CARS - What did everyone think? (SPOILERS INSIDE!)

[Timon/Pumbaa fan]

Why must you do this, Timon/Pumbaa fan? Why must you always be negative? Luke was only looking at the facts, as they were. That is, Jim Hill was putting a negative spin on Cars, by making it look like the film was doing much worse than it actually is. As Luke stated, this is a summer film, and it has a longer amount of time to make money over the course of the summer. This has been proven by the fact that Cars brought in a steady stream of money through the weekday's, without having a HUGE drop in totals after the heavy loaded weekend.

I just don't understand what it is that you have against Pixar, and the fact that their films do well. You can deny it all you want, but, I've seen so many posts where you make negative comments about them, and their films. You are just going to have to accept the fact that Pixar is a part of Disney, that they ARE successful, and that people do enjoy their films. At least give them credit where credit is due. Thank you.

I also want to add, that if the estimates for this weekend hold, Cars will remain #1 at the Box Office, for a second weekend, despite four new wide releases! Stick that in your tailpipes and smoke it!

I think you're looking too much at my 3 short sentence post MM1!

I'm not trying to prove Cars is a failure, I'll say it right now, "it's a success", I think all Jim Hill was trying to say was it was disappointing when compared to Pixar's other work, and this week's scores proves that statement to be true so I think Jim Hill is more right than Luke gives him credit for, wasn't trying to knock Pixar in this particular case.

FYI: I don't hope Cars is a failure. I actually hope it tops Nemo and is Pixar's biggest grossing movie, however, I think with Superman coming next week, I think Cars will have a bumpy road to pass that record..

[lord-of-sith]

I saw this earlier today (yeah I'm a bit late) and I thought it ranked right up there with all of Pixar's films. The ending credits were some of the most hilarious stuff I've ever seen. The animation was incredible (yeah, I do feel bad for the other sub-par films trailers placed before it). So, now my Pixar rankings go as follows...

1. The Incredibles
2. Monster's Inc.
3. Toy Story 2
4. Cars
5. Toy Story
6. A Bug's Life
7. Finding Nemo

But, there almost all tied in my book.

[magicalwands]

I am so mad right now. My church has a Youth Group for vietnamese kids and teens (I'm in it.) They have an annual camp every summer where they gather the other 13 groups from other cities/churches. This year I didn't go, but I heard the WORST news. The leaders set up a big projection screen and played Cars illegally for all the kids and teens. I would've felt angrier if I had gone, but man, I would've loved to walk up to the laptop they were playing it with, press the eject button, and break the disc in front of everyone. Or maybe I'm just overreacting over a little event and a big jerk.

[2099net]

48.1%? That's only 1.9 percent away from 50%! So Luke, it looks like "people fooling" Jim Hill wasn't too far off.

I must admit, I'm shocked by this figure. (As I said in my post one or two before Luke's, I wasn't expecting the drop-off to be anything close to 50%). However, I still say Cars will remain running in the cinemas far longer than X-Men etc ever will.

[humphreybear]

we have a two year old boy and screend this one. We didn't screen "the wild" and went with friends who also have a two-year-old girl, and the weird wildebeast stuff in it got to her. I liked Cars. It wasn't toy story or monster's inc or nemo, but I liked it better than incredibles. I was surprised that I liked the music, I figured I wouldn't. I also thought that some of the voices might get on my nerves, but they didn't. The story was OK. The animation was amazing. Wow. There were times when I thought the animators were just showing off, it was that amazing. I laughed at a lot of things. We won't take our son, he'll wait for a year or two and see the dvd. The race scenes, especially at first, were a little too loud and intense for him. I also didn't think some of the name-calling langauge (stupid, moron, idiot, fool) was necessary. Better for young kids than incredibles was, our child will see cars before he sees that one.

[MadonnasManOne]

Actual totals are in, and Cars actually did better than estimates. Cars pulled in $33,731,634 over the Friday-Sunday period, bringing it's ten day total to $117,055,283. This represents a 43.9% drop from the previous weekend. Not bad, at all!

[Pluto Region1]

Actual totals are in, and Cars actually did better than estimates. Cars pulled in $33,731,634 over the Friday-Sunday period, bringing it's ten day total to $117,055,283. This represents a 43.9% drop from the previous weekend. Not bad, at all!

