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

[Pluto Region1]

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.

Ok, thanks for posting this. So the MovieWeb is not that accurate, or the best source. I will use the other site. So Nemo was also a summer release yet it did really well.... I still think the economy can play a part in this - gas is $3+ a gallon and people have less discretionary spending. There could be other factors.

As for The Incredibles, it's second weekend (Friday-Sunday), brought in $50,251,359.00,

that is a heck of a lot of money on a 2nd weekend!

On average, most films will spend around 4 weeks at peak theater counts, before a number of theaters begin to drop the film.

We were by our theater today and it was taken off the marquee! They had added a line that said "coming Jun 27th - Superman" so it was possible they just removed "cars" so they'd have room for that announcement. I came home and checked on yahoo.com and it still shows it playing... I need to try and get over there again to see it just one more time (it will be my second time)

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.

I think that is very interesting; thanks Madonnas for the insight! I also wonder if world population growth makes it likely that old totals like for Toy Story are easily surpassed these days because there are just so many more people with more access these days to theaters, than in the past?

[magicalwands]

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.

I think that is very interesting; thanks Madonnas for the insight! I also wonder if world population growth makes it likely that old totals like for Toy Story are easily surpassed these days because there are just so many more people with more access these days to theaters, than in the past?

That and Toy Story was the first 3d animated movie. Right? And now since there are more CGI movies around, it would make more if it was released this year.

[dvdjunkie]

Here's something of interest for those of you who haven't seen Cars more than once.

They have a little game that they play on one of our local radio stations about what you see in a movie. One listener reported that she saw decals on the race cars of all six of the other Pixar films characters. I have only seen Mr. Incredible and Nemo, and I recognize that the tires and the blimp say Lightyear on them. Has anyone else spotted the other decals of characters from the other Pixar films?

Also, I went tonight to see Cars for the fifth time, and to my surprise they only were showing the trailer for "Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest before the movie. But, and this was the biggest surprise. When I saw the movie in the same theater last week they were showing "Mickey's Trailer" as an added short subject. Tonight we got to see the inspiration for "Cars" - they are showing "Susie The Little Blue Coupe" this week until Thursday. They will change to another short on Friday when they drop down from showing "Cars" in five theaters down to two.

Just thought you would like to know what is going on here in Kansas.

[Pluto Region1]

I never get why people are in <i>such</i> a rush to leave the movie theater.... Sort of like how all things Christmas begin in November and come to a screeching halt on Christmas night.

I have to agree! That has always bothered me how Xmas just abruptly ends on the one day. "Welp done with that, time to move on." The whole next day is just a massive feeding frenzy at the "after Xmas Sale" - it is the same thing every year.... And its one of the reasons I can't stand New Years Eve; it is the same mentality: "Let's get rid of this year, yeah!" (Everyone gets drunk and has one big hangover the next day). Not me, boy. I do NOT celebrate that "holiday" AT ALL. I am not into trashing what was otherwise a perfectly good last year (a year where I was one year younger) in favor of some uncertain upcoming year.

But back to the topic of what is the mad rush to get out of the theater-maybe they are trying to beat it out of the parking lot before it gets jammed up?

[Pluto Region1]

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.

I believe there are some Forum members who work for Disney. But if not, every Disney fan should be at least somewhat concerned about the health of TWDC. There are likely a lot of people's jobs riding on the success or failure of this movie. An article was published in the New York Times in late May saying that Disney might be laying off 5% to 10% of their staff at the Walt Disney Studios Division possibly this summer - Disney would not confirm this. The article went on to say the lay-offs are because supposedly the movie division is not doing well or as well as they'd like.... I don't want to be a kill-joy but just pointing out that for some people this is bread and butter. of course Disney is a large conglomerate with deep pockets and a lot of diversified assets and divisions but the movie division is a big chunk of its change.

As for myself, I am doing the best I can for it to be a success (although I won't come close to seeing the film as many times as you, DVDjunkie!); today I bought some Cars "dice" that you hang from your rear view mirror and I also bought the "Luigi" stuffed pillow (doll?) - its a stuffed car. I just couldn't resist. (Keep me out of the Disney store; I'd spend my last dime there!)

