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Apparently not everyone is as unsettled as I am by the story of a rodent cooking meals at a restaurant, his grubby little hands all over the oregano. The cartoon Ratatouille claimed the top spot in the North American box office this week, selling $47.2 million in tickets. While Entertainment Weekly noted that the unlikely pairing of the feel-good family film with the fourth installment of the Die Hard series was "just the right ingredients to bring the box office back to life," CNNMoney.com reports that Ratatouille's opening was "the lowest ... for a Pixar movie in nine years." The film's receipts failed to live up to expectations, which were in the $50 million to $65 million range ahead of the opening weekend.
Pixar -- A ground-breaking animation company founded by Steve Jobs, was acquired by The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) last year for $7.4 billion. It has released eight full-length animated feature films, beginning with Toy Story in 1995. The studio's previous release, Cars, banked $60.1 million in its opening weekend a year ago, earning $244 million domestically by the end of its run.
If Ratatouille follows a similar path at the box office, it will bank a total of about $189 million in the U.S., making it the 3rd consecutive Pixar release to fall short of its predecessor. It would also be the smallest profit for Pixar since A Bug's Life, which was released in 1998 and earned $163 million during its stay in U.S. theaters.
Second-place finisher, the Bruce-Willis led Live Free or Die Hard, earned $33.2 million over the weekend and has seen ticket sales of $48.2 million since opening last Wednesday. The first Die Hard chapter since 1995's Die Hard: With a Vengeance was released by News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) 20th Century Fox.
Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.
Second-place finisher, the Bruce-Willis led Live Free or Die Hard, earned $33.2 million over the weekend and has seen ticket sales of $48.2 million since opening last Wednesday. The first Die Hard chapter since 1995's Die Hard: With a Vengeance was released by News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) 20th Century Fox.
Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-03-2007 @ 3:09PM
Richard Varsalona said...
I have been a pixar shareholder since a short time after toy story 1 was released.Having made about 700 % profit on the stock i feel i have as much or more expertise on the subject as any analyst.3facts to consider .Movie analysts are often wrong when determining what the public will like.Pixar has no peers in animation or storyline.There has been a pixar release that did better in the 2nd weekend.
I feel very confident that if the film is in theatres for 6 more weekends it will have no problem reaching 200 million domestically and over 500 million worldwide