Ratatouille versus the sequels
Can Brad Bird's animated movie stand out in a season of look-alikes?
Apr 27, 2007
(Source: www.nytimes.com)
Next Tuesday promises to be Ratatouille Day, as Disney unleashes an all-day advertising blitz, climaxing with a 90-second spot on American Idol. It's intended to lure viewers over to Disney.com, so they can view a 9 and 1/2 minute clip from the film.
Why all the fuss? Ratatouille is one of Disney's biggest summer flicks, second only to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. But that's not the only reason why the studio wants Ratatouille in everybody's heads.
In a summer filled with movies like Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Shrek the Third, 28 Weeks Later, Hostel: Part II, Spider-Man 3 . . . you get the idea. Ratatouille is an original movie in a season of sequels. And it's giving Disney cold sweats.
Now that summer flicks are costing studios $100 million and up, executives prefer to bet on the sequel to a proven hit rather than risk an original idea. Not even a great script or an excellent director is enough to sell a flick if the audience isn't interested. For example: Ratatouille director Brad Bird's first effort was The Iron Giant, a critically acclaimed bomb.
In the past five years, only 20% of films that made more than $200 million in domestic box office were original-script movies. The other 80% were either sequels or an adaptation of an already successful work, such as New Line's Lord of the Rings.
“Branding is the word of the day and it will remain that way,” says Russell Schwartz, president of New Line Cinema’s domestic marketing. New Line is not moving from brand-name properties. Its 2007 season is filled with sequels like Rush Hour 3, an adaptation of a Broadway play (Hairspray!) and The Golden Compass, the first movie in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.
"It takes a lot more work (to promote an original movie),” says Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios. "The rewards can be unbelievable. But they’re clearly more difficult to market.”
Ratatouille is already a tough sell. The story of a rat (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who wants to become a great chef, the film lacks talking cars or costumed superheroes to make it appealing to kids. Even Bird admits the story has a bit of an "ick" factor to it. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"That ‘ick’ is something in our favour," says the director. “It makes the story more interesting.”
Ratatouille's main competition this summer is DreamWorks Animation's Shrek the Third. It’s a franchise that gets 90% of its gags from referencing other movies (especially Disney animated flicks). Shrek 2 made $460 million in North American theatres, becoming the 3rd most successful movie of all time. It's proof positive of the power of sequels.
Despite such evidence, Pixar, the studio behind Ratatouille, is against sequelizing their movies. Of the eight feature-length films they’ve produced since 1995, only one (Toy Story 2) was a sequel.
Pixar originally developed that policy as a "F*** you" to then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner: Pixar had signed a 7 picture distribution deal with the Mouse House but when John Lasseter delivered Toy Story 2 in 1999, Eisner informed Pixar that sequels weren't considered part of that deal.
The Emeryville studio has another reason to hate sequels: Disney's infamous "dreck-to-video" sequels had alienated animation fans, with the result that the animation division had only scored one animated hit (2002's Lilo and Stitch) since 1995.
Now that Pixar owns Disney, that policy has now changed to "no unnecessary sequels." Toy Story 3 is due in 2009. The Incredibles 2 may be in the works as well.
Every single one of Pixar’s films have been hits: some of them (2003's Finding Nemo) spectacularly so. However, as the studio's production costs have gone up, their films haven't been making as much money. 2004's The Incredibles (which Bird also directed) made $261 million, down from Finding Nemo's $340 million. 2006's Cars continued that trend, only making $244 million in domestic box office.
Those are still blockbuster numbers (Cars also made a ton of money in associated merchandise), but analysts have been noticing the slide. If it continues, Lasseter and Pixar may find themselves pressured to amend, or even scrap, their "no unnecessary sequels" policy.
This would be unfortunate, since Pixar is overflowing with ideas these days: along with Ratatouille, director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) is developing WALL-E, a film about a lonely robot that has almost no dialog during the first 3rd of the movie. It's only Pixar's perfect record of producing hits that allows them to get away with unusual films like these. But many people are wondering when Pixar's glass slipper is going to break.
Ratatouille opens June 29th.
