Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 01:40:35 GMT

cold-bloodedly ?

Well hopefully the movie will fail soon, so we can bring closure to the discussion. Fingers crossed. (Okay, it didn't fail yet, but just wait till next week...) By early September, box office should be way down, and we can clear the dance floor for the told-ya-so jig.

Unlike previous Pixar releases, this movie had no marketing (cause Disney Co Marketing didn't know how to do it), no grocery store or fast food tie-ins, no books or plush or cooking sets at WalMart, so the numbers look pretty good to me. I'd be hard pressed to find a movie studio that wouldn't want those kind of dismal numbers. Remember, the "purchase" of Pixar was a non-cash stock-only transaction, basically costing Disney Co zippo, especially after how much stock they gave to Eisner.

What a great problem to be faced with: "This movie got great reviews and made buckets of money, but some psychics think it should have made barrels of money - explain yourself."

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:30:18 GMT

Give me a break, Jim!

I would think you would have the integrity to honestly admit you were wrong. Seriously, this most recent article is very juvenile.

It is obvious to me that all your Disney sources are with the old guard and in your synchophantic way, you are doing what you can to take down Pixar people and attempt to defend the lousy works of the old executives.

Let's take your beloved Meet the Robinsons, for example. Do you know what that film earned in the first 10 days? Less than $52 million. Chicken Little? $80 million. Talk about a drop off between those two Disney CGI films! Ratatouille has blown those two pictures out of the water. Not bad for what you consider one of the worst Pixar movies ever.

I thought you said you were a numbers guy, Jim. You are letting your own bias cloud your "analysis".

I guarantee that Ratatouille will be remembered (and marketed and sold) for many years to come while Meet the Robinsons and Chicken Little will rest on the ash heap with Atlantis and Treasure Planet.

Imagine if Disney had not bought Pixar. The news headlines would read how Disney animation is floundering and unable to compete with the clear industry leader in Pixar. Now with Ratatouille done, Disney would have no go-to studio for potential hit animated movies. The future of Disney animation would be resting solely on The Frog Princess (or the Frog and the Princess, or whater PC-renaming they've come up with).

So can we put the Pixar bashing to rest and move on? This is really getting tiring.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:52:00 GMT

I'm curious about how the international boxoffice will be. That ought to be big for a talking animal movie set in Paris.

I don't expect Ratatouille will exceed the recent Pixar movies but I think that's more a sign of general market conditions than any drop of in quality. If you want a blockbuster today you just about have to have a number on the end of the title. Toystory 3 will be big.

Not pursuing a fast food tie in, while honorable, probably hasn't helped to get kids demanding to see the film..

I'm glad they continue to do originals stories and I think even their "weak" performers will still be quite profitable. Enough so that they can continue to make more.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:24:30 GMT

If you listen to Chuck you may actually learn something here because guess what, Harry Potter is going for the same audience as Transformers and Die Hard. The film is PG-13...each film gets darker than the previous one....definitely not family fare.

Transformers has more to worry about tomorrow then Ratatouille. And before you say it, yes the Simpsons opens soon and yes it is animated just like Ratatouille but NO they are not going for the same audience.....

So after Rat it makes more then Cars but less then Nemo will we still have to hear about what a disappointment it is or will the retoric shift to how poorly WALL-E is sure to do -yawn-.......

http://www.raymation.net

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:36:02 GMT

Really it's silly to base this movie's success merely on domestic gross when it's so obvious that it's the BEST film this summer is going to produce and the word of mouth will keep it raking in cash as long as Disney stands by it. I really wish that it had come out in the fall or during a more quiet time so it could get the attention it deserves but Disney did such a shoddy job of marketing it that THEY'RE probably more to blame for how much it makes then Pixar.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:41:32 GMT

Wise up guys. Jim is yanking yer chain here.

OT: I checked out a Disney store this weekend and noted all the forlorn "Fairies" franchise stuff. If the those "creative" executives were looking for something to b*tch about I'd think delaying "Tinkerbell, the Movie" would be high on the list.

And maybe I missed this from earlier Jim, but I understand that Chris Sanders has moved on to Dreamworks and will direct their next movie? How about some background on that?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 04:09:07 GMT

"when it's so obvious that it's the BEST film this summer is going to produce"

Excuse me, but what?!?

Isn't that jumping the gun a bit?

Especially with Potter out Wed., and The Simpsons on the way.

In any case, Rat... seem successful to me.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 04:30:48 GMT

This says it all, this weekend while at the supermarket, two young children must have been about 5 years old were asking mom if they could have a ratatouille book they found near the checkstand.

Yes they said ti very clearly Ratatouiee. and who said the name was going to be a problem and that the ick factor was going to lure people away.

So far i have only heard that from two people and that was in a disney podcast for a disney fan site. One of them felt chicken little was a much better and higher qulity film. Goes to show that some people have some pretty strange ideas of quality

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 05:29:23 GMT

Jim, great article...I'm a clear headed, non-crazed, fan of Pixar films. You do a terriffic job of keeping people informed about the industry. I firmly believe you could post the word "Pixar"... nothing else... and still find these lame, oddly desperate, insuting responses. These people don't even take a breath to enjoy these fine Pixar films. As soon as the lights come up in the theater, they dash home to their computers and proceed to bash you...perplexing that these nice, clean, wholesome stories can illicit this sort of rage. Really, just strange. Cheers!

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:45:23 GMT

I keep reading about how the marketing for "Ratatouille" isn't good. I've been to the Disney Store and I've seen all the marketing there- plushes, rat-in-a-car action figures, clothing, etc. And, maybe I'm the only one here who watches the Disney Channel, but there has been, since before the movie came out, a bunch of marketing for "Ratatouille" on there...they show different Movie Surfers clips on the movie all the time, and they've shown a substantial number of clips. Not to mention the 9-minute preview on Disney.com, and the other marketing on Disney.com (the other videos and the whole "Ratatouille" page).

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:21:42 GMT

Hi Jim,

I have loathed numbers since I was in Elementary School - I've always been a words and pictures guy - so maybe I'm the wrong one to comment on this. But I will, anyway :) ...

I get the impression that you and Chuck are both spinning this data - Chuck, because he wants Disney to look good, and you, because you want to prove yourself right about Disney paying too much for Pixar. Needless to say, this doesn't do much to change my opinion about numbers ;). I think the truth is probably somewhere in your two opinions.

Perhaps this is because I'm not in the industry, but I fail to understand how a film that's making hundreds of millions of dollars can be viewed as a disappointment. And can't they just, for once, be happy that they made a great film like "Ratatouille"?

Also, isn't the audience for the entire movie industry "slowly but surely eroding?"

And how is "Ratatouille" doing compared to other animated films this year?

I don't know about anybody else, but Pixar is currently the only animation studio whose films I go to see in the theatrer solely because they're Pixar films. Partly because they're quality films, but also because I believe they are made to be seen in theatres (Actually, I thought Nemo was "WOW!" in the theatre, but just OK on DVD).

Although I'll be picking up a copy of "Deathly Hallows" as soon as it comes out, having been sorely disappointed by the film version of "Chamber of Speeches"...er..."Secrets", and only mixed on "Goblet of Fire", I'll probably wait for DVD to see the new film, unless I see some fantastic reviews.

I don't think it's really fair to put "Ratatouille" up against "Harry Potter", which has got to be one of the biggest franchises of all time. The new, original Pixar film will deserve a handicap when you judge how it came out in the battle with the well-established wizard boy. Though I do remember some people predicting doom for that series while looking at some of those *numbers* for "Prisoner of Azkaban" (the best film of the series IMHO).

But, if you're correct and there is something to be concerned about, what do you suggest Pixar do? I hope it isn't sequels, remakes, celebrity name dropping and fart jokes, like at so many other studios...

What I think might help Hollywood in general is re-widening the window between theatrical and DVD releases. When I was a kid, the new Disney film would come out in the Summer and you wouldn't get the video until the following Spring.

