slop101

Ratatouille will pick up on word of mouth alone (or at least not drop significantly).

Also, I feel a movie "drop" in expected BO is an answer to the previous movie - as in Ratatouille is an answer to Cars being a bit of a disappointment (for a Pixar movie that is), and Cars opening huge as an answer to Incredibles being so well received. And trust me Wall-E will be huge due to Ratatoille's greatness.

The Bus

I'm glad Cars did so horrible worldwide.

misterchimpy

There was a lot of speculation at the time of the deal that Disney panicked because their own animated films had been bombing. So some people thought they paid too much for a studio whose most profitable movies were behind them. Remember when Pixar first appeared they were virtually alone in the CGI business, they did great movies as well, but now there are 5-10 CGI kids movies/year, with many more to come. And kids grow up faster, play more video games, etc.

Another way to think about it, if Disney had borrowed the money to buy Pixar, the $7 billion would cost 6% or so a year in interest, or $420 million/year. Yes they make money off of the film library, merchandise etc, but that number was maybe $100 mm pretax at most(and Disney already owned 50% of the films done before the deal anyway), because they only had 6 or 7 titles in the library at the time. So the return is still pretty dependent on how current releases do.

Don't confuse the box office take, btw, with how much money a studio earns on a film. I agree that even $300 mm worldwide is a nice box office number. But again, you have to take out the theater's cut, production costs, prints, advertising, etc. And yes, there will be DVD sales, video games, but probably not too much merchandise(stuffed rats not too popular, lol--i didn't see McDonald's do a promotion!).

There is no doubt that this movie, while profitable, will be substantially less profitable than Finding Nemo or even the Incredibles. And that's the point, this is the first movie under Disney ownership and the return is going to be nowhere near the return that Pixar made historically.

Maybe there will be other movies down the road that do better, but maybe not. To your point, Pixar used to be a virtual lock to win Best Animated Feature oscar, yet in the last 2 years, someone else won(Wallace and Gromit + Happy Feet). They will probably win this year(who knows about Bee Season), but they are clearly no longer the only game in town.

So if you were a Disney shareholder, you might be pissed that they diluted their earnings by issuing $7 billion in stock for a studio whose highly reviewed yearly release might 'only' earn $100 mm in profit when all is said and done. At the end of the day, returns on investments drive the movie business just like any other business...

Giles

'The Wall-E' trailer didn't impress me in the slightest.

I agree. It was definately Pixar's weakest.

The Bus

Well, I remember when Cars came out it had a disappointing B.O. performance, bad enough it actually hurt Disney's stock.

I'm guessing Disney is probably more concerned about today's pipe bombings.

The Bus

There was a trailer? I remember seeing some chubby white guys talking about how great their older movies were, but that's about it.

Giles

yeah that's the problem right there...

oh pardon me, "teaser" not trailer.

misterchimpy

I think it will hold up reasonably well, but I am in the minority here thinking that Transformers and Harry Potter are going to have a negative impact. I think Transformers especially could hurt it, the demographic goes head to head with Rat, and it too, is getting good reviews. So if it can survive the onslaught, then the schedule is clear for 2 weeks after Harry Potter, but I dunno, that's 3 weeks from now, which is almost forever these days at the multiplex...

RichC2

Its possible, but there will be benefits from sold out showings.

Plus word has it this is easily the least entertaining Harry Potter film.

MadonnasManOne

Why are you showing so much hate towards Pixar? If you aren't a fan, that's fine, but, there's no need to be rude.

The Bus

What hate towards Pixar? I hate Cars and the shitty first half of the Wall-E teaser. Aside from Cars, I've seen every single one of their films.

fumanstan

I'm not. I actually preferred Cars to Nemo

misterchimpy

Yeah I just read the Hollywood Reporter review on RT, yeesh.
Although some of the other reviews weren't quite as negative, but they didn't exactly come off as ringing endorsements.

Puzznic

How can you hate a movie you've never seen?

hardercore

I'm sure The Bus prejudices like all the rest of us, and it's quite simple, really -- all you need to do is not even give it a chance, henchforth basing an overtly negative opinion on it on either speculation or word of mouth alone, and then go nuts touting how much hatred you have for it all over the interweb.

I can't even wait till I get the chance to sit down and write my review of Silence (2008) because I've got so much shittiness about it to write I think I'm going to explode

Puzznic

I can even understand being unsure about Cars before seeing it. I don't have much interest in cars or Nascar and the trailer didn't blow me away so I too was skeptical about how good Cars was going to turn out.

But,given Pixar's track record, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and I ended up liking the movie alot.

RichC2

Marty and his damn remakes! Awful AWFUL AWFUL! That movie will be HORRIBLE!

The Bus didn't slam Wall-E or any other Pixar movie that isn't Cars. He said he hated Cars (understandable) and didn't like the first half of the Wall-E trailer (which was a weak attempt at associating it with the Pixar classics)... I don't get how he's being prejudice against anything.