Ratatouille -- A Ticking Bomb?

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#1

According to a recent

Jim Hill Media article, Ratatouille is expected (by

Disney executives, at least) to bomb at the box office. You can take a look at the article

here:

[url=http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2007/06/25/monday-mouse-watch-could-underwhelmin

g-box-office-receipts-for-ratatouille-really-spell-trouble-for-disney-pixar-officials.aspx]Jim Hill Media Article

  • Ratatouille: A Recipe for Disaster?[/url]

I laugh in the face of danger… :unamused:

Let’s see how

many people get a good chuckle out of this. Personally, I think that Ratatouille’s

initial/overall box office gross will exceed expectations, but that’s just me. Truth be told, you never know

what will happen, but I still say that Disney executives (and Mr. Hill, as well) are going

“over-the-edge” here. Bomb, indeed. Not that I am predicting a straight-edged outcome here, but we’ll

see who’s laughing after June 29th.

Your thoughts?

– Mitch

#2

Heh, I wish I could laugh, Mitch…

This article

has some points, I’m afraid. Ratatouille was amazing, but we’re talking about dangerous competition this

summer. I think the movie will do well on its first weekend, but once Harry Potter and Transformers kick in,

that’s it. I think that’s what they meant by Ratatouille having a weak domestic run compared to previous Pixar

films.

#3

Ratatouill will do just fine. It might be the best film of the summer, it will be incredible,

no matter the movies it is going up against.

#4

Cha – I see what you mean

there…

Harry Potter is definitely going to draw in the crowds (and I’ll

be one of the many thousands of attendees), as will Transformers. The date of

Transformers’ timely arrival escapes me, but I know that it’s close to

Ratatouille’s opening release date, which may spell uncertain doom for the latter

film. However, and besides Transformers, Remy pretty much has a good half a month to

rake in the dough before Mr. Potter arrives on the scene.

I still say that

this film will, hopefully, attract a considerably large audience. Perhaps I’m expecting too much, though. Or

maybe I just love this particular production to a great extent, thus making me believe that every other person on

the planet will find something enjoyable about it, too? I dunno…

Well, we’ll see what happens in two

days. :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

Hehe,

that’s okay Mitch. I felt the exact same way a little over a year ago with Cars… goodness, how I love that

movie. My life revolved around it for the first half of 2006. So I was left with a bit of confusion with why it

didn’t do as well as The Incredibles, and all the mixed reviews.

Why I worry a little bit about

Ratatouille’s opening weekend isn’t about its quality… it’s also because of what it’s up against: Die Hard

  1. As I recall, Cars did not have any big competition in its opening weekend. DH4 is rated PG-13, so it will draw

quite a bit of attention. It is a sequel, AND an action film if that weren’t enough.

#6

With how popular Remy’s movie is from the critics and the people who have

viewed it at it’s early screening, I don’t think Ratatouille will have much of a problem.

Live Free or

Die Hard is a cult classic, but appeals to more of the rougher teenage and older crowd who remember Die

Hard’s…well…die hard days.

If I recall, Harry Potter doesn’t come out till July…14th?

Na…somewhere around there.
Transformers comes July 4th, and it’s popularity has been around for awhile to

gain up as much as the previous two movies up there…

But to be fair…Ratatouille’ll do fine in

animated circles. It’ll have several days earning before Harry Potter, and five days before Transformers.
Die

Hard will probably appeal to the action group, and Ratatouille for the kids, family, and comedy

lovers.
Faintly seems to be such a good mix we need not worry.

#7

Ratatouille will surely be the top at the box office this

weekend. But it’ll stop there since Transformers comes out just five days after it.

#8

I read that a couple of days ago… Jim Hill apparently

does a similar article with every single Pixar release, every single year, so whatever. :unamused:

In regards

to Ratatouille’s box office receipts, only time will tell. By the positive word of mouth going around I expect

this to do modestly well, (at least better than Disney’s flicks), if not as good as Cars. If it does better,

than I will be very happy, of course.

Ratatouille could blow everyone away with its earnings in the first

weekend, or it could end up being a steady little earner, gradually earning a respectable profit as weeks go by.

It’s just so hard to tell, because it’s not like Harry Potter with an established fan base already (as with

Transformers), apart from us Pixar fans and people with good taste. =) And this is

one of the most competitive Summer’s in history.

And one thing that irks me a bit, is when people equate

money with success. They are not one and the same! There are tons of movies that have made a heck of a lot of

money, but really weren’t that good. And vice-versa: movies that weren’t an instant hit but have becoming

classics since then, for good reason.

If I could only choose one result: it would be that Pixar would earn

a modest amount, but it would end up winning an Academy Award, and further cement Pixar’s status as the new

Disney circa the 1950s.

Speaking of Disney, frankly, Disney’s execs (the ones who

can’t draw) lost their right to complain about Pixar changing the "operating

systems" at Disney, the minute Disney continued making movies like The Lion King 2 1/2, The Little Mermaid

2, etc etc

I mean this could have been a very good chance for Disney to change its ways of operating, with

the chance to bring life back into their movies. They should have just put up with

it and acknowledge that Pixar have the creative talent to undo Disney’s mistakes of the past 15 years, and Pixar

sorta-kinda might know what they are doing.

It will take a while for Pixar to help Disney become the king

of animation and most of all, good story, again so for the meantime they should put up or shut up, and be

thankful for the opportunity.

#9

I don’t even bother with that Jim

Hill guy. He ate his words last year and he’ll always eat his words when it comes to PIXAR (guess he cooks them

pretty good, I dunno).