Another thing -

I read something to the effect that "Ratatouille" is doing well in other countries - don't know if that's true or not, but it seems to me that it might do better in countries where cuisine is a central part of the culture than it does here.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:22:00 GMT

Uhm.. just wondering which film WON'T be negatively impacted by the Harry Potter release?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:26:42 GMT

Re: The "Harry" and Pixar audiences

All I know is, my sister, who is a huge Potter fan (though she, and I, hated the last one) and a huge Pixar fan, took my niece and nephew to see Ratatouille opening day. (They all enjoyed it.) She will *not* be taking them to see Harry unless and until she sees it first. She will most likely wait for DVD. I expect Harry to do better than Ratatouille, but I have to agree with those who say the audiences for the films, although they started off very close, are diverging fast as the Potter series moves along.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:34:34 GMT

I'm just getting tired of how bad every Disney film does when in actuallity they do pretty well. There is one thing I know about numbers, they really don't tell the whole story since it depends on which numbers you use. Domestic, International, DVD release, PPV, merchandise? Which numbers can you use to drive your point.

These articles that keep questioning the Pixar purchase are stale before they even get on here. My family loved the movie along with the rest of the full theatre that clapped when it was over.

Will Harry Potter have an impact? Duh, yeah since every new film this summer as impacted the last one but what you are going for is a slight decline and a different audience.

Will I see Rataouille again? Yes I will. Will I see Potter again? I usually can only take one showing of the movie for which I expect it to be very good. But that is just me....

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:59:01 GMT

Totally agree with animagusurreal .

The problem with Jim is that he can´t define what kind of point he wants to make. He wants to be a storyteller, a animation histrorian, a disney commentator, book reviewer. I'm ok because variety is the spice of life. But when it comes to Pixar it's always about dissapoinment even when the numbers don't add up.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:02:09 GMT

OK, I've read these "Disney paid too mch for Pixar" articles from Jim over and over and over. We get it Jim, you think it wasn't worth the money! You are entitled to your opinion on that. It would be nice if you could admit when you are wrong (as you were with Cars, and have been on Ratatouille up to this point. But it's become obvious that this is, indeed, about more than the Pixar purchase to you.

The last two Ratatouille articles have implied that the old Disney guard would be better off in charge than Lasseter and co. Really? As has been pointed out by others, Chicken Little was a lousy film that, while it did well in its initial weekend, fell off horribly. Same with Meet the Robinsons. The fact is that the current "Disney" animation team doesn't seem capable of making decent films. They make decent money, but I seriously doubt they make back their expenses until they get released on DVD (if you include marketing). You also thought putting Roy Disney in charge of the company wuold be a good idea as well, as I remember. Other than the last name, what did Roy actually bring to the table? Disney animation seriously deteriorated under his watch and was only saved by Eisner and Co. (and no, I'm not a big Eisner fan).

The fact is, Lasseter, and the Pixar team are focused on quality, something Disney has not seemed to even understand of late. There are obviously a lot of bruised egos among the old guard who resent this, but the fact is that if they were any good at their jobs, Disney wouldn't have needed to buy Pixar in the first place.

You constantly say these films are disappointing market expectations. Isn't it more lilkely that those expectations were unrealistic in the first place? The basic theory you are trotting out is that if every Pixar movie doesn't make more money thatn the last, then Disney got ripped off. This is foolish. No studio has ever had that kind of track record. Pixar's movies are high quality, and consistently make more than their Disney counterparts - that should be enough. The question isn't whether the box office of the Pixar films is lower than market expectations. The question is, are they lower than Bob Eiger's expectations when he made the purchase. Any thoughts on that?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:27:57 GMT

>>> "I'm a big numbers guy..." <<<

Obviously.

I truly hope then that Disney's gotten rid of people with that mentality because leadership being strictly "numbers guys" is what the downfall of the company is going to be.

Hell, I'm a Disney stockholder and I couldn't care less if these films underperform now, I know that I'm being set up for a bigger payday in the future because they are focused on quality now.

The "downward trend" of Pixar movies is so the wrong thing to focus on. Do you think if Disney put out a CGI film of their own (which they would have probably rushed out the door a la Dreamworks), in competition against the aforementioned movies AND Ratatouille, that the Disney film would perform that much better? Disney would get slaughtered, the brand goes even more downhill, and stockholders like me would seriously question whether the company was going down the right path with "strictly numbers" folk like Morrill running the show.

Ratatouille is a great step, regardless of numbers. Get. Over. It.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:29:59 GMT

I'm one of those poor souls who liked Chicken Little. So did my sister, who's not a fan of animation in general. What can I say? The animation wasn't Pixar level and most of the jokes didn't work, but there was just a general good feeling about the film that we found very appealing. I liked it far better than stuff like Madagascar or the second Ice Age film - the latter was really really bad, a horrible script.

So, with that confession out of the way - I too was a little worried about Ratatouille. The opening weekend was relatively unimpressive. BUT - the daily box office take for the film has been amazing, and of course the 4th of July weekend was boffo. And I'm delighted. How great that an intelligent, original, non-fart-joke laden film has done so well. Kudos to Pixar! Live forever, Brad Bird!

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:26:22 GMT

Are there any parents out there? Sometimes you have to be a parent to be able to see things through the kids eyes. My kids think Remy is great, from the commercials and the Disney Channel and the Disney Store. They could care less about Harry Potter.

I have twin 5 year olds and an 8 year old. We haven't had the time yet to make it to Ratatouille, but the kids are extremely anxious to go. I won't be taking them to Harry Potter, nor will any of their friends parents be taking their kids to Harry Potter, so how are these 2 movies competing? The answer is they're not. If anyone with a child 10 and younger goes to the movies in the next few weeks, they're going to see the rat. Harry Potter shouldn't affect the Rat's audience at all.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:30:20 GMT

And just to follow that thought, Transformers also has no affect on Ratatouille. Most people I know interested in Transformers are in their 20's. Grown up kids who are excited about their childhood toys being made into a film. I was too old for Transformers, so I don't really care. My 5 year olds could care less about Transformers because I don't let them play with Transformers, but they're getting Ratatouille figures for their birthday next week.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:43:36 GMT

The nice thing about Ratatouille is that it didn't have the same kind of buzz that the sequels of May did. Ratatouille is a movie that people did not feel pressured to see on opening weekend because everyone else was, it's the backup movie that, if they don't have anything else to see, they'll at least see that because they know it will be worth the price of admission (although not the price of popcorn... NO movie is the price of popcorn).

And, on a personal note, would you people please stop complaining about Jim's articles? Those very articles are the reason you come here in the first place. If Jim didn't comment about Ratatouille's box office this week, you would have been sorely disappointed. And Jim DID concede in the first paragraph that he may have been wrong.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:57:25 GMT

Your number crunching is too short term. You think Disney paid too much? How much more would it have cost them to have Pixar as a rivial instead?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:08:20 GMT

What will happen to Ratatouille when Potter comes out? Probably the same thing that happened to Monsters Inc when a Potter movie came out two weeks later.

It did just fine. A bit of a drop, but would anyone here consider either the third weekend of MI or the overall numbers suffering at all?

Jim was wrong when he said the movie would be hurt by Transformers, and he's going to be wrong again when Potter comes out. At least we got something of an admission of being wrong, albeit pretty weak and weasely.

I don't get the focus on any individual weekend for a movie that will have great legs and great weekdays like Ratatouille. This is a movie that will be in the top ten for weeks and weeks and will likely have weeks where it drops under 20%. Any given weekend, especially after the first couple, makes up a small percentage of the total gross. Worst case is it has a bigger drop when tons of people go to Potter, then bounces back when Potter has a big weekend then drops fast. I'll bet within three or four weeks Ratatouille is beating Potter on any given day even though it came out two weeks earlier. After Potter, there aren't any "kids" movies for weeks, the closest is Simpsons which is a completely different audience.

And again, another of these articles that COMPLETELY ignores the overseas performance. Even if Ratatouille doesn't beat cars in the USA (which I don't think will happen), it is likely to only lag by a small amount, but beat it overseas by hundreds of millions. Even if it "only" makes $200M here (which I still think is low), it could easily get 50% more overseas (what Monsters and Nemo did, although I think it will make an even higher percentage internationally) putting it well ahead of Cars overall.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:11:37 GMT

I think the film won't be able to catch up to Cars, but should end up somewhere between $175 million to $200 million domestically and around $250 million worldwide. I just think it's very short minded to say a movie that is so critically acclaimed and will make somewhere around $400 million worldwide is a disapointment because it didn't make as much as another Pixar movie.

If that is the case is Pirates 3, Shrek 3, and Spiderman 3 all disapointments because they didn't make as much as the second ones?

