Monday MouseWatch : “Meet the Robinsons” keeps moving forward, while “Grindhouse” grinds to a halt. PLUS new “Pirates 3” images !

Jim Hill

18 years ago

There is this rather brutal business-related saying. Which — at various different times — has been attributed to Gore Vidal, Genegis Khan, Larry Ellison, David Merrick and Attila the Hun.

“It is not enough that I succeed. My enemies must fail.”

Now, given that I know that several executives at Walt Disney Studios actually subscribe to this theory … Well, these guys must be downright giddy about what just happened at the box office this past weekend.

To explain: Even though four major studio films (I.E. Sony / Revolution‘s “Are We Done Yet ?,” 20th Century Fox‘s “Firehouse Dog,” the Weinstein Company / Dimension Films‘ “Grindhouse” and Warner Bros. “The Reaping“) all went into wide release this past Friday, “Meet the Robinsons” still managed to hang onto the No. 2 spot on the box office chart.

Okay, sure. Business did fall off a bit for this Steve Anderson film during its second weekend in release. But only by 32.3%. Which — when you compare that number to the 61.9% fall off in business that “TMNT” experienced over its second weekend in release … Well, that’s still pretty good.

The $17 million that “Meet the Robinsons” pulled in this past weekend (As opposed to the $25.1 million that Disney’s latest animated feature earned over its first weekend in wide release) suggests that this CG film now has some reasonably good word of mouth going for it. In particular, people who have seen this movie in the Disney Digital 3D format seem to be talking that version up to friends & family.

And given that the 3D “MTR” earned a record $7.1 million last weekend (More importantly, that preliminary figures for this past weekend suggest that the Disney Digital version of this new CG feature may have done as well if not better than the previous weekend) … Well, it appears that this picture has developed some legs.

And then when you factor in the $52.2 million that this Steve Anderson film has earned over the past 10 days … It now looks like “Meet the Robinsons” will be able to achieve blockbuster status (I.E. Earning over $100 million during its initial domestic release) by the end of April. Which — again — means that this film (in the long run, anyway) won’t be a “Chicken Little” -sized success. But on the other hand, it won’t be a flop either.

Which is fairly good news for WDFA employees. Who were feeling rather blue this past week over their new movie’s debut. Given that “MTR” failed to beat “Blades of Glory” and take the top spot on the box office chart last weekend.

But now … Even though “Meet the Robinsons” still lingers behind that Will Ferrell comedy … The mood at the Mouse House is much improved this Monday morning. Mostly because Disney’s week-old animated feature managed to kick “Grindhouse” ‘s butt at the box office this past weekend.

Okay. Admittedly, this Steve Anderson film has a time advantage over that Quentin Tarantino / Robert Rodriguez co-production (Translation: Because “Meet the Robinsons” is only an-hour-&-32-minutes-long versus “Grindhouse” ‘s bladder-bursting three-hours-&-11-minutes running time, that means that Disney’s newest animated film can then squeeze in twice as many screenings per day as this new Weinstein Company release can). Plus since “MTR” is rated G, whereas “Grindhouse” is a fairly hard R … Well, that means that “Meet the Robinsons” had a much larger pool of potential customers to draw audience members from.

But brushing aside all of those rationalizations / logical explanations … Disney execs are still chortling over the fact that “Meet the Robinsons” managed to out-gross “Grindhouse.” Mostly because this means that the Weinstein Company’s cold streak at the box office is continuing.

You would think that — given that Harvey & Bob left Disney back in September of 2005 — that the bad blood between the Mouse and the former owners of Miramax would have dissipated by now. Well, think again. Mostly because the Weinsteins have been so aggressive about trying to horn in on Disney’s toon turf (I.E. Over the past 19 months, Harvey & Bob have acquired the North American distribution rights to four CG features: “Hoodwinked,” “Doogal,” “Arthur and the Invisibles” and “TMNT.” While seven other animated features — “Igor,” “Escape from Planet Earth,” “Cricket in Times Square,” “The Nutty Professor,” “Opus,” “Azur & Asmar” and “Hoodwinked II: Hood Versus Evil” — are now making their way through the Weinstein Company’s distribution & development pipeline) … Mickey now takes much pleasure in charting each & every mis-step that Bob & Harvey make.

So when a heavily promoted, high profile project like “Grindhouse” only brings in $11.5 million over its opening weekend … Well, that’s one of those moments that those Disney execs who genuinely believe that “It is not enough that I succeed. My enemies must fail” just live for.

Mind you, these Mouse House officials shouldn’t get too smug. After all — just last week — DreamWorks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg told a group of investors at a Bank of America conference that he expects that “Shrek the Third” will come out on top in the Summer 2007 box office derby. Mostly because the second Shrek sequel is just 81 minutes long. Whereas “Spiderman 3” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” are both expected to be close to three hours in length.

As Jeffrey explained it:

“Everyone is going to see Shrek. Everyone is going to see Pirates. Everyone is going to see Spider-Man. The difference is which one of those movies are going to get multiple viewings … (“Shrek the Third” is) 81 minutes long. That pretty much means we are going to tend to get one-and-a-half to two shows for every one of theirs because they are longer films.”

So the very reason that “Grindhouse” got tripped up at the box office this past weekend may come back to haunt Disney when “At World’s End” rolls into theaters on May 25th.

Speaking of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” … Very quietly over the last day or so, that film’s official website finally went live. So if you’d like to scope out some “POTC3” goodness (Like — for example — the image capture below) …

… Or — better yet — our very first up-close look at all of the Pirate Lords …

… Then I suggest that you click on this link ASAP.

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