I am looking at Movieweb for this info, and it seems to be off by $2M on its box office totals <a href="http://www.movieweb.com/movies/boxoffice/">MovieWeb Cars Totals</a>. I went there to look up the numbers for the Incredibles, which was released in November 2004. The Incredibles grossed $70,486,000 in 1st weekend release, and by the following weekend, it was at $143,258,000.... don't know the total JUST for the 2nd weekend (takes a bit of math and not sure I'd get it right). But my question is, could the totals between these 2 movies be influenced by the time of year? Seems that even Hill's own article suggests that June is a slow month for box office revenues. And perhaps films do better during the Thanksgiving Holiday season? In which case, it is not really fair to compare the 2 films.

Also, it appears Incredibles ran from opening day to the last day of December? That means basically just under 2 mos. in the theaters? I wonder how it is determined how long a film remains at the theaters. I always thought they pulled a movie from a theater after 3 weeks. I didnt make it to the theaters this weekend, and with my sister's baby due sometime in the next week or so, and a heavy workload this week, I may have wait until next week to catch it.

[Pluto Region1]

I think you're looking too much at my 3 short sentence post MM1!

I'm not trying to prove Cars is a failure, I'll say it right now, "it's a success", I think all Jim Hill was trying to say was it was disappointing when compared to Pixar's other work, and this week's scores proves that statement to be true so I think Jim Hill is more right than Luke gives him credit for, wasn't trying to knock Pixar in this particular case.

Well I have a different take on Hill's piece - I actually don't think he had a personal ax to grind against Cars, or that he hopes it tanks, but I thought after reading his article, that he was just trying to explain what the Wall Street view point was.

[MadonnasManOne]

Actual totals are in, and Cars actually did better than estimates. Cars pulled in $33,731,634 over the Friday-Sunday period, bringing it's ten day total to $117,055,283. This represents a 43.9% drop from the previous weekend. Not bad, at all!

I am looking at Movieweb for this info, and it seems to be off by $2M on its box office totals <a href="http://www.movieweb.com/movies/boxoffice/">MovieWeb Cars Totals</a>. I went there to look up the numbers for the Incredibles, which was released in November 2004. The Incredibles grossed $70,486,000 in 1st weekend release, and by the following weekend, it was at $143,258,000.... don't know the total JUST for the 2nd weekend (takes a bit of math and not sure I'd get it right). But my question is, could the totals between these 2 movies be influenced by the time of year? Seems that even Hill's own article suggests that June is a slow month for box office revenues. And perhaps films do better during the Thanksgiving Holiday season? In which case, it is not really fair to compare the 2 films.

Also, it appears Incredibles ran from opening day to the last day of December? That means basically just under 2 mos. in the theaters? I wonder how it is determined how long a film remains at the theaters. I always thought they pulled a movie from a theater after 3 weeks. I didnt make it to the theaters this weekend, and with my sister's baby due sometime in the next week or so, and a heavy workload this week, I may have wait until next week to catch it.

MovieWeb appears to be posting the estimated totals. The actual totals came in, and Cars brought in more money than estimated. BoxOfficeMojo.com is accurate with their posted actual totals. While June hasn't done as well for Cars as Disney/Pixar might have hoped, the summer months were very good to Finding Nemo, which is the only other Pixar film to be released during the summer.

As for The Incredibles, it's second weekend (Friday-Sunday), brought in $50,251,359.00, bringing it's 10 day total to $143,255,844.00. As you know, The Incredibles ended it's run at $261,441,092.00. The Incredibles opened on November 4th, 2004, and was tracked for over 77 days. The film officially closed, just a few days shy of the DVD release.

On average, most films will spend around 4 weeks at peak theater counts, before a number of theaters begin to drop the film. Of course, there is always the second-run places, which are generally considered the dollar theaters. We have several around here, and even some of those will have days where you can see a film for .50 cents.

At this point, it appears that Cars may be Pixar's fifth highest grossing film. It will probably pass the gross for Toy Story, which was $191,796,233.00, but, I do not know if it will surpass the totals of Toy Story 2, which grossed $245,852,179.00.

Here is a link to BoxOfficeMojo.com's Pixar franchise information. You can click on the different films, to compare it with other Pixar films.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises ... =pixar.htm

Enjoy!

[dvdjunkie]

I really don't care what a movie grosses, those figures are just that figures. The movie's entertainment value is of more interest to me, as a movie-goer, not whether it's income matched the previous release or how does it compare to others.

If Cars only did $10 million its first week and went down, doesn't mean that the movie is a flop. Why do movie's cash income determine whether it is a good movie or not? I have never figured out what to the average person who goes to a movie should be concerned whether it is going to be a hit or a miss. We should go to a movie because it something we want to see, and hope to add to our collection when it is released on DVD.

Okay, I know that a studio revolves around profits just like everything else, so be it. I don't think we, as members of a Disney site, should lose sleep over whether a movie does $00 million or only $7million in its release. I know it is something to talk about, but I guess I am different.......I just don't care.