The answer is no. If a film makes a company money in it's box office release for the company it is a sucess especially with all the money that is made in dvd sales, rentals, ect. This summer is the busiest and biggest in a long time and the competition is fierce. The fact of the matter is that Ratatouille will become Disney's second biggest release of the year and could stay that way unless Enchanted or Treasure 2 can out do it.

Is there a time when we should get concerned? Yes, when we see a down trend in quality and when the box office returns start coming in around and under 100 million domestically. This means that Disney isn't making a return or a good one on its product and people are losing interest and don't see the product as what it used to be.

My stance is let's be happy we are getting good quality family movies and let's support them so we can get more. With as much crap that is out there I'm not concerned about whether a film makes 200 million but couldn't make that other $35 million to match the last film the company released.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:31:58 GMT

Actually, cbarry123, last weekend I gave my children, aged 12 and 8, a choice of Ratatouille or Transformers. They both picked Transformers, and what a great choice it was! Now we will wait and buy Ratatouille when it comes out on DVD. So in our case, Transformers DID have an effect on Ratatouille.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 14:33:36 GMT

Jim, while I do think you are a little too critical at times and spin things negatively when you could easily have put a positive spin on the same information, I do think you are being very fair here. You admitted that Ratatouille has done very well over the 4th of July holiday which you weren't expecting. You are also skeptical over the head of Disney Distribution putting a spin on the Pixar release, which you should be. Of course Harry Potter and Ratatouille share an audience. It may not be the exact audience since Harry Potter will skew a little older, but there is a definite overlap. And all of the nonsense about every Pixar release being different is just to try to spin Ratatouille's lower numbers.

My one complaint at the moment is that I don't think we should set Finding Nemo as the standard, but rather as the exception. If we look at the 4 Pixar films starting with Toy Story 2 they've made between $240-$260 million, and Ratatouille is on track to make about $225 million. So this may be slightly lower, but given the large amount of competition in the computer animated movie market, and the fact that Pixar is now releasing a movie a year, I don't think a 10% drop is a sign of a "downward trend" but rather a fluctuation around the statistical mean.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 14:40:17 GMT

- "Potter" will have no significant effect on "Ratatouille".

- Disney may have overpaid for Pixar (in short term, I mean, seriously; it was a small animation studio with a limited amount of success and no guaranty that it would have been successful in the future), but now that the merger is behind us, I think we all can see that they'll get it all back (still, I keep saying it, making John & Ed animation heads was a bad decision).

- The conclusion how "Ratatouille" will do internationally is still far into the future. In many countries the movie doesn't open till the end of the year. Not a very good strategy against illegal copies.

- Viane sounds like a Disney executive with an agenda. A promotion agenda.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 14:42:43 GMT

(Oh, and when I opened my mailbox and saw "When Harry meets Remy [my name]?", I was like, what?! Who the bliep is Harry? How do I know that guy...?! :P)

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:07:29 GMT

Excuse me Jim, but Potter 5 is going to skew older than the children who want to see the RAT. I saw one boy, maybe 3 years old, screaming RATATOUILLE as he approached the theater this past weekend...obviously kids don't have any trouble pronouncing the word, but some critics do? Potter is evolving and as the actors/characters grow older the primary audience for it are the ones who grew up along with them, or adults.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:49:30 GMT

This article proves that Disney paid too LITTLE for Pixar.

No matter how much their detractors wish for them to stumble, Emeryville keeps churning out hits, leaving little room for criticism except theoretical allegations of "negative trends". You gotta love it.

The guys who sold Pixar should have held out for an extra billion and dropped their proverbial handkerchief in Universal's direction. Imagine if Universal could have filled their theme parks with attractions based on Pixar characters? Oh, the possibilities...

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:52:04 GMT

"- Disney may have overpaid for Pixar (in short term, I mean, seriously; it was a small animation studio with a limited amount of success and no guaranty that it would have been successful in the future), but now that the merger is behind us, I think we all can see that they'll get it all back (still, I keep saying it, making John & Ed animation heads was a bad decision)."

If you put Disney and Pixar head-to-head and compared just the movies they were releasing, Pixar would be a giant heel crushing Disney into the ground. And Disney would sink even further into the muck by trying to boost their balance sheets by releasing truly awful videos that degrade whatever value they once might have had.

Thank you, John and Ed, for stopping that decline, and for trying to restore some sense and dignity to the House of Mouse.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:57:14 GMT

Oh, and by movies I meant animated, but then I'm sure you all knew that anyway.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 18:09:04 GMT

RudyV said:

"If you put Disney and Pixar head-to-head and compared just the movies they were releasing, Pixar would be a giant heel crushing Disney into the ground. And Disney would sink even further into the muck by trying to boost their balance sheets by releasing truly awful videos that degrade whatever value they once might have had.

Thank you, John and Ed, for stopping that decline, and for trying to restore some sense and dignity to the House of Mouse."

I'm sorry, but uhm. "If you put Disney and Pixar head-to-head [..], Pixar would be a giant heel crushing Disney"?! Disney has put out far more movies and if you count all the success of Disney (critical and commercially), it would most definitely be more than Pixar has now. You can't just put them head-to-head, just because of what I just said (Disney more, etc.), and they don't always appeal to the same target groups. You can't just compare "Meet the Robinsons" (Disney animation on crack) to "Ratatouille" for example, because "Rat" has an obviously older audience, was released in a different period (if you would compare them, then yes, Pixar kicked Disney behind opening to a lot more competition).

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:21:31 GMT

"when it's so obvious that it's the BEST film this summer is going to produce"

I disagree that it's "jumping the gun" to say that. Reviews are at 96% for this movie at rotten tomatoes, and many absolute raves, a level very few movies get. I'd be shocked if another mainstream movie this year is recieved as well. Potter is getting decent reviews, but not quite as good as earlier movies in the series (not completely surprising considering many fans consider it the weakest book, although it sounds like the movie is an improvement).

Sure, there will be other movies that will make more money this year. But I'd be pleasantly shocked if we saw another movie this summer (or even this year) that was generally considered to be better.

Is it too early to predict Ratatouille for the animation Oscar?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:36:25 GMT

As the saying goes, a high tide lifts all boats. The best thing for Disney would be for Harry to have an amazingly huge opening weekend. While many movie goers will reserve their tickets on line, many will still show up at the multiplexes right before the showtime they would like to catch. If it's sold out, what do you do with the family? Get tickets for the next show that still has seats? Or, do you catch another flick instead? I think, if Ratatouille has a show starting within a half-hour of the start of a Potter showing, Disney could benefit very nicely from this spillover audience.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:13:24 GMT

"Actually, cbarry123, last weekend I gave my children, aged 12 and 8..."

Still 12 and 8 are different than 8 and 5. I say again, anyone with a child under 10 that goes to the movies in the next few weeks will go to Ratatouille. You can't even mention the Simpsons. Noone with a 10 year old and younger is taking kids that age to The Simpsons. Simply put, Ratatouille is THE Summer 2007 kids movie. Not a bad thing to claim.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:24:30 GMT

I'm 19 now, and I've been watching The Simpsons since I was four.

My Dad and I watched it together all the time, and still do when I'm around.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:11:22 GMT

Jim,

I have two criticisms that don't relate to your relentless Pixar-bashing (which is, indeed, getting very tired). I'd love it if you would run your articles through a spell-check ahead of printing them and – even more importantly – realize that it is not necessary to constantly repeat the director or producer's name in reference to a film. In magazine and newspaper writing, you will see this happen one time but not OVER AND OVER again. This article had, I believe, four references to "this Brad Bird film" in a few hundred words. This isn't typical style and it isn't good style – it is quite annoying to read, in fact. I enjoy the content on the site but this quirk of your writing style really gets on the nerves.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 03:43:54 GMT

So far this summer I have seen ...

Spiderman 3

Pirates Of The Caribbean 3

Evan Almighty

Die Hard 4

Fantastic Four

Ratatouille

Sicko

Knocked Up

and Transformers ...

So far ... the only movies I have seen twice are Transformers and Ratatouille.

I suspect I will see Potter ....in fact I am debating going right now for the midnight showing in 30 minutes.... But I doubt I will see Potter twice.

What does this mean? It means that Transformers and Ratatouille will rule the box office this summer... along with Potter. Everyone is going to see Potter at least once. Transformers ... if you liked it once ... I am willing to be that you want to see it again. (the mark of a true "blockbuster") ... and Ratatouille is all by itself again as a Pixar masterpiece.