[kbehm29]

(Keep me out of the Disney store; I'd spend my last dime there!)

I HAVE spent my last dime there!

[magicalwands]

Ahhh, I need to visit the Disney Store soon. Good idea Pluto Region1!

What exactly are your dice called?

[Pluto Region1]

Ahhh, I need to visit the Disney Store soon. Good idea Pluto Region1!

What exactly are your dice called?

They are like the Pillow Luigi I just bought so they are not "hard" dice. They retail for $7.50 and on the tag it says "Mirror Dice." Might be able to buy them online at the Disneyshopping.com site. (come to think of it, I have not checked them out to see what they have).

Oh, the cute bed tray they have - it is too small for an adult to use. It is really nice though. One of my biggest pet peeves is the merchandise - alot of the cool stuff they make comes only in kid's sizes. There was one style T-shirt for adults at the Disney store (rather plain and was a grey T-shirt) and you can get an adult-sized baseball cap at the Disney store- there's 2 styles - one was red with a blue logo and the other one was black. From what I recall, they were under $10. The size large (baseball cap) will fit an adult sized head. They had these cool T-shirts with nice pixar cars logo on the bottom and one was black and had "Ramone" on it and said something about "for the best paint job in town" or something. It was really cute, but of course they only had it in kids' sizes. The T-shirts were about $8/each. The Target "cars" T-shirts in the kids section will fit an adult and they are about $7/each.

I apologize for momentarily hijacking the thread.

[Pluto Region1]

I HAVE spent my last dime there!

LOL

You know now they got gift cards for the Disney store. On your next birthday or for Xmas request a gift card. I'm sure glad they think of these things over at Disney!

[brownie]

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 personally cannot stand when music is played during the end credits. Well, I don't mind instrumental stuff, but anything that's too fast-paced or has vocals in it is just awkward for me in the end of movies. I'm not sure why, but it is.

[dvdjunkie]

How many of the 14 tributes from Pixar have you found in Cars?

1. The tires on the race cars and the blimp is "Lightyear"

2. The decal of Mr. Incredible on the blue car in the first race.

3. The decal of Woody on the red car in the California race.

4. When the camera pans the crowd in the California racetrack, watch the right hand bottom corner for some darker colored cars in the form of Mickey Mouse ears.

5. When the camera is panning up from the track through the crowd to the announcer's booth, watch for the Pizza truck from Toy Story.

There are nine (9) more, and I guess I am going to have to go look for them at least once more this weekend, then I will wait for the DVD and find those that I can't find in the theater.

[memnv]

There are others like:

Mater's license plate reads "A113", yet another reference to the animation room at California Institute of the Arts, where many Pixar animators studied. Also, the lights on the train that almost hit Lightning say "A113"

The character Lightning McQueen is a reference to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar animator who died in 2002.

If you look closely at one of the racing cars, it's white, has the Apple logo, and the number is 84. 1984 was the year Apple released the Macintosh, the computer the revolutionized Apple as a company. Pixar was previously owned by Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple.

Among the cities closed for race day is the city of Emeryville, California, the home of Pixar.

[PR Fan]

Dinoco and the Lightyear Tires were the only ones i truly noticed

I finally saw This and my only problem's were the Kids in the Movie Theatre(I thought there wasn't supposed to be a lot of talking while the show was playing), and The Length between The Previews and the Actual Film Start. I loved One Man Band and The Ratoutille trailer, seen Monster House Trailer twice i think today and Before Over the Hedge and also Invincible looks good.

[Pluto Region1]

Ahhh, I need to visit the Disney Store soon. Good idea Pluto Region1!

What exactly are your dice called?

Yeah and today I found out there's another Disney store in the Arcadia mall (Calif.) and they have different merchandise than the one in Glendale did. They had more adult sized shirts - better selections... so go to different stores because they'll have different stuff.

