‘Eclipse’, ‘Toy Story’ Income Gone With The Wind
This was not a great week for big
box office blockbusters. Let’s look at this week’s quarter-billion dollar money
machine.
Twilight: Eclipse took
a dive!
Okay, let’s define “dive.” Eclipse made $161 million in its first
five days, and that’s good by anybody’s standards. But… It brought in 43% of those bucks in its first day. After that,
it was just another big movie. Even the opening day revenue was down 6% from New Moon. So where did this drop-off
come from?
Women.
No kidding. They accounted for 80%
of the New Moon audience, but only
65% of the Eclipse audience thus far.
But $161 million, plus another $100 million overseas (that’s more than a
quarter-billion bucks, or $36,000 a minute!),
seems like a lot of money, doesn’t it?
In Hollywood, perception rules the
day and reality doesn’t save your job. Eclipse
was expected to exceed the $200 million brought in by Transformers Two during its had a five-day start. If you don’t make
your projections, you’re a failure – at least temporarily.
So is Eclipse a bomb? Certainly not. Is it a disappointment? Yes it is…
thus far. The missing repeat business enjoyed by the previous two Twilight movies might come in
eventually, but one thing is sadly clear: the Twilight saga has lost some if its bite.
Now you’d have to be some sort of
Russian commie to hate Toy Story 3,
wouldn’t you? Well, the Rooskies certainly did not love Toy Story 3. It bombed. It took in less than $5 million in its
first ten days. Shrek Forever After
did almost eight times that business.
According to the Los Angeles Times, adults found Toy Story 3 to be too much of a kids
flick. Okay, fine. But does Russia have a shortage of children? As it turns
out, yes it does. Russia has endured terrible heat waves in its metropolitan
areas, and kids have been hustled out to cooler climates. Still, $5 million
sucks. Toy Story 3 was the first of
the series to be released in Russia, so perhaps the adults felt lost in the
backstory. I saw Home Alone 2 without
seeing the first one, so maybe I can understand that.
Well, maybe not.
It’s always fun to watch Disney
take one in the neck, but I can’t help but believe that bombing in Russia would
have made Walt Disney a happy man.
, 
At an online press conference preceding this month’s Licensing Show, Walt Disney outlined their plans for 2011 and the future. Andy Mooney, president of Disney Consumer Products, hosted the event and emphasized that the company’s properties were all being evaluated for exploitation in all forms, using the phrase “newness” to cover technology and “value” to explain multi-figure packaging.
I think it’s fairly safe to begin talking about 
by stipulating that they’re amazing. Most, if not all, of you have no doubt seen these Pixar films in the movie theaters if not on cable or DVD.
There’s a documentary about to open, [[[Waking Sleeping Beauty]]], focusing on the decade that saw Walt Disney Studios regain their mojo and produce a new generation of wonderful animated films beginning with [[[The Little Mermaid]]]. I’m really looking forward to seeing how that happened but we all know how it ends. Pixar’s CGI efforts arrived with [[[Toy Story]]] and suddenly 2-D movies looked like something from a fairy tale, old and tired. Disney shuttered the animation department.
Pixar burst onto the scene with [[[Toy Story]]] and proved that they were the successor to Walt Disney Studios by providing heart-warming, funny family-friendly animation, using pixels instead of paintbrushes. They followed up with [[[A Bug’s Life]]], which was another success, and they came right back with [[[Toy Story 2]]] which was an expected smash. The question was back then, how long could they sustain the hits and the level of quality. A lot was riding on their fourth release, 
You have to wonder if the April’s Fools stories are coming out early… but apparently not. According to Variety, Disney will release producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s family-targeted live-action movie The Sorcerer’s Apprentice on July 16, 2010. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice joins two other Disney kid/family-centric pictures set for that summer: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, set for May 28, and Pixar’s Toy Story 3, which opens July 18.
3-D is all the rage and Disney is jumping on the fad with both mouse-sized feet. Yesterday, they announced that their classic Beauty and the Beast will receive the three-dimensional treatment. The existing film will be put through Disney Digital 3-D technology according to 
With Freddie Highmore on board to voice Astro Boy in the Warner Bros. CGI reincarnation of the classic anime series, one has to wonder what role Kristen Bell will play. She has recently been linked to the project along with Nicolas Cage, Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland, Eugene Levy and Nathan Lane. The movie is due out in spring 2009.
Meantime, Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel, comes up from under the sea to lend her voice as Barbie to Michael Keaton’s Ken in Toy Story 3. The film, coming June 18, 2010, of course reunites voice actors Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as the toy’s owner, Andy, moves on to college.
On this day in 1995, Disney and Pixar released 