BUT ..... All of you people who insist that KIDS will flock to Ratatouille and that it is the kid’s movie of the year..... I don't know if ya'll have in fact seen it... because in both of the showings I saw.... kids were bored... restless ... and silent.... not that they didn't like it ... but I would say that Rat is an adult film... more like a movie an adult would take their parents to see.... or even a "date" movie for some.

And those who think that Transformers is some kind of dark sci-fi flick obviously haven’t seen that one... because it's very much a "kids" movie as well. More than the trailers let on.... trust me. Transformers could very well be the "kids" movie of the summer. I was 7 when I saw Star Wars for the first time ... around the same time I loved "Petes Dragon".

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:04:29 GMT

Hey "Sheylon" why don't you loosen up your sphincter...you don't like Jim picking on your precious little Pixar...but, now, you have to critique his writing style?! Go back to grading papers, while those of us who live in the creative world, will continue to tick you off by not conforming to your rules...(mispelled (sp) just to piss you off)! Wow, what a tool. I have origininal copies of many Pixar scripts...lots of typos, misspelled words, etc. ...you'd throw-up if you read ten pages...so, lay off Jim, he represents a lot more of "us", than he does you. Now, in keeping with your back-handed compliment...I enjoy your "style" ...but your "content" really gets on my nerves.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:23:30 GMT

@gigglesock

You are not alone. I, too like Chicken Little. It's not great or anything and has many flaws, but it is still fun. I watch it regularly.

@empoor

You crack me up, guy. I will never understand why you hate Pixar and John Lasseter so much.

"limited amount of success"

Hilarious.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 13:06:23 GMT

Speaking of the Oscars minderbinder, I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday. The competition is very weak this year for Best Animated Film. Here are the eligible films that I am aware of, though I may be missing some and I may be including some that aren't actually eligible: Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Bee Movie, Beowulf, Meet the Robinsons, Naruto The Movie, Paprika, Ratatouille, Shrek the Third, Simpsons Movie, Surf's Up, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

In my opinion Ratatouille is the best of this list. Since 3 of these movies have not yet been released I simply have to base off rumor and buzz, but I think that Ratatouille will win the Oscar hands down. I'm actually more curious to see if Meet the Robinsons will end up getting a nomination. Based on available tomatometer ratings it is the 4th best film out there behind Ratatouille, Surf's Up, and Paprika, but I don't see the Academy giving a nod to Paprika. In my biased opinion I also think that MtR is better than Surf's Up.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 13:52:34 GMT

@rhindle:

I admit having something against Lasseter (I don't hate him, hating someone is a big deal in my mind). I've got my reasons, other people will think differently, I understand.

But what I don't agree with is that I hate Pixar. There hasn't been a Pixar movie that I haven't loved, even "Cars", which wasn't very strong overall but still great. I agree with all of you saying that Pixar has created better material in the couple of past years, BUT what I totally disagree with is that Pixar is this kind of "magical, holy, untouchable hit machine". Sure, they yet to have a box office or critical flop, but trust me, that day will come. And even though they have a clean reputation of successes now, people need to understand that the studio has only released EIGHT movies. EIGHT. When they have released 46 (Disney) animated movies, every single one of them hits (critical and commercially), you can get back to me and say "Told ya so", but for now I will say that eight is far too little to make such a big deal about Pixar.

([sarcasm]DreamWorks/PDI Animation has released 13 (DW/PDI only) movies, and non was a big-big commercial and critical flop. Wow, I should worship them :O [/sarcasm])

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:13:18 GMT

"DreamWorks/PDI Animation has released 13 (DW/PDI only) movies, and non was a big-big commercial and critical flop."

I know you're joking around, but that statement isn't even true. They have had a number of big flops. Based on the numbers from box office mojo, I count four losing money out of the eleven they made themselves, or five out of 14 if you include the Aardman stuff.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=dwanimation.htm

The fact is, nobody else has had a streak like Pixar. Most studios would kill to have movies that are as well reviewed and profitable as even Pixar's worst. Disney has made 46 movies, have they had eight in a row as successful as the Pixar flicks? Have they had eight overall that have done that well?

So far, they are an untouchable hit machine. Sure, in the future they may have one that has bad reviews and/or loses money, but so far they have a record that I doubt any other studio can touch much less come anywhere close.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:31:01 GMT

Small note about the DW thing. I was joking around with that comment, yes, but if you look at my exact statement I wasn't wrong (coincidentally). I said, "BIG-BIG commercial AND critical flop".

Sure, "Sinbad" was a box office flop, but it has a RT rating of 47%. Low, but not super low. (Weird, because the movie really stinks.) On the other side, "Shrek 3" has a RT rating of 42%, but is a box office hit. (Which really reflects the current 'popular' atitude of moviegoers.)

minderbinder said:

"Disney has made 46 movies, have they had eight in a row as successful as the Pixar flicks?"

Well, from "The Little Mermaid" to "Tarzan" I count ten movies. Inflation correct those box office figures, and I guess they do :)

(Oh, and totally unrelated, looking at the all time highest worldwide gross tables makes me want to jump in the air; "At World's End" at number 5!!)

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:38:56 GMT

"And I don't judge a movies success based upon how well it does in a single year. Making the top 5 of X? "

I just picked that because it's a simple way to make comparisons that takes inflation out of the equation. Do you honestly think being #4 for the year isn't a bigger achievement than being #17 in a year (even for two different years)? And while every year is different, has there been a year when Pixar placed high because no movies did well? No.

There are a million different ways to look at the numbers. And Pixar comes out on top regardless of how you compare. To say otherwise is to make weak excuses.

"They make wonderful movies, and (currently) make stronger and better movies than the original top-gun (Disney)."

Glad you're willing to admit that. I just don't get why, while saying that, you still spin their amazing success as "limited success". Or continuing to insist that Disney (or any other studio) has been as consistently successful as Pixar. Their success isn't remotely approached by anyone. And of course in the future they may have bad reviews or lose money on movies. But I don't see the point in focusing on the negative like that beyond petty fanboyism. When a team wins year after year, why whine about how someday they'll stop winning? We'll talk about that if or when it happnens, for now when someone makes a spectacular accomplishment, you should have respect for that instead of daydreaming about hypothetical future failures.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:55:36 GMT

No, I don't think being #4 or #2 or ... is such a big achievement. As can be traced back from my comment about "At World's End", I think being #... on an all time list is an achievement. But #4 in a year doesn't say anything.

Amazing? Of course, but (and I hate repeating myself, but hey) just nine movies isn't (in my mind) a good indication of future success. And I didn't insist that Disney (or any other studio) has had consistent success as Disney?! I mean, Disney + consistent success?!?! Uhm, "Home on the Range", "Meet the Robinsons", "The Black Cauldron" (sorry, blackcauldron85 :P), "Chicken Little", ".."?! And while we're at it, I guess Jerry Bruckheimer Films has had (almost) consistent success. Does that make me worship Jerry? Hell no.

You don't understand what I'm trying to say. (Maybe my own fault, can be.) Pixar has had a wonderful series of successes. Fact. They're (at this very moment) one of the best animation (and the best computer-animation) studios out there. Fact. But what I take issue with is the fact that one somebody criticizes Pixar, there is this endless group of (disillusion-al) fanboys, who think Pixar can't do anything wrong, nobody is allowed to even think bad about Pixar, nobody should dare to question Pixar's success, that when somebody tries to look at it all from a (somewhat) realistic point of view he needs to be hunted down (Jim looks at Pixar movies with a straight-forward realistic point of view, even though it isn't always that objective), etc, etc. I take issue with the fact Pixar has become this Second House of God, this Animation Vatican that nobody can criticize. "Because when holy Pixar does, creates, says, .. something, it is always good, end of story."

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:26:14 GMT

I don't really know what to say to that. If you don't see being #2 for the year as a big achievement, you're not going to see anything as a big achievement. You have zero perspective.

I completely understand what you're saying, but I just think you're arguing with a strawman and being negative for the sake of being negative.

"But what I take issue with is the fact that one somebody criticizes Pixar, there is this endless group of (disillusion-al) fanboys, who think Pixar can't do anything wrong, nobody is allowed to even think bad about Pixar, nobody should dare to question Pixar's success, that when somebody tries to look at it all from a (somewhat) realistic point of view he needs to be hunted down"

Just read what you just said. "nobody should dare to question Pixar's successes". If something is a success, why are you questioning it? A success is something that by definition something that succeeded. Your statement is a complete strawman argument (which post exactly said that Pixar can do no wrong and will never make a bad movie??). For the most part, nobody here is insisting that Pixar should never be criticized, that they shouldn't be criticized when they screw up. The vast majority of complaining about the bashers is that they criticize things that do well. We're not talking about bad movies irrationally defended. We're talking about excellent movies, some of the best animated features ever made, irrationally bashed. I disagree that Jim looks at pixar with a realistic point of view, he looks at them with a generally negative and unrealistic point of view.