[Pluto Region1]

Mater's license plate reads "A113", yet another reference to the animation room at California Institute of the Arts, where many Pixar animators studied. Also, the lights on the train that almost hit Lightning say "A113".... The character Lightning McQueen is a reference to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar animator who died in 2002.

OMG, you and dvdjunkie are awesome! See, there are good reasons to see a film 4 or 5 times! Wow that is really interesting that they put all these references to Pixar lore/history in the film. Tell me, did they do this in previous Pixar films (is the a continuing tradition?) or is this something new they did since this was the last of the films they were doing, they threw in references to all their past films, like the grand finale?

[Disneykid]

Mater's license plate reads "A113", yet another reference to the animation room at California Institute of the Arts, where many Pixar animators studied. Also, the lights on the train that almost hit Lightning say "A113".... The character Lightning McQueen is a reference to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar animator who died in 2002.

OMG, you and dvdjunkie are awesome! See, there are good reasons to see a film 4 or 5 times! Wow that is really interesting that they put all these references to Pixar lore/history in the film. Tell me, did they do this in previous Pixar films (is the a continuing tradition?) or is this something new they did since this was the last of the films they were doing, they threw in references to all their past films, like the grand finale?

Every Pixar movie's got references to films that came before it. I was originally going to list as many as I could, but realized that there are WAY too many to name here. Just go to IMDb's trivia pages for each Pixar movie to see all the references and in-jokes they've done.

[MadonnasManOne]

Estimates are in for Cars, which pulled in $22,540,000.00 during the weekend (Friday-Sunday). This represents only a 33.2% drop from the previous weekend. If the estimates hold, this brings Cars domestic box office total to $155,923,000.00. At this point, Cars is only $418,118.00 behind Monster's Inc., during the same number of days in theaters, which is 17 days. Monster's Inc. went on to earn $255,873,250.00. So, it appears that Cars is holding strong at the box office, and is far from the failure that some predicted it would be. In my opinion, Pixar is 7 for 7!

At any rate, it is a very enjoyable film, and I hope that if you haven't seen it, yet, you will. I plan to see it again, before it leaves theaters. I just don't know if I can stand waiting for the DVD release!

[MadonnasManOne]

Final totals are in, and Cars brought in a little bit more than estimated. For the Friday-Sunday period, Cars pulled in $23,285,367.00, a 31% drop from the previous weekend. Cars now has a domestic total of $156,664,916.00!

Worldwide, Cars has brought in $172,072,916.00.

[Pluto Region1]

At this point, Cars is only $418,118.00 behind Monster's Inc., during the same number of days in theaters, which is 17 days. Monster's Inc. went on to earn $255,873,250.00. So, it appears that Cars is holding strong at the box office, and is far from the failure that some predicted it would be. In my opinion, Pixar is 7 for 7!

WooHoo!!!

That is great! I was just at Target and they are still sold out of the Cars CD/AM-FM player (as well as most of the merchandise), so I am glad I didn't return the one I'd bought... since I'm not supposed to spend any more money on Cars promotional stuff, I have to find a nice way to break it to Mike that I'm keeping it instead of giving it to my nephew for his Bday.

(my sister didn't seem too thrilled with the idea of me giving her 7 year old a CD player).

[BrandonH]

I've seen Cars twice now, and it was spectacular both times. In every way, Pixar hit this one out of the park. The music was so good that the soundtrack will be the first from Pixar that I end up buying. All of the Radiator Springs characters were funny, charming, and full of heart. Luigi, Guido, Sarge, Fillmore, and Mater are my favorites. As for the rest of it, just reread Jake Lipson's review on the first page, and you'll find me in total agreement.

It boggles my mind why people get up as soon as they see credits start rolling. For one thing, there is always a chance of a surprise after the credits. The first Pirates, Glory Road, X3, and Cars are just some of the recent movies to include a little surprise for the patient. Even if it's just credits and music, isn't it better to watch that than the crummy commercials and trailers before the movie? Like Luke said, it's also a time to reflect on what you've just seen and soak up the moment.

I did my part for Cars merchandise sales. I bought the stuffed Lightning and Mater from the Disney Store.