to find why a film that received such glow-in-the-dark reviews failed to connect with a far larger audience. So that these possibly-promotion-related problems can then cleared up by the time "WALL-E" rolls into theaters during the Summer of 2008.

What do you folks think? Is there something that the Mouse's marketing department could have done differently with "Ratatouille" ? How can Disney improve the promotion that it does for Pixar's animated features?

Your thoughts?

...all the other movies seemed to be about more of an adventure, while R seemed to just be about a rat who wants to cook

between the guaranteed $200 at the domestic box office and the obscene amount it will make in video sales...

It's at least as much of an adventure as that presented in Monsters, Inc. (set primarily in afactory) or Cars (set primarily in a forgotten Route 66 town).

it isn't as exicitng as the premise of those other movies...IMO...monsters>rats.....and i haven't seen either movie...

>and i haven't seen either
>movie...

Though I didnt read either one.

all i said is a movie about monsters sounds more interesting than one about rats IMO...i don't need to see either movie to KNOW it's about either rats or monsters...

calm down, ain't nada ignorant about that...

Keep up the good work.

Replying from a position of complete ignorance.

TOKPR

I will say that the trailer was pretty eh. I think it's why I was so surprised by how good it ended up being.

I don't know. Any Pixar movie could flop and you could spin it about how it was a hard story to sell.

-We're talking about a story with basically no human or animal characters. Just a bunch of inanimate objects. Frankly, I think most kids would be terrified if their toys came to life.

-Um. It's about monsters. That scare children. And we're supposed to like them?

-Superheroes are a sure bet...when people have heard of them. And when they're not just knock-offs of superheroes we've all seen a thousand times.

-Kids don't like empathizing with bugs. They like torturing bugs.

Anyway, the problem with the premise of the movie wasn't that it seemed gross. It seemed uninteresting. The trailers didn't do a good job of reversing that expectation. But what do I know. A trailer that would have made me more excited to see it probably would have made it seem even worse to kids, because it really was kind of an adult-ish kids movie.

look at the movies it's up against. There are SEVERAL sequels there, plus one major new franchise that was certain to do well, plus another blockbuster action movie.

The only one they can KINDA be mad they didn't beat is 300. But beating a bunch of action movie sequels? Or beating Shrek, which always comes out and makes a babillion dollars?

I think this year has just been extremely crowded with franchises and money makers.

I had no intention of seeing this movie and I love the Pixar movies.

I think it was more content that anything and the trailers were underwhelming.

I'll add it to the DVD collection but I wasn't going to spend money at the theater especially this year.

Simpsons, Pirates, Potter It never had a chance.

Dee

i had it out with him over email about one of his earliest Ratatouille posts. he's hated Pixar ever since Disney took over - i think he had friends in Disney Animation who were replaced when the Pixar crew took over.

anyway, how an animated feature aimed towards an older audience that makes $200 million domestically can be considered a dud is beyond me. there have even been articles about how unexpectedly well the Ratatouille merchandise is selling. i mean, if you can make a hit movie about a rat that cooks AND sell merchandise to boot...how the fuck can anyone complain about that?

and the bigger picture that everyone overlooks here is that Ratatouille is an instant classic and long-term, it can only help to strengthen the Disney-Pixar brand. i mean, Disney did A LOT of damage to their brand with all the cheap direct-to-video shit they dumped out over the last decade. even if Ratatouille had bombed, Disney should still have been ecstatic because they're finally starting to demand excellence in their product again.

there's no way you can deny there were people who had questions about seeing a movie about a rat cooking food.

My wife was so grossed out by the premise she refused to watch the commercials, never mind the first nine minutes. And I know there were others with similar (though maybe not as strong) reactions.

That the movie is successful (and it is, of course) I think is due in no small part to the Pixar reputation. The premise didn't interest me, but I'd always be willing to see what Pixar has to offer. Disney marketing got the word out, come on, it's the new Pixar movie. What's the secret? You let some people see it. It's a Pixar movie, so the love it. You tell other people that people who have seen it, loved it. You collect $200 million dollars.

There was nothing Disney could have said that would have led people to believe it was anything other than a movie about a rat who wants to cook. So what else could they have done?

Incidentally, I have not seen the movie. But as this is a discussion about the marketing of the movie and people's reaction to the premise, comments about the actual movie are not relevant.

RED
http://arrena.blogspot.com

would have finished out of the top 5 this year. in that 2007 list, i see four threequels, the fourth or fifth harry potter, transformers, and 300 ahead of ratatouille. how you gonna be mad at any movie for not beating out those? 300 maybe, but the rest, forget it. i'd say out-earning the simpsons movie is a pretty big accomplishment. every CGI movie ain't gonna do finding nemo numbers. ask surf's up.

Though I think Disney did do everything in their power to sell a movie featuring no recognizable star voices, a questionable premise, and a crazy-sounding title...