It would be silly to say that Pixar can do no wrong. But I hope you would admit that so far, Pixar has done very little wrong. So far, everything they have created HAS been good. Looking ahead to the future is all speculation. But future performance usually is indicated, at least to some degree by past performance. Of course they will fail eventually, everyone does. But only a fool would assume that their future holds more failure than success, and only someone wearing crap coloured glasses would focus on hypothetical future failures just days after the release of the best reviewed wide release of the year. The only delusion I see here is looking at an unequalled string of successes and shrugging it off as "no big deal".

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:28:42 GMT

Empoor

Yeah Hunchback is one of my favorites also and to see that it did $250 million outside the US shows many others thought so too.

I do think Pixar's track record will end sometime, but mainly just at the box office. I thought possibly with Ratatouille due to marketing difficulties, and I have the same fear with Wall-E. I don't think they'll ever go too far down in quality as long as they keep there core of talented people.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:57:22 GMT

@minderbinder:

I guess I haven't really expressed what I feel very thoroughly (based upon your reaction), sorry.

Example with the whole achievements thing (all fictional movies).

- Year 1 (total of 10 movies; very very small country :P) -

1. "The Vision" (Studio A) - $ 20 M.

2. "Dotted Sky" (Studio B) - $ 19.3 M.

3. "Energy of Love" (Studio B) - $ 16.3 M.

4. "Aliens 8" (Studio D) - $ 15.6 M.

5. "Changing Lanes" (Studio C) - $ 12.4 M

- Year 2 (total of 20 movies) -

1. Port (Studio D) - $ 10.2 M.

2. Personal Stuff (Studio C) - $ 9.8 M.

3. Companion of Hell (Studio A) - $ 8.1 M.

4. Rough Stuff With Fire (Studio E) - $ 7 M.

5. Luck Is My Own (Studio B) - $ 6.2 M.

So, Studio D was fifth in year 1, but first in year 2. In year 2 they had a true achievement, right? Well, not exactly, because rankings don't say anything about the true achievements. Their movie that was #1 in year 2 actually made less then their #5 movie in year 1. (Whow, this example is such a stretch, but what do you expect from me on a work day at 12:45 a.m.)

Not going to expand that example, couldn't get it out of me. Just forget it. So, why shouldn't you question a success? Uhm, because there is something like different definitions of success, different opinions about a movie and its quality, etc. Just because somebody think "Movie A" is the best ever made doesn't mean everybody thinks that and that they aren't allowed to ask, "why is this movie successful? it sucks!"

I agree with you that Pixar has done little (without the very) wrong so far. "Cars" could have been better, "The Incredibles" (it's a wonderful film, not saying that) could have been a little more.. 'originally heartfelt' marks the spot, I guess. It was kinda corny. But so far Pixar has done perfectly.

And uhm.. "future performance usually is indicated, at least to some degree by past performance".. What?! Past results make no guarantee for future performances. Different circumstances, different people, different story, different interpretations, different angles, etc.

@Mickey Hal:

What (I think) is one of the best things of "Hunchback" is that its a very compact story, without too much side stories. Makes the actual story so much stronger. Musical score is also fabulous, although I thought it wasn't all that original, because I heard elements of the scores of "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast" in it. Which isn't all that surprising if you look at the credits (dah), but still.

I hope "Wall-E" doesn't fail, it has one of the most original animated stories ever (if you look at the approach of it all). But making people care about the movie will be a marketing struggle. They should make a hype around the movie, and if they don't know how, just ask Jobs. I don't have the same hope for "Up". Well, I'm not hoping the movie will fail, but I just don't care that much about it. The story seems lame and too much "Karate Kid"-like. But we'll see.

(Oh, and can we please stop talking about "unequalled string of successes". We all know there are studios/production companies out there that have had a string of more than nine critical/commercial successes. And I'm not only talking about studios/pr.comp. in the present day.)

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:13:24 GMT

(Correction:

4. "Aliens 8" (Studio C) - $ 15.6 M.

5. "Changing Lanes" (Studio D) - $ 12.4 M.)

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:11:36 GMT

OK, credit where credit is due. Jim does sorta-kinda admit he was wrong in this article. So good on him. Of course, he then turns around and continues to think negatively, and spin the numbers the way he wants while ignoring key facts (like Ratatouille's amazingly good non-weekend box office that will keep the movie going through the summer)...but hey, it's progress.

Empoor, while I agree there's a knee-jerk pro-Pixar reaction around here (and lots of other places), you have to understand that there's a power struggle going on at Disney right now that may very well start to affect the quality of Pixar movies. Since I love Pixar and want to see more "Ratatouilles" rather than letting the folks who made "Chicken Little" and killed off 2-D animation have the final say over what Pixar makes, I tend to feel that Jim's articles are more that just a little annoying. They skirt the edges of old guard propaganda.

As for Harry Potter, I think Jim's right that there must be SOME cross-over between the HP and Ratatouille audiences. But K-Man made a very pertinent point: it's likely that it will *help* Ratatouille to have another big movie in theaters right now. Of course Harry will beat Ratatouille at the box office, I mean, duh. That's what happens to movies that have been out for a week when another big movie opens. But whenever there's a big draw at the theater it usually keeps the box office for the other films fairly steady. See 1999: that was the year everyone was fleeing "The Phantom Menace", but it ended up being one of the most profitable summers ever. That's because people who couldn't get in to "TPM" saw something else instead. Plus the hype tended to draw more attention to all the different movies that were playing. So there's every reason to think that Ratatouille will continue to hold strong.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:55:38 GMT

empoor - From your comments in previous threads, I know (and understand because I somewhat agree) that you don't like that Lasseter and company have pushed away some great Disney talent like Chris Sanders. But I wonder if you would have preferred Disney stay the course they were on (i.e.., letting the marketers and business executives control the creative side) or take what's happening now and go through growing pains but hopefully improving the overall quality of the brand in the long run (i.e., letting Lasseter and co. be in charge, sort through the carnage, unfortunately lose a few good people, but ultimately have the creatives be in charge)?

Also, I know I come off as a "Pixar fanboy," but I am really just a Disney fan. In fact, I started liking Pixar a lot more when I discovered they made their movies using the techniques Walt Disney himself made and taught future animators. When I defend Pixar's principles as fiercely as I do, it's not because I have anything against Disney. Quite the opposite. It's because I think Pixar has been holding Disney's torch all this time and is just trying to get it back to where it rightfully belongs.

It was actually Roy Disney's SaveDisney.com campaign that showed me Pixar was doing it the way Walt envisioned, and by hoping against all hope that the corporate side of Disney doesn't overrun Pixar, what I really want is that Disney gets back to its roots of making the best family movies out there. Couldn't care less if the name "Pixar" eventually goes away if Lasseter and company succeed in turning Disney into a company that cares about making good stories first before bowing to the almighty dollar.

And this is why I get really annoyed when I hear all this negativity about quality films like Ratatouille coming from the "numbers" point of view. It's NOT about numbers. But if the numbers are what's going to get the suits back in charge at Disney, then by all means we need to pull for every movie Disney and Pixar make from here on out to succeed so the numbers people can stay far away from the creative side.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:11:06 GMT

Prankster wrote: "Since I love Pixar and want to see more "Ratatouilles" rather than letting the folks who made "Chicken Little" and killed off 2-D animation have the final say over what Pixar makes, I tend to feel that Jim's articles are more that just a little annoying. They skirt the edges of old guard propaganda."

So, what are these "folks" gonna do, greenlite movies from the unemployment line? Do you have a clue as to what's going on in this business? Lassester, Catmull and company, fired, shut down and cleaned out anything and everything related to the "old guard". Unless these guys are actually getting their orders from this website, I think you may just be a tad paranoid...or more on point, looking for a way to bash Jim through the side door. Hilarious... Cheers! And keep on enjoying these great Pixar films!

