Check out this
link:
jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/ … g-to-manag
e-box-office-expectations-for-ratatouille.aspx
Hmm, this doesn’t look good. At the
end of the day, whether a film is actually good or not doesn’t directly affect how well it will do financially.
Ratatouille, by the sounds of things, is going to be an amazing film, for all the reasons that this article said,
but that doesn’t mean it will do amazingly well. People nowadays seem to be happy to go and see a film that
doesn’t have much of a story, or that doesn’t have any strong characters, just because of the ‘wow’
factor.
At the end of the day, I’m pleased that Pixar’s sticking to its morals, rather than selling out
and going all big and fancy, and getting famous actors to try and distract from the meaning of the film itself.
It’s why Pixar’s done so well in the past, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t do well again.
I think Ratatouille will
do an absolute incredible job on it’s first weekend at the box office. I am not sure if it can top The
Incredibles, but I think it can secure second place.
Well, all I’ll say is there’s a reason we take what Mr. Hill says with a rather large grain
of salt.
The Threequels are under-achieving and in response the originals are adding to their boxoffice.
We all know that Pixar has staying power - something other companies lack - and so I have no doubt that this will
be the case once again for Ratatouille, doubly so since the other films are falling
off so fast after mixed opening weekends.
So, while Ratatouille will NOT be
Pixar’s top-grossing film or best first weekend opening I suspect it will succeed in true Pixar fashion beating
out Cars and ultimately finishing either side of [i]Monsters
Inc.[/i] in terms of total gross. The only reason to worry for Disney is that with Pirates 3, Spidey
3, Shreck 3, HP 5, Die Hard #, and a host of Dark Horsed like FF 2, and Transformers, is will even a box office
comparable to Monsters be enough for the film to finish the year in the top 5 or
even the top 10.
As one critic said about Cars "Complaining that Cars
is not Pixar’s best (top grossing) film is like complaining that you missed a numbed on the lottery and only won
a few hundred-thousand dollars." Same principle here but it’s a little but harder to stomach when 3-5 of
your rivals hit the big jackpot.
Even though I really want Ratatouille to do well
financially, I’m just really hoping that it gets good critical reviews. That’s all that matters to me,
personally. But that’s not the way Hollywood works - it doesn’t matter how many people
love Ratatouille, it matters how many go see it.
And if it doesn’t perform as well, if not better than Cars, Disney will start putting pressure on Pixar
to change. And even though Shrek the Third is a bit of a flop, one of the reasons it did so well is because it
already had that fanbase behind it - Ratatouille will not.
Kids already know Shrek, and for whatever
reasons parents seem to take their kids to these mediocre Dreamworks films with the big names, and damn annoying
pop-culture references, instead of taking a chance on a Pixar film - “EW! A rat that cooks!” and
“There was already a rat movie last year!”
And on top of that Ratatouille will not have that
flooding marketing campaign (you know how Shrek the Third and Cars was everywhere),
so it may struggle to get its voice heard among the crowd.
Sigh.
But at the end of the day, story
is key not box office numbers.
While I appreciate the warning attitude that Ratatouille won’t be the number one movie of the year (I sadly see
it being the third highest animated film, after Shrek and Simpsons. Hopefully though all three can still be in
the top ten), the insider’s “not really a Brad Bird movie” attitude seems to be warning Disney for the
wrong reasons, and is generally unhelpful. They seem to think it’s a bad movie, whereas it’s more that there’s
just so many other Blockbusters competing in that time frame. If each of these films had a month all to their
onsies, they’d all do better. As I understand it, Jan Pinkava came up with the story idea and Brad Bird
developed it. By this insider’s logic, Iron Giant isn’t really a Brad Bird movie because someone else came up
with the original story idea.
As an off note, I predict Harry Potter 5 will be number one film of the
year, maybe number two behind Spider-Man 3/PotC 3, whichever one comes out on
top.
And rachel, I appreciate the concerns you raise in your signature, but I’ve got it worse. Despite
the fact they’ve started showing the full trailer, I have to wait fifteen weeks
(nearly four months) before Ratatouille. This said, I can see why. The original release date was July 27th, the
same as Transformers and Simpsons. Ratatouile would have had very little chance of doing well alongside those
giants.
RMS: Yeah, I know you have it worse off than me.
I’m justing whinging about it. I’m over it now, though. 
I have actually been meaning to get around to
changing my sig to “four months” to represent to international fans having to wait
longer…
It’s just very frustrating, that’s all… 
In ALL honesty, folks, I don’t see Ratatouille doing better than Cars on
its first weekend. If so, then maybe by a few short million. Point and laugh at me if I’m wrong (seriously, do
it!!), but my jaw has dropped to the floor by the amount of competition this summer. I know Ratatouille will be a
good film, but those weeks will be squeezed with anticipated films… Die Hard 4.0,
Transformers, Harry Potter, etc.
I want it to do well financially, but I just haven’t been feeling it. I
don’t see many commercials (and I REALLY would like to see more because there are still the same old boring
Shrek ones everywhere…), and you wonder if an audience will be compelled to see a rat who dreams of being a
chef, when they could see action-packed superheroes and magic. I don’t want to say that people aren’t
interested in good plot anymore, but it WILL be hard for a Pixar film this year.
I’m glad they picked a
date that’s about a month after big hits like the triple threequels (Shrek, Pirates, Spiderman). That gives me a
little hope that there’s enough space to relax a bit before the big Pixar crew to try at the box office.