That said, I wish they would have been a little more creative with selling the premise to a public who has no problem staring at pics of Britney Spears' shaved crotch but then turns around and wants to get all "icky" and "eww, gross" about a "nasty" rat in somebody's kitchen...

Anyway, Disney could have tried a teaser poster/homage to the first Superman... you'd have Remy, rocking a chef's hat or wielding a spoon or something, with the tagline, "This summer, You *Will* Believe A Rat Can Cook"

I liked the posters they had out, but the above pitch might have helped it a little more, even with the "eww" factor, you would have had some curiosity about the--

You know what, fuck that, I am finding it very difficult to work up any sympathy for two companies that had a film that performed about as well as anyone expected it to

And I guess they're all forgetting about the DVD bread that awaits them?
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>That said, I wish they would have been a little more creative
>with selling the premise to a public who has no problem
>staring at pics of Britney Spears' shaved crotch but then
>turns around and wants to get all "icky" and "eww, gross"
>about a "nasty" rat in somebody's kitchen...

Are you really questioning the desire to see pictures of celebrity pussy over a rat in the kitchen?


RED
http://arrena.blogspot.com

>Are you really questioning the desire to see pictures of
>celebrity pussy over a rat in the kitchen?

Yes, if said celebrity pussy belongs to Britney Spears

If we're talking Alba, or Biel (aka The White Heavyweight Champion), then maybe it's a different story
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>Are you really questioning the desire to see pictures of
>celebrity pussy over a rat in the kitchen?

Me circle of friends alone run out and cop Pixar DVD's on principle. They're must have movies.

It's easily one of the best animated films of the past 20 years. I think it's up there with Finding Nemo and The Incredibles and may even age better than both.

So it didn't smash the box office, as I thought it wouldn't. I believe I initially predicted around 170-180 mill box office. They're gonna make at least all that much on the DVD. It's a great film, people will want to own it.

I had no problem with the trailers or the marketing at least in Chicago. They had tons of TV spots and billboards. It got excellent buzz in the right places. Just some tough competition this year.

all the other were funny and entertaining. that was just boring and drawn out

ratatouille wasn't funny? did we see the same movie? it was much funnier than cars and bugs life. it was up there with the best of pixar's films.

and bugs life was ok.

both cars and ratatouille weren't funny at all. i stopped watching them in the middle of it.

unless the ending was spectacular both were not funny

Why are we even having this conversation? What point did you stop watching?

Man, you missed some of the greatest parts of that film. The ending (as in all of Birds films) was probably the best part. It was inspired.

my Pixar list, after Toy Story 2 and the Incredibles.

If you thought it was boring and drawn out...well, that's your opinion. But if you think the goal of these films is just to be "funny"...

i hated that comment in some reviews - "it had a great script and great voice acting, but it wasn't really funny."

why does all animation have to be funny?

that's one of the reasons i'll defend this move 'till i die - it might be the first mainstream hit animated to crack open the door for ADULT animation.

brad bird's been talking about an animated PG-13 sci-fi noir flick for a while. how unbelieveably dope would that be?

Incredibles had great action for a kids movie and was funny.

Finding Nemo had great lines and heart

The toy story's were just plain awesome.

the main focus on this movie are KIDS MOVIES which adults can also sit thru and enjoy.

If no one here liked Happy Feet then your just an atheist. but ratatouille just wasn't funny or entertaining to me at all

same with cars

That would belong to Monster House. A much, much better film in oh so many ways. Better plot, better dialogue, better animation, funnier, should I go on?

Well I know Nuk would say that motion capture isn't animation, which is true, but I'll call it such for the purpose of this debate.

>Well I know Nuk would say that motion capture isn't animation,
>which is true

The type of funny that doesn't provide one-liners later, but makes you laugh in the theaters.

I'm 100% with you on this one.

but once i got 30 minutes in, i was very bored. i had zero desire to find out how remy was gonna end up with a restaurant. i didn't watch the whole thing. not even the visual look of the flick kept me in my seat, which is rare, cuz i'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. i'm willing to give a film a mile if i find it visually appealing.

The movie couldn't have been expected to perform any better than it did. And, when it takes home an Oscar for best animated movie, I'm sure Disney will be perfectly happy to sing its praises. The fact is the movie didn't rely on big-name voice actors, sappy musical numbers, or gross-out humor (the mainstays of the genre). It was a well-crafted, intelligent film that probably works better for adults than it does for children. Brad Bird didn't make the kind of mass-appeal family film he did on The Incredibles, and that was a bold choice. The fact that the movie still made 200 million is really nothing to scoff at (and DVD sales will undoubtedly be strong). Even with this one making less money than previous Pixar flicks, it did nothing to tarnish the reputation of the studio - it was a great movie, and a worthy addition to the Pixar catalog.

for one.

and pronounced in the film enough times to get the point across.