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:10:07 GMT

By the way - one of the best pieces I have ever read on this subject:

http://blueskydisney.blogspot.com/2007/07/success-of-failure.html

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:19:31 GMT

"Lasseter, Catmull and company, fired, shut down and cleaned out anything and everything related

to the" old guard" "

Aparrently they didn't get everybody.

Disney execs on the unemployment line? Sounds good to me.

I have never been the type that goes around hoping that successful people fail, so I'm a little dimayed by the people that have expressed their desire to see Pixar get their comeuppance. What do you want? You WANT to see animated films micromanged by people who have never worked with the medium? People with zero drawing skills that take their cues from the current fads or focus groupthink? The Pixar writers/ designers/ annd aimators have proven that they know how to get the job done without them.

Worried about the numbers? Want to know why animated films are so expensive? It's those useless executive salaries. Start lopping off heads THERE and ALL the animated films will turn a profit.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:50:07 GMT

BrerArtist said:

"Worried about the numbers? Want to know why animated films are so expensive? It's those useless executive salaries. Start lopping off heads THERE and ALL the animated films will turn a profit."

That is kinda a contradiction with what you said before that. They are expensive because of the useless EXECUTIVE salaries? So why did "Monsters, Inc." cost $115 Million to make if Pixar has "writers/designers and animators" and not "micromanaging executives"? Your explanation of why animated movies are so expensive isn't creating fire.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:22:28 GMT

Granted, all that texture rendering comes at a cost. Monsters Inc. created a lot of new software just to create realistic fur. (Compare with ICE AGE if you can't see the difference) since the final film was visually satisfying as well as damned entertaining, I'd say it was 115 mil well spent.

Also, I'm sure that some of that number includes a few suits' "expenses".

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:33:34 GMT

@LiverGap:

Well, actually, I always have thought that Disney (I mean the animation department) was already in a changing phase before the Pixar merger. Movies like "American Dog" and "Rapunzel" (and in lesser form "Meet the Robinsons") were to me the beginning of a new era. Back to quality, originality and less popular stuff. We will never know how that would have turned out without John & Ed, but I think the whole quality issue at Disney would have resolved itself without "external powers" (as in Pixar).

Of course, John & Ed have build a great "society" at Pixar, with some great talents and a strict focus on quality. But Pixar isn't Disney, and Disney isn't Pixar. And they're trying to Pixarize "Walt Disney Animation Studios" (hate, hate, hate that name). I understand why, Pixar is their example of how things should run properly, but what works for Pixar doesn't automatically work for Disney (even if Pixar has a lot of Walt Disney-elements, the current Disney isn't Walt's original company). The corporate culture is totally different (bigger, larger, more professional and complex). I just think they could have done the whole "renovation" of Disney Animation in a better way, and, taking it to the most extreme of my opinions, think they shouldn't have been the ones behind the renovation, because as 'competitors' to Disney Animation there is no way they can be 100% focused on Disney and be 100% objective towards Disney (Lasseter the most, because of own history with the company). Just my two cents. Still, I admit is it good change is being put through the company.

@BrerArtist:

Yes, it did. "Monsters, Inc." is still more visually stunning than 80% of the current non-DisPix movies that are being released. I loved "Ice Age", but it looked like something that was made in 1982 (on old MS DOS machines).

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:25:35 GMT

I think Pixar understands that Disney isn't Pixar, but Disney hasn't been Disney for some time. The problem was they didn't know WHO they were. Eisner kept looking over his shoulder to see what Dreamworks was doing, and if he had his way, Repunzel would be just another Shrek clone. He never understood the popularity of Mickey Mouse and he oversaturated the market with Winnie the Pooh. Plus, he fired all the 2-D animators and made plans to make feature films in India.

You don't like the name Walt Disney Animation Studio-why? True it may be a little redundant, in my heart of hearts, Walt Disney=animation, so the distinction is unnecessary. But animation has grown beyond just feature films, maybe they'll start looking at the animators as a valuable resource that can lend their talents to shorts, featurettes, television specials, educational videos etc. instead of just automatically sending these jobs to outside sources.

As for Pixar trying to remake Disney in their own image.True, Pixar has its own point of veiw, but they also understand what makes Disney Disney. I think they are going to go out of their way to create two seperate and distinct entities rather than blend them both into two identical studios.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:48:46 GMT

I think they're not intently trying to Pixarize Disney, but it will happen. John & Ed use Pixar as example of how things work smoothly (and it's a good example, per definition), but I think that just doesn't work on all studios. Pixar has something special that connects all dots, and Disney has lost track in the past but has different dots, different connections and has a different "something special" (or had).

"Disney hasn't been Disney for some time". True, but Disney will never be the old Disney again. I've giving up all hope of that, it just isn't possible. But they can be a modern, different Disney, based upon the same principles of creativity, quality and entertainment. The same they'll never be again.

Hmmm, "Walt Disney Animation Studios" just doesn't get my attention. Maybe I have been too familiar with "Walt Disney Feature Animation" for too long, but to me that name reflects more elegance. Just a feeling. And also, don't like it when every time a new management enters, the name of a company (or division) has to change. (And it is too similar to "Pixar Animation Studios", I guess.)

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:13:43 GMT

BrerArtist ....re: my post..."Lasseter, Catmull and company, fired, shut down and cleaned out anything and everything related to the "old guard" "

You wrote..."Aparrently they didn't get everybody."

Yes, that's right...you found me out. I'm holed-up in the tip of Mickey's Hat...I scamper down late at night, leave nasty little anti-Pixar Post-Its......then rearrange things on Catmull's desk, just to piss him off. Seriously, not sure what you're reading in to my posts, but I'm a huge fan of Pixar and their films..would be surprised and disappointed if they lost any traction...I just don't take the whole thing quite as seriously as most of you, who get all lathered-up over Jim's articles...he actually knows more than most give him credit for. Lets face it, it's an internet site about Disney... fun, non life threating, family entertainment ...you want to read crazy ramblings go over to IMDB message boards...your head will explode. But, I do admit I get a kick out of some of the knee-jerk reactions to Jim...reminds me of a room full of republicans, when you mention the name Bill Clinton...no middle ground, here. Cheers!

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:15:07 GMT

Harry made 44 million its opening day, including 12 million from midnite tuesday. That's a wednesday record, and top five opening days.

The other numbers from yesterday are yet to be announced. I'm very curious how Ratatouille did.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:21:50 GMT

And minutes later, the other numbers are available.

Ratatouille made 3.9 million, a drop of 5.6% from the previous day. That's a damn good hold on the same day another kids movie set an opening day record.

Do people still seriously think that Ratatouille will fall off a cliff just because Potter is showing down the hall?

Heck, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned when Monsters Inc was out and they made a custom trailer that even mentioned Harry Potter and joked about being out at the same time. Neither of those films really suffered from overlapping release, did they?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:36:08 GMT

Minderbinder: where do you get these numbers? I've been trying to find a reliable (and quick source) for boxoffice results, but I can only find boxofficemojo and boxofficeguru - any suggestions?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:36:26 GMT

Without Pixar's influence Disney would've flushed itself right down the loo. Just look at their output over the last decade--steaming piles of dreck-to-video that are only hurting their image (tho it's hugely profitable!), animated features of continually declining quality, and a few hits that were dismissed during development as mistakes ("Emperor's New Groove" and "Pirates") or back-burner projects ("Lilo & Stitch"). Yet when they proved to be hits after all, the properties were then significantly diminished by the desperate need to squeeze even more cash out of them.

I loved Disney films and the theme parks with boundless joy...up until ten years ago. Since then, both have gone considerably downhill. The insatiable need to link every ride at the parks to a character--any character!--is ruining the place, yet nobody seemed to think at the time that attractions which lasted more than 40 years without any sort of character tie-in, thank you very much, might actually be diminished by hanging an faddish albatross around their neck.

Please, Mister Iger, give us back the Disney we once loved. But if you can't do it, then maybe Mister Lasseter can.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:43:54 GMT

I got the full numbers from boxofficemojo, it's the most detailed site I know of and seems widely trusted. The 44 million number was reported pretty widely in a number of sources earlier today (such as variety, etc). They don't have the wednesday numbers linked from the front page yet, but they are up (or at least the ones we care about).

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/?sortdate=2007-07-11&p=.htm

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 19:08:59 GMT

Ah, thanks minderbinder, I thought it was pretty late in the day for not having the numbers up yet. Never thought to check that.

empoor - Okay, I guess we are all in agreement that this direction is much better than the one Disney was going in before.

