Toon Tuesday : How will “Ratatouille” fare in Hollywood’s Summer 2007 rat race?

How’s this for irony? The Walt Disney Company (Whose mascot is a mouse) still hasn’t figured out how to properly market “Ratatouille” (Pixar‘s next release, which stars a rat).

At least that’s the word coming out of the Mouse House this week. As Disney gears up for the coming year, making sure that all of its upcoming releases are properly positioned & promoted to insure the greatest possible market share.

“So what exactly is the problem with ‘Ratatouille’ ?,” you ask. Well, to be honest, a lot of the concerns that are currently associated with this Brad Bird film can be traced back to “Cars.” Which Disney’s marketing department thought that they had put together a terrific promotional campaign for. Only to have that John Lasseter movie miss all of the studio’s internal financial projections.

As one studio insider explained it to me last week:

“The feeling now is that we all may have been a little too close to ‘Cars.’ That we were too in love with this film before it was released. Which is why it’s now considered a mistake in-house to buy into the old ‘Everyone goes to Pixar movies’ idea.

Sure, it seems ridiculous to be complaining about the second highest grossing film of the year. But the fact of the matter is that there are 75 million NASCAR fans out there. And — before ‘Cars’ opened — we had convinced ourselves that every one of those people was going to buy a ticket to Pixar’s next movie. Which is why we were really expecting that ‘Cars’ would rack up ‘Finding Nemo‘ and ‘The Incredibles‘ -sized grosses.

But when that didn’t happen … Well, the first place that we looked was at ‘Cars’ marketing. We started asking ourselves: ‘Did we position this picture properly? Should we have gone with another poster? Or a different set of TV commericials?’ You always wind up second-guessing yourself in situations like this.”

And all of the second guessing that went on after ‘Cars’ missed its financial projections is now having a trickle-down effect on “Ratatouille.” Given that the folks at Disney PR no longer really buy into the old “Everybody goes to Pixar movies” idea … Well, they’re now trying to decide who exactly they should be marketing this Brad Bird movie to.

But — as the lackluster grosses for DreamWorks Animation’s “Flushed Away” recently proved ( That Aardman co-production only grossed $61 million during its initial domestic release) — marketing movies that star a rat can be a rather tricky affair.

Copyright 2007 Disney Pixar

Don’t believe me? Then just ask the guys who work for Disney Consumer Products. They’ve had a hell of a time trying to convince Disney’s licensees to take a flyer on the “Ratatouille” characters. As a direct result, this coming summer, you’ll only see about a third as many “Ratatouille” -related products on store shelves as there were “Cars” -related products during the Summer of 2006.

And without that retail safety cushion to fall back on (Which really made the difference when Wall Street finally passed judgment on “Cars” overall performance. The general perception now is that — while this John Lasseter movie did not sell nearly as many tickets as it had originally been expected to — the retail side of “Cars” did make up for that box office shortfall. Which is why Pixar’s most recent release is now considered a qualified success. Translation: A worldwide gross of $461 million is nothing to sneeze at. But that’s still $400 million less than “Finding Nemo” made. Which is why the investment community is looking for Pixar to do much better the very next time that this animation studio gets up at bat) … Well, that puts “Ratatouille” in a rather precarious position.

You see, according to Disney’s own internal projections, “Ratatouille” is already expected to sell far fewer tickets than “Cars.” How many fewer tickets ? … Well, no one wants to say just yet. But this is why it’s doubly important that Disney’s PR department put together the best possible marketing campaign for this Brad Bird movie. To not only improve this animated feature’s chances at the box office, but also to help with Disney’s damage control efforts.

“What damage control efforts ?,” you query? Well, should “Ratatouille” only do 2/3rds of the business that “Cars” did domestically … That downward trend — coupled with the fact that there’s no possible way that the sale of “Ratatouille” -related merchandise could ever make up for this particular film’s box office shortfall — would then re-open the door for discussion about whether or not the Walt Disney Company significantly over-paid when it acquired Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion.

What’s that you say? It’s a little premature to be discussing the box office prospects for a film that doesn’t actually open for another six months? Well, that’s the other reason that Disney’s marketing department is really sweating the promotional campaign for this Brad Bird movie.

You see, “Ratatouille” is being released during one of the most fiercely competitive summers in box office history … I mean, just take a look at some of the other movies that Pixar’s next release will be going head-to-head with:

Now add to this “Variety” reasoning behind why “Cars” was eventually able to rack up $244 million during its initial domestic release last summer (I.E. This John Lasseter film didn’t really face any serious competition for the family-friendly audience during the first six weeks that it was in theaters). Then take a look at what opens on July 4th (“Transformers“) and then July 13th (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix“).

When you take all of this into consideration … Well, is it any wonder that Disney’s marketing staff is now fretting about how “Ratatouille” will fare during the Summer of 2007?

Which is why they continue to tinker with possible ad campaigns for this new Brad Bird film. As these PR flaks try & thread their way through the marketing minefield that comes with trying to sell an animated feature (Which automatically turns off a certain segment of your potential audience. Given that there are some adults who just won’t buy tickets to animated features. Since they consider these sorts of films to be juvenile fare) that stars a rat (Again, another segment of your potential audience gone due to the rodent factor) who wants to be a chef (Just the idea of a rat in the kitchen is enough to turn off a certain number of potential moviegoers).

So will Pixar’s next release be able to overcome all of these handicaps and eventually emerge as the top CG film of 2007? Disney certainly doesn’t think so. According to the company insiders that I’ve spoken with, Mouse House officials are already assuming that “Shrek the Third” will be 2007’s top grossing animated film. Right now, the studio’s main concern is making sure that “Ratatouille” out-grosses Columbia’s “Surf’s Up.” Given how well all of these penguin pictures have been doing lately, Disney’s reportedly already worried that Sony Animation’s surfer dude penguins could wind up blowing Remy the Rat right out of the water.

Which is why the Mouse’s marketing department continues to explore new concepts for the promotional campaign for “Ratatouille.” As it tries to give this new Brad Bird its best possible shot at success in the Hollywood rat race of Summer 2007.

Your thoughts?