The NY Times has an article today on the promotion of Ratatouille. The article starts of talking about Disney/Pixar’s goal to have the public not only know how to pronounce Ratatouille, but love the idea of a rat in a kitchen by June 29.
According to the article, next Tuesday, Disney will start an all-day television campaign climaxing with a 90 second spot during American Idol, with the intention of leading viewers to Disney.com to watch the 9-and-a-half mintue clip from the movie.
The article goes on to discuss the reasons behind the big promotion of Ratatouille, such as it is an original film, and audiences are showing preference to viewing sequels such as Shrek 3, Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter 5. The film is going up against at least 2 of those films. It then leads onto how originality in films is not making as much money this decade compared to the 90’s.
Pixar and Disney have enviable name recognition among moviegoers compared with virtually any other studio. But when an original like “Ratatouille” costs roughly $100 million to make and perhaps half that to market in the United States alone, even they cannot trust viewers to show up without a painstaking introduction.
says the article.
The article then talks about the film itself with director, Brad Bird, and about originality.
Still, Mr. Bird confessed that pure invention can be “scary” even for those at Pixar. The director pointed, for instance, to a moment in “Ratatouille” when he felt compelled to forgo a climactic action sequence that was demanded by conventional movie logic, but that did not fit the story he and his peers had invented. “You have to let the movie be what it wants to be,” he said.
Yet that can be easier, he added, than trying to follow in the tracks of the audience. “When you just make something you want to see,” he said, “it becomes very simple.”
says the article, coming to a close.
Read the full article here.
Last modified: April 25, 2007