I guess where we differ the most is you think John and Ed are trying to "Pixarize" Disney, whereas I believe John and Ed "Disneyfied" Pixar in the first place and are just trying to "Re-Disneyfy" the animation studios.

As for John not being able to give 100% to Disney, I have to disagree. Remember that Pixar is already part of Disney - and if Disney suffers, Pixar suffers. If Lasseter lets Disney produce movies that bombed at the box office and lost the company money, that means less money for Pixar as well. It's in his best interest to have ALL of Disney do well.

In fact, I'd have to think Pixar is missing out on Lasseter and Catmull more since they used to have them 100% full time before the merger and now they don't.

As for the corporate culture, I don't think that is on Lasseter and Catmull - that is all on Iger, who I attribute most of Disney's success now. The guy is sharp, he knows who the best people are to put in charge, he knows how to empower people (not just in WD animation but the rest of the company as well), and he is not a glory hound. If he didn't like the Pixar folk shooing away all the suits from the creatives, he could have stepped in stopped it. Heck, if he didn't want to give Pixar the power they have w/in the company now, he wouldn't have made the deal. But I admire that Iger is willing to take the risks needed to move the company forward.

And yes, WDAS will find their own culture eventually. I think they're already moving in that direction. Frog Princess and Rapunzel are definitely not Pixar flicks and both look like they have potential to be instant classics.

It's an exciting time. I wouldn't worry about Pixar vs WDAS now; don't pay attention to the numbers or the debbie downers. It's all in good hands.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 19:33:27 GMT

I had read some where that with marketing and production ratatouille came to be around the 200 mil mark. So they're going to want to make more then that to turn a profit. Plus all the extra over head costs of distribution. Icky icky icky.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 19:40:21 GMT

But the comparison of this movie to Pixar's highest grossest films are unjust, imo. It would be like expecting every Amblim Entertainment involved project to be a uber box office block buster.

Though I will say that Nemo's huge success was probably a stroke of luck.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 20:01:35 GMT

CB, if you include costs of distribution and marketing, most similar movies cost even more than that. Shrek 3 cost 160M just for production. Generally if a movie can make it's production budget back domestically, it is considered profitable for that studio.

What was your source on that number? Even including marketing, that seems high (especially since advertising is way lighter than most movies).

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 01:10:29 GMT

Okay, as of today, it is estimated that $121,674,427 has been raked in over Ratatouille, Brad Bird's brilliant film. Considering you were acting that it wouldn't even TOUCH Cars... over 139 million including foreign.

that is GOING UP against Transformers AND the great Harry Potter. I hate to break it to you Jim, but I really feel you're coming down hard on Pixar here. Before I tried to see that you're looking at this realistically, you know, business wise, the movie didn't start off great, but now with this article, it feels you have a want to Pixar to fail.

Iger and the new crew at Pixar are running Disney wonderfully. I want Disney to be what it once was, not what it was in the late 90's, early 2000's. Not many films withstand the onslaught of summer features. Hell, people thought Die Hard would crush Ratatouille due to an already built in audience from previous films, or would actually fail all together. But look at it, Ratouille beats it every damned day according to box office mojo. For a film that is supposedly horrible and the bane of Pixar by Disney's standards, I don't remember a Disney film honestly doing this well repeatedly in a high flux of films in a very crowded summer season that was not doing numbers like "Nemo" or "Incredibles".

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 03:56:44 GMT

I come to your site, not to read the articles but to scope out information, and do a little digging myself. I am an animation student, with my heart set on Pixar and every time you bash them... it gets more and more old.

Sure, perhaps John and Ed aren't bureaucratic enough to make people happy, but they are CHANGING how the company works. While money crunching is important, ingenuity in what is ultimately an art form is more important. And that's where Ratatouille makes its stand. Here's a movie that A) doesn't have a damsel in distress, B) doesn't have the characters singing, or C) making fun of the first two options which is seriously getting old. It uses an interesting storyline with some fun and engaging characters and the design and style is magnificent.

I am surrounded by people inside of the industry and yes, some were wary of the rat, thinking this would be the weakest Pixar movie, but they were proved wrong. Word of mouth is changing the view on this story and more people are going to see it when before they had already made up their minds not to. Pixar is dedicated to releasing quality movies and engaging and new ideas. Maybe sometimes the storyline doesn't mesh exactly, but hey, look what they're up against.

Please, compare Pixar movies to the other animated movies available and none of them compare. Sure, Shrek does well while in theatres, but the jokes they make are now so stale that i don't understand their reasoning behind creating a fourth (well, i do; money. Sadly, quality has gone out of the window and the colours are terribly desaturated and the people... shudder. Pixar is the only studio who can create humans that do not frighten me).

All I can say is that I am an animation intern and i dont make very much money... but i see every movie i wanted to see. Which included harry potter, transformers AND Ratatouille.

Wow... I typed a lot.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 05:20:39 GMT

Kadianimate...If you want a Pixar Party, start you own site...because, as you will soon learn, there is a great big world out there and not all will feed you the "happy thoughts" you so desire. There are a lot more creative people working in your business, besides those at Pixar (a great company), who deserve an open mind...Good luck to you...but, you will be better served...and have a longer and more rewarding career, if you recoginize the great talent that makes up the film/animation industry. Everyone has the right to an opinion...and if you discount those who don't jump on your band wagon, you will be settting yourself up for a lot of disapointment. Cheers.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:57:12 GMT

"Kadianimate...If you want a Pixar Party, start you own site..."

Straw man. Nobody is asking for mindless sunshine. Just a realistic take instead of the incessant bashing. The only "band wagon" here is putting negative spin on movies that have done very well. Sure, everyone has a right to an opinion, but when an opinion is as wrong as the negative spin about Ratatouille has been, it certainly should discounted. Looking at your posts, you certainly come off as someone with an axe to grind and nothing useful to say.

Jim said Ratatouille would tank when Transformers came out. He was wrong. He said it would tank when Potter came out. It's still very early, but preliminary numbers look like he's wrong about that as well.

Bobby, when things this wrong get posted, you don't think people should speak up and disagree? Are you really living in such a fantasy world?

This movie is on a pace to easily beat every other non-Pixar, non-Shrek CGI animated movie. And you think that those thinking that's a bad thing are the ones with an open mind?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 13:57:30 GMT

Is it me, or am I seeing rumors about "Cars 2"?!

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 14:15:54 GMT

empoor, it's not just you.

http://www.cinematical.com/2007/07/12/pixar-developing-cars-2-source-says/

I personally am hoping this is nothing but a nasty rumor. I'm already iffy on Toy Story 3, but hey, Disney was gonna do it before the Pixar buyout so at least we know that this one will be done by Pixar. But Cars 2? As much as I liked that movie, that just doesn't seem at all like the one to make a sequel to (I'm thinking Incredibles is the one that makes the most sense), and it definitely sounds like a move to sell more Cars merchandise (a la Transformers). I don't like it.

Still, if it does turn out to be true, I at least have confidence that Pixar isn't going to just release Cars 2 without some semblance of a story. This is Lasseter's baby so I'm guessing he will be picky about what goes out there.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 14:40:55 GMT

If "Cars 2" is true, it would be a very weird development. I always like the ground-rule of "no sequels", even though I would have loved seeing more of "Monster, Inc.", "Nemo", etc., I don't think they would justify the original much. I even had that with "Toy Story 2". It was better than the original, it was better than almost every computer animated movie ever, but really necessary, no. The original already was a classic.

I hope all rumors about "Cars 2", "The Incredibles 2", "XXX 2" are false. And if they are true, let's hope they will not just put "2" behind the movies (and that "Cars 2" will have a more sophisticated and original script than the original).

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:08:01 GMT

...Um, booby, I DO recognize the talent that makes up the rest of the animation/film industry. Hiyau Miyazaki makes amazing movies, as does the company who will be releasing Nocturna and Satoshi Kon's mind-bending takes on reality is always worth watching. What I am merely saying is that what company exactly should we be jumping on their "band wagon" for?

Disney is trying to make a comeback and I hope that their movies over the next four years will ultimately bring back those who are waiting for them to be a driving force in the animation industry once more.

I know I am not the only one who goes to movies and expects to see quality films. And I also want to see companies continue to do well, and not "fail" so "they can learn some humility"...

I just want to see a good movie. I don't want them to fail because that means less great movies to watch.

