I think we've heard this song before: If it grosses well, it's because of the marketing and PR. If that were true, then all Disney films would regularly do gangbuster business.

It's probably closer to: Once again, a Pixar film succeeds in spite of the Disney marketing and PR.

I note that you refer several times to the box office figure as being stateside. You should know that domestic box office includes all of North America, which means ticket sales from Canadian theaters are also part of the domestic numbers.

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Maybe it's also a fact that Disney marketing hadn't really done all that much when the analyst was making his predictions.  All marketing departments seem to be waiting longer and until closer to the movie's release date before they actually start their campaigns.  So if analysts, predictors and guessers insist on trying to make their calls too far ahead of time, they won't have a true feeling of the 'buzz' that surrounds a flick until it's almost open.  Have  a happy!

I have learned to trust Pixar.

Every time I first hear about a new Pixar movie, I think it sounds LAME.

But EVERY time they have surprised me, except the Incredibles. I didn't initially like Incredibles, but it grew on me (I think my very young kids had an influence on me since they didn't like it until they were a little older).

I thought Monsters Inc, Cars, WallE, Ratatollie (OK, I was partly right on this one) and UP were going to be TOTALLY lame, but Pixar has surprised me every time.

Pixar has been allowed to do their own thing and has been allowed to pursue their creativity and I think that audiences can see that and respond to that. It's not "movies by committee".

This talk of a "$300 million club" is rather silly, considering that Lion King actually made $554,524,300 in 2009 dollars (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm).  Shrek 2 is the only animated feature that came close to dinging that figure since then, and it's unlikely that any animated film will ever get near it for quite some time.

Thanks for the article Jim. I've been waiting for your analysis and appreciate your point of view.

I remember there were ads for "Up" in the hotel elevators at last year's Comics Con, so they've been hitting the marketing trail hard for this one for nearly a year.

Personally, I think the Pixar rep for making great movies and the movie itself has more to do with it's success, but I'm sure the marketing execs would disagree.