I am preparing to see Cars for the sixth time this weekend, and I think it is an absolutely marvelous movie and Pixar should hold their collective heads high, because it has attracted so many return visitors to the movie theater. I have talked to a lot of people who are seeing this movie for a second or third time. To me that is what is important, not that stupid dollar figure, because somewhere down the line it will come out that the movie numbers are all fixed for a certain area of the country.

Let's forget about numbers, and look at entertainment value, and whether or not we want to include this movie in our collection. What a movie makes in dollars is important to the studios, I know that, but why should we let that determine whether it is a hit or not?

Long live Lightning McQueen and his bunch.

[2099net]

But the numbers for Cars are important, because Disney has to justify the $8bn purcahse of Pixar to its shareholders. That's how business works. If the city doesn't have confidence in Disney's investments, they stop investing themselves.

Cars is much more important, with more riding on it, than Chicken Little had. Its also a got a lot riding on it as the studios second biggest film of 2007 (after POTCII) - all the box office figures, DVD sales and merchandise sales must be projected into Disney's 2007 earnings, and even a small percentage shortfall can seriously impact on final yearly earnings. Even the "lower than expected" DVD sales of The Incredibles shook the company financially.

I don't see it as a failure, but - let's face it - it should have done better. But a lot of Disney's other films should have done better. Much better in some respects. But that's life. Anything with large investment is a gamble, by definition - or else everyone would be making hit movies with $60m+ opening weekends.

And besides, Disney hasn't just spent $25bn on a televison network which was bleeding money, like they did with ABC under Eisner. However, its probably the memoary of this which is making some of the analysts over-cautious with the Pixar deal.

Oh and here's something from an analyst nobody else has picked up on:

Miller said "Cars" earned less than "The Incredibles" and "Finding Nemo" because it was the longest Pixar film at a full two hours. That limited its run at theaters to five screenings per day, where shorter animated films can usually be shown six times per day.

[Luke]

<i>Cars</i> is performing a bit weaker than some (those who believe Pixar are just about the greatest thing in cinema today, a class to which I belong) would hope for. The running time argument doesn't really figure next to <i>The Incredibles</i> since the difference is like, what, a minute? Even with a lot of screens/showings, that makes zero difference. But it is worth considering next to <i>Monsters</i>, the <i>Toy Story</i> movies, and <i>A Bug's Life</i>. As is the fact that it is a summer release and weekday business is better than just about everything but <i>Finding Nemo</i>.

To call a movie destined for over $200 million a flop is stupid, but then look at <i>King Kong</i>, a movie the media was predicting to become the next <i>Titanic</i>, which wound up never came very close to catching <i>Narnia</i> or <i>Harry Potter</i>. And you can see why even a movie putting up huge numbers can be disappointing. I think we don't need someone like Jim Hill to skew the numbers one way or another to make up our mind on a film's financial success. (Look at the way he's written about <i>Chicken Little</i> and <i>Dinosaur</i>, respectively, in contrast to their respective grosses and the significance of them.)

Slightly off-topic, Netty, do you have a source for <i>The Incredibles</i>' DVD sales being "lower than expected"? Are you just referring to the high number of returns, which really seem due to retailers getting more copies than they should have? Because the sales themselves seemed solid and head and shoulders above the competition. Actually, looking over the number of units <i>TI</i> sold compared to <i>Monsters, Inc.</i> and <i>Nemo</i>, I guess one could call its performance "lower than expected." But that seems indicative of across-the-board lower DVD sales numbers. For instance, <i>Incredibles</i> would have only been the third highest-selling DVD of 2003, slightly outdoing <i>Pirates</i>, even though it had an additional 8 months on shelves. Feel free to disregard this last paragraph and this entire post!

[2099net]

Yes, it was due to returns and the general downturn in title sales (mainly because customers have more titles now then ever before to choose from). I don't think it was a reflection on quality or artistic merit of the film.

I don't know who overestimated the potential sales, Disney, the retailers or a bit of both, but they didn't sell as many as they were accounting for.

http://www.animationmagazine.net/articl ... le_id=4168

While The Incredibles easily vanquished the competition on home video, sales haven’t quite met Disney’s expectations, leading Pixar to revise earnings projections for its second quarter. The toon juggernaut has modified its earlier forecast of roughly $0.15 per diluted share to approximately $0.10, a net income difference of around $6 million.