Perhaps this is a naive way of viewing the world, but this is an industry that was created to bring joy to people, young and old alike.

Pixar is not the end all of end alls, but it is a company that I have wanted to work for since I was eight years old. So I have a dream. Not a "band wagon" by any means, since as minder said, the most prevalent "band wagon" is Pixar bashing.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:08:53 GMT

sorry... i misspelled bobby. Honest mistake.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:47:13 GMT

Why make a Cars 2?

Jeez, The Incredibles (the best Pixar flick, IMHO) has built in sequel potential.

I mean, if they were able to get Bird to make it, why not?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:57:32 GMT

Thursday numbers are in. Rat dropped 15% from Wednesday, from $3.9 million to $3.3 million.

If it can withstand a huge 50% drop this weekend (which will be tough to do with Transformers and Harry Potter now), it will cross $140 million this weekend. I must say I was expecting it to struggle just to get to $150 million but obviously this will not be a problem.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 17:47:46 GMT

Jim predicted 150-170 as well.

"According to information that studio insiders have shared with me, this Brad Bird movie should only earn $150 - $170 million during its entire domestic run. "

http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2007/06/25/monday-mouse-watch-could-underwhelming-box-office-receipts-for-ratatouille-really-spell-trouble-for-disney-pixar-officials.aspx

Going into the third weekend, it has already made about $125M. 150 is looking pretty low right now, isn't it?

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:14:33 GMT

MINDERBINDER SAID - "Looking at your posts, you certainly come off as someone with an axe to grind and nothing useful to say."

Wow, don't beat around the bush, there MB...gee, I'm sorry you feel I am so unworthy...I must not be a very good writer...have to work on that...maybe some night classes at the local JC...perhaps an online course, "How To Write Useful Posts."

Now, as far as "an axe to grind" you couldn't be further from the truth...I enjoy playing around on this site (I thought that's what it was for). In truth, I will tell you I am very fortunate to be in the entertainment industry...( working, not-bitter, much to be happy about, version). I absolutely do not have any dislike , or "axes" to grind with any studio, (they have all given me a terrific life), so, I feel I have a pretty good unbiased "take" on many things "Showbiz"...I think it's called perspective...But, I wish you well, as, per your request, I will now retire my "useless" musings... to people who pay me for them:)

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:43:03 GMT

I'm new at tracking box office numbers here so, am I off in thinking Ratatouille might still end up around $170 million? Jim might still be on track with his prediction. I hope he's wrong so that the suits he gets his "insider" info from can shut up about the box office (doubt it, I'm sure they'll find another way to spin it as a negative), but this is a very competetive summer so I'm bracing for that.

I personally already view $150 as a success for the summer of 2007, seeing that Surf's Up didn't even come close to breaking even $100 million ($56 million currently), and Ratatouille is not a franchise movie a la Shrek with a built-in fan base (unless you count the Pixar fan base, which judging from this and other boards, is pretty strong). I mean, look at all the movies it had to go up against this summer, add that to a poor marketing job (in my opinion; that's a whole post in itself), and having a rat as the main character (not exactly a cuddly likeable animal), and the subject matter being a chef in Paris (not exactly an enticing setup for a supposed kids' movie). No, it's not Finding Nemo or Incredibles. It's a classic and it's still going to turn a profit for the Mouse House. I'd say that's pretty good already.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:52:04 GMT

For an average Pixar movie the opening weekend gross usually counts for 20 to 25% of the total (domestic) gross. Putting "Ratatouille" in a calculator with those numbers and percentages, it would end up with around $ 235 million (20%) to $ 188 million (25%). Considering this is a competetive summer, but also adding the factor that the movie has legs, I would go for 25 to 30%. So, that means, $ 188 million to $ 157 million. Jim wasn't that far off, actually.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:56:32 GMT

Back to the numbers, if Ratatouille ended up with 150M, that would mean at this point in its run it has made 83% of what it is going to make. A hypothetical 170 puts it at 74% of the way there.

For comparison, most Pixar films (I compared the ones here: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?view=daily&id=vs-pixar.htm) have made in the 50-60% range after two weeks. Worst of those listed there is Incredibles at 58%. Nemo was at 48% and TS2 at an amazing 36%. Realistically, is there any reason to believe that Ratatouille will have much bigger drops than any of those movies? Especially when it only dropped an excellent 38% in its second weekend with what many people considered (or at least Jim and a number of other analysts and people here) pretty stiff competition?

If Ratatouille performs comparable to the WORST of the five listed there and has made 58% at this point, that puts it at 215M. Less than cars, but still a respectable number, especially if it outperforms Cars overseas (which I'm confident it will do easily). To beat cars it needs to have made about 51% of its total. That could be a bit of a stretch, but certainly not out of the question.

Looking at opening weekends, the biggest percentage from openings is 27%. I don't see any reason why this would go beyond that, with the poor advertising but good word of mouth it may be better than usual. Honestly, I don't think this will be that competitive a summer going forward, the only tough competition is Potter. After that, there are no kids movies for a while, nothing strong next weekend and the weekend after is the Simpsons which, while big, skews much older. Most of the biggest movies have already come and gone, the worst competition is over.

Looking at it another way, if it drops 50% every week for the rest of the run, it will end up at 170. Look at the numbers for Pixar releases, most have at least a couple weeks where drops are in the 20% range. Most have a couple in the 50% range as well, but that's just one or two weeks. After only dropping 38% the second week, why would anyone expect drops averaging 50% for the rest of the run?

Certainly anything is possible, but the low range of 150-170 would require drops way outside the range Pixar has ever seen before. After a second week hold that was better than Cars, I'm not sure why anyone would predict that.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:29:26 GMT

minderbinder - I'm tend to underestimate these things normally in order to be pleasantly surprised. Which is why I think Ratatouille's doing great.

But I do have my reasons for predicting too low. I'm too lazy to look up the competition of each of those Pixar films you listed, but I do recall that the computer animated movie genre was not yet saturated when those earlier Pixar films like Toy Story 2 had a lot of legs. A movie like Surf's Up would have probably made $100 million. Now it seems like people are tired of CG films; probably because so many other studios abused it and put out crap thinking people will flock to it just because it's CG.

Another reason - Transformers and Harry Potter following. Again, pleasantly surprised at the 38% dropoff last weekend. I think this weekend is key. If Ratatouille can make close to $20 mil this weekend with the Potter opening and Transformers still going strong (that would be another 30 something % dropoff), then that would be great for its chances to cross the 200 mil threshold because it will prove it can really hold up against those two behemoths. If it makes what I predict (around $15 mil to $16 mil), then I think it will probably end at around $175 to $185.

Let's cross our fingers that this weekend shuts the suits up.

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 02:04:47 GMT

Hmmmm. Just saw the Hairspray trailer and my 5 year old daughter says, "I wanna watch that!" That comes out next week. Forget Transformers, the Simpsons, or Harry Potter - Hairspray is rated PG. I must admit it looks like its got that High School Musical vibe to it that might steal the family audiences (most of Ratatouille's audience) away. We'll see how the reviews go for that one but so far it's got 100% on RT (though it's only got 5 reviews).

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 09:43:27 GMT

Just wanted to mention that tonight Conan O'Brien had Jeanine Garafalo on and the two were commenting on and joking about how much money "Ratatouille" is raking in.

:) :) :).

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 22:49:08 GMT

Given that mass market retail still carries Toy Story merchandise 12 years after it was first released, I find it hard to quibble about not every Pixar film outgrossing the last. These things make their money back and spawn other sources of income through homeDVD and theme park attractions and merchandise. Plus, I highly doubt Ratatouille was anywhere near the most expensive production this summer- making it much more easy to break even.

If you're looking for annual profit increases and overhead cut-backs, please invest in Wal-Mart. A studio that operates that way undermines the product at risk to its marketability in the long run. I'm all for streamlining production costs but not at the expense of quality because that's simply bad business.

When Harry met Remy... At first glance, Harry was suspicious because he hasn't had great luck with rats in the past... :P

re: Toon Tuesday : Sure, "Ratatouille" rebounded over the extended Fourth of July holiday. But what happens tomorrow ... When Harry meets Remy?

Jim Hill — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:28:06 GMT

18 million, down only 38% to put it at 143 million. For those who defended the 150M number, isn't it starting to look silly now? And even 170M, does anyone honestly believe that a movie that made 18 over the past weekend will only make 27 million in the entire rest of its run?