You ahouldn't have to dumb shit down for kids. When I was a kid I hated that shit.

"Rat-patootie?"

"'Ratatouille' doesn't sound delicious."

Especially those that give the opportunity to insert POO or PEE in the pronunciation.

I'm generalizing, but i think part of the reason people see the Pixar movies is not so much for the quality of the animation or even the 'quality' or realism of the stories, but because ever since Toy Story the Pixar movies are known for meeting if not exceeding the audiences entertainment expectations, or in other words the audience knows that it's going to get a chance to really enjoy the two plus hours in the theatre. i think part of the allure is due to studios releasing movies that either aren't of a consistent level of quality to be enjoyed by audiences or are advertised poorly which throws off the viewer's expectation of the movie which effects the enjoyment of the movie, is that the Pixar movies are a pleasant surprise in that they've all been consistent in meeting the audiences demand and expectations for a movie that's enjoyable. so in other words, the biggest draw that the Pixar movies have is the preconceived reputation of the work. and if people perceive, whether fairly or not, that the level of quality or the ability to enjoy their movies has diminished than it effects the ability for the company to continue to make movies or make as much money as they can from the movie, which in the end is the focus of the company, to maintain the well being of the company's ability to generate money.

but, for a movie that doesn't have any well-known recognizable voices, to star a rat that lives in a foreign country (France no less. remember the issue of Freedom Fries?? makes you proud to be an American, huh? ;P) and have a director attached to it that has (with the exception of The Incredibles) to produce well-crafted but less-commercially viable material than some of his other contemporaries, to STILL make $200 million speaks to the in-house crew within Pixar to spot a good story and tell it in an way that people enjoy. Like someone else posted before, Shark Tale had Will Smith and some other household names, but i don't think it made $200M. i guess the Pixar movies get held up to a more scruitinizing light because they were the first studio to really make 3-d animation 'stadium-status' ;P

but and it's been said before, that studios are becoming less and less able to get people to the theatre to see a movie and therfore have to dress it up with 'hype' or a sense of being part of something greater than life to see the movie, which of course has nothing to do with the actual story being told or the movie on the screen, but i guess the studios have to pay for 'Grindhouse' somehow.

* shrugs *

consideration in an animated film's box office potential.

Especially when most of the celebrity fuckers doing these voices either couldn't voice-act their way out of a paper bag, or spend the entire film "winking" at the audience like "hey look! I'm your favorite movie star and I'm voicing a cartoon!"

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I'm not saying that Sam Jackson and Coach sold The Incredibles or anything, but this Pixar flic probably made the least because there weren't any major names attatched. Animated or not, I think that made a difference.

need "celebrity voice talent" to try and drive sales.

The fact that there _weren't_ any big-name, small-talent Hollywood actors "lending" their vocal talents to the film was one of its biggest pluses. The voice actors chosen - famous or not - are perfectly suited to the characters they portray, not the other way around like DreamWorks does.

I've seen most of the Pixar flicks and they always do a great job of casting the right voices. They don't go for the big names alone. Dreamworks just gets whatever big names they can and throw them in a movie.

>need "celebrity voice talent" to try and drive sales.
>
>The fact that there _weren't_ any big-name, small-talent
>Hollywood actors "lending" their vocal talents to the film was
>one of its biggest pluses. The voice actors chosen - famous or
>not - are perfectly suited to the characters they portray, not
>the other way around like DreamWorks does.


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Not to mention the difference in quality of animation. All of Dreamworks movies LOOK the same. Pixar is constantly switching their style up especially in terms of using an animation style to fit the story.

Ratatouille and The Incredibles are probably the best looking animated films I've ever seen. And they did pretty incredible things with light and water in Nemo also.

and i dont even like cartoon movies. i made sure i saw that ish at the dollar theater. i was very impressed

shit was on point (4/5), not as great as The Incredibles (5/5), but a very enjoyable film...Brad Bird is a talented ma'fucka.

The article cites domestic box office as disappointing. The international box office, which has been coming in since the article was written, has been stellar. Ratatouille has cleaned up overseas, and currently stands as the 6th highest grossing film of the year internationally. It has been #1 overseas for a few weeks now. I think Disney's perception of the movie as a "flop" has probably changed in light of these figures. The movie stands to make some good money for the studio, and as I said before, it is likely to win the Oscar for best animated film.

I knew it was going to be good, but I thought it was outstanding.

Minus the kissing scene (which wasn't much), it was very enjoyable for adults without any of the "adult innuendos".

They did drop the ball for merchandise marketing, tho....since, as my boy put it, no matter HOW good the movie was, no one is going to buy stuffed rat dolls and rat bedsheets. It's just not going to happen.

I'll pop in Ratatouille even when the kids are sleeping.

the FUCK is disney bitching about????

On the other hand, Ratatatatouliuoiue came out a year ago.

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