"The Incredibles is the best-selling home video title of 2005 to date, and we continue to expect it to generate home video revenues similar to Monsters, Inc.," Pixar CEO Steve Jobs said during a conference call Thursday. "But based on the most recent sell-through information, we have opted to be more cautious with respect to our second quarter home video reserves."

According to Simon Bax, Pixar’s exec VP and chief financial officer, gross worldwide home video wholesale revenues for The Incredibles before distribution fees are projected to be $450 million through the second quarter, putting it on par with Monsters, Inc. but 7% below original estimates.

[kbehm29]

I think it's high time for ALL distributors to be tuning down their DVD sales forecasts. There's just too much to choose from out there.

Hopefully they didn't over-project this figure for Cars, so there will be no more disappointment...deserved or not deserved.

On another note - I forgot to mention that the second time I saw Cars in the theatres, everybody was walking out even during the midst of the whole spoof on Pixar thing during the credits. I couldn't believe they wouldn't take the time to sit an extra two minutes to enjoy it. And by the time the very end minivan thing came on, there was only one other family besides ours.

[Luke]

On another note - I forgot to mention that the second time I saw Cars in the theatres, everybody was walking out even during the midst of the whole spoof on Pixar thing during the credits. I couldn't believe they wouldn't take the time to sit an extra two minutes to enjoy it. And by the time the very end minivan thing came on, there was only one other family besides ours.

I never get why people are in <i>such</i> a rush to leave the movie theater even when there is nothing special going on during the end credits. I mean, you just paid how ever many dollars and just sat in the dark for two hours...what's the rush? Why is taking a moment to collect your thoughts, belongings, trash so weird/unheard of?

It can't be about beating the crowd, because everyone leaves then. If you want to avoid the crowd, you're better off sitting through a minute of end credits. And if it's about being cool, well nothing is as cool as getting up, starting to leave, and then just standing there (or sitting back down) because something interesting is still being offered.

It just bothers me why a leisurely outing turns chaotic so quickly as if even a great movie doesn't deserve a few seconds of reflection upon ending. Sort of like how all things Christmas begin in November and come to a screeching halt on Christmas night.

[/completely irrelevant non-<i>Cars</i> specific rant]

[kbehm29]

LOL - after the whole X-Men: The Last Stand fiasco, I've made it a personal policy never to leave the theatre until the screen goes back to blank!

Anyway - you're right Luke. Sometimes you need to just take a few moments to 'smell the....credits'.

[PixarFan2006]

I justt got back from seeing Cars. I thought it was pretty good. it had a few funny moments and the short One Man Band was entertaining too. I liked the car spoofs of other pixar films during the credits. I give cars a 8/10.

i thought a bugs life was the weakest pixar film IMO.

[Jake Lipson]

In the end I expect that Cars will land between the two Toy Story films ($191m for the original, $245m for the sequel) in terms of domestic gross.

Right now it seems to me to be most comparable to something like last summer's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was also a broad hit that still skewed largely family. That one opened with $56 million, was reasonably leggy and ultimately ended its run with $206m, which was good for the fourth biggest grosser of last summer. (It fell behind Star Wars, War of the Worlds and its sparring partner Wedding Crashers, but actulally outgrossed Warner Bros.' other big tentpole for last summer, Batman Begins, by about $1m.) Of course, it should be noted that that one did all of its business in a much shorter ammount of time; it opened on July 15 and officially closed December 8, but was on DVD by November 8, which essentially halted its boxoffice totals. Cars, by comparison, is expected on DVD in November of this year, which will give it an extra month and a half to perform than Charlie had (although to be fair, Charlie also had less competition for the family audience.)

Thoughts?

[dvdjunkie]

What's with the double post JL? You just hit the submit button once and that won't happen.




Just a note to all, I know that what a movie makes interests the studios, but none of us belong to the studio or depend on it to support us, so we should just ignore it and enjoy the movies for what they are. If you are a stockholder then there is probably a concern, but if you aren't, just let it go.

Maybe it is the age thing again, but box office figures have never impressed me, and never have. I go to see a movie because it is something I want to see and not because it is making all sorts of money.

[MadonnasManOne]

Just a note to all, I know that what a movie makes interests the studios, but none of us belong to the studio or depend on it to support us, so we should just ignore it and enjoy the movies for what they are. If you are a stockholder then there is probably a concern, but if you aren't, just let it go.

Maybe it is the age thing again, but box office figures have never impressed me, and never have. I go to see a movie because it is something I want to see and not because it is making all sorts of money.

Bill, just because we are talking about the box office totals, doesn't mean we do not enjoy the film for what it is. I happen to love it! That doesn't stop me from discussing it's box office totals. I like talking numbers, even if they mean nothing to me.