Anyways, I’m planning on catching this film on Friday, so I guess I’ll be doing

my part in getting Ratatouille to that #1 slot (heh, like they need me to do it! :stuck_out_tongue:)

#10

Aggie - Mmm. Yes, the film

will, indeed, be up against some major competition. However, as others have stated, the production itself should

do just fine…so long as its audience stays true to it.

rachel - I 100%

agree with everything you said there, rachel.

:slight_smile:

Phoenician - Yeah, Mr. Hill is…a character. He’ll eat his words, all

right… (snigger)

Thank you for all of your input and opinions, guys! :wink:

#11

Mitch - I never liked the guy anyway… (snigger) :smiley:

#12

Bill - Haha! Yeah, the dude has some “issues”. :laughing: :stuck_out_tongue:

#13

Actually, as far as profit goes, I think Jim Hill is right on the money (no pun intended). As a movie itself, Ratatouille stands a much better chance than Cars did. The “cartoonish” look of Cars led most of the people I know away from that movie, because it looked like a movie for little kids. I’ve heard a lot more interest for Ratatouille over the past few months, which is a good sign. However, like Cars, the content matter could still have an effect on the movie’s Box Office earnings. A lot of people just don’t care about Rats enough to go see another film about them. I mean, there have been plenty of rodent movies in the past, and most of them are pretty similar. Plus with the untimely release of Flushed Away last fall, I’ve heard a lot of comments like “another Rat movie?”, “I didn’t like Flushed Away, so I don’t think I’ll like Ratatouille”, and so on. (For the record, I rather enjoyed Flushed Away.) :wink: And other than Stewart Little (which grossed $140 million in the US), no other rat/mouse movie has topped $65 million. The average public isn’t going to realize how different this movie is from other rodent films, and they aren’t going to care. This doesn’t even include people who are scared of rats, or think they’re “gross”. I think most of Ratatouilles audience will be little kids who like animals (similar to little boys with Cars last year).

If Ratatouille were to be released last summer, I think these would be the main issues it would have to deal with, and it would overcome those issues enough to gross more than Cars did. Unfortunately, this summer is much more competitive, so all the things I mentioned above are just added on to the real issues Ratatouille will face.

Live Free, Die Hard opened in theaters yesterday. Thus far, the Die Hard movies haven’t made too much of a profit. The series’ first sequel, “DH2: Die Harder” is leading in profit, with a total gross of $117 mil. Not too impressive. Die Hard 4 just made $9 million dollars yesterday, nearly half of what Die Hard 2 and 3 made opening weekend. So thus far, it’s looking like this 4th installment in the series will do much better than any of its preceding films. I still think Ratatouille will beat Live Free, Die Hard this weekend, but there will definitely be some competition, and LF,DH will draw some of the teenage audience who would otherwise go to Ratatouille.

Overall, I expect Ratatouille to gross about $60 million this weekend, like Jim Hill said, putting it on par with Cars and Monsters, Inc. However, Transformers has been bumped up two more days (in my area at least), and is now opening on Monday, July 2nd. That gives Ratatouille only 3 days in the lead before it is bumped out of the top slot. And Transformers is going to be big, trust me. If any movie does better than expected this summer, it’ll be Transformers (and they must know this, since they keep pushing up the release). After this, Ratatouille will have a little over a week to try and regain some legs before Harry Potter hits theaters. Then there’s still The Simpsons Movie, Bourne Ultimatum, and Rush Hour 3 to think about. The fact of the matter is: this is not a good summer to release an expensive movie. Pretty much every movie thus far has underperformed, and I think Ratatouille will be one of them. I hate saying this because I think it will be a classic, one of the best Pixar films yet, and I want it to get the profit it deserves (so I’m hoping more than anything that I’ll be proven wrong). But it’s probably better to set low expectations and be surprised. :slight_smile:

I just hope, no matter how it does in theaters, that Ratatouille will get the 2-disc DVD treatment it deserves. But the thing that worries me the most is: if this movie does poorly, what will that mean for the future of Pixar and their movies? I’d hate to see them cut back on the quality of their future films in order to save money.

#14

I agree with Shark Bait. This movie is fantastic, and I want everyone to see it, but the competition this summer is just nasty. I can see it being No. 1 in the first weekend no problem, but after that… gets a bit hazy.

#15

I think Pixar would rather stop making films altogether than cut down on quality. :wink:

#16

^^ Ya that

and a lot of my life still evolves around CARS

#17

OOH, yeah. In my movie-marketing experience (which is not to much, admittedly)Ratatouille has not had the “presence” of other Pixar films and movies in general…I don’t know, it’s just not had the “umph”. We’ll see this weekend, but I don’t have my hopes very high unfourtunately…

#18

Personally I’m VERY worried about the Rat will fare at the box office this summer. There just seems to be a lack of buzz for this that Pixar films usually get, not to mention the HUGE HUGE HUGE amount of competition it’ll be facing - that, and people are getting tired of cute talking animal movies.

I’ve seen it, and I ADORED it, but I’m just not sure it’s going to make as much money as it deserves. :confused:

#19

… and, apparently, we’re getting more depressing news from JHM:

jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/ … -film.aspx

How about we make these articles AFTER the opening weekend, eh?

#20

[i]http://annoyingperson95media.com/blogs/annoying_person/archive/2007/06/28/toon-thursday-why-did-jim-hill-struggle-to-come-up-with-a-fake-article-because-he-isn’t-real-good-at-it-and-he-should-get-the-:whip:.aspx[/i]