From the Orlando Sentinel
Tucked inside an animation building in Disney’s HollywoodStudios, costumed versions of the characters from Up, the most recent hit film from the Walt Disney Co.‘s Pixar Animation Studios, have emerged as a modestly popular attraction this summer.
At any given point of the day, a small line of families waits for autographs and photos with Carl Fredricksen, the movie’s 78-year-old hero, and two other characters. Fredericksen sometimes sets aside his walking cane to waltz with a waiting mom.
But it may be a long time before Fredricksen and the rest of Up‘s stars are given a bigger stage at Walt Disney World. Disney executives don’t envision the film as one that will be splashed across the rest of its entertainment properties.
“We definitely have a hit on our hands. But Up is not the kind of movie that’s going to generate the kind of multiplatform-franchise success of movies like Cars or Toy Story or other movies that we have in the pipeline, like the princess movies,” Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger said during a recent conference call.
Iger’s comments underscore the challenges Disney faces in transferring the most recent films from Pixar, the animation powerhouse it acquired three years ago, from movie screens to theme parks.
Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up have all been critically and commercially successful movies. But each is built around unconventional characters — a French rat, a nearly wordless robot and an elderly widower — that don’t necessarily lend themselves to rides, shows and souvenirs.
That’s particularly true when compared with Pixar’s earlier movies, which have revolved around more-easily marketed characters such as clown fish, race cars and action figures.
The challenges aren’t unique to Disney’s theme parks; they also affect everything from toy licensing to video games. And they come as the company attempts to navigate a steep drop in consumer spending.
Pixar’s most recent films “are less valuable franchises. They’re valuable, but they’re less valuable,” said David Bank, a media analyst with RBC Capital Markets. “They don’t really highlight that extra, that secret sauce that Disney brings to the table, which is the ability to monetize across platforms.
“It’s the difference between a solid single and a double versus a home run,” Bank added.
Big on sequels
It’s one reason that executives in Disney’s Burbank, Calif., corporate headquarters appear more excited about some of Pixar’s upcoming animated films: Toy Story 3 and Cars 2.
“Toy Story 3 … that’s a real franchise,” Iger said during the same conference call. “You see Toy Story attractions at every one of our parks worldwide, a big consumer-products platform, real opportunities, I believe, for Toy Story in other forms, from video games to online, to also the possibility of sequels beyond Toy Story 3.”
Disney’s varying levels of interest in Pixar’s films are easy to spot at Disney World, where all of the resort’s theme parks have added significant, Pixar-inspired attractions during the past three years. The additions have focused primarily on Pixar’s earlier films, particularly Toy Story and Finding Nemo.
Timing is certainly a factor: The more recent the film, the less time Disney has had to develop its presence in a theme park. But it is not the only explanation.
Two years after Finding Nemo‘s 2003 theatrical run, for instance, Disney had already opened the interactive “Turtle Talk With Crush” show at both Epcot and Disney’s California Adventure, and had announced plans for the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland. Within another year, it had begun production of The Seas With Nemo & Friends, an aquarium ride at Epcot, and Finding Nemo — The Musical, the lavish stage show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
In the two years since Ratatouille‘s 2007 release, the movie’s most notable theme-park presence is a 6-inch-tall animatronic Remy that performs only for diners at Les Chefs de France restaurant in Epcot. No other significant projects based on the movie appear on the horizon in the U.S., though there has been some speculation among fans about a Ratatouille-themed ride in Disneyland Paris.
For WALL-E, Disney designed a life-size animatronic that made appearances when the movie premiered last year. But the company has yet to deploy the robot in its theme parks.
Pixar ‘creates a halo’
The disparity extends to theme-park merchandise. Though several Disney World shops sell some WALL-E toys, other products based on that movie or Ratatouille are difficult to find. Disney briefly peddled Ratatouille-themed cheese plates and coasters, for instance, but has long since pulled them from its shelves.
The contrast is perhaps best illustrated by Disney’s ubiquitous souvenir pins. A recent search of the pin-trading shop in Downtown Disney turned up more than 20 pins based on Toy Story and more than a dozen based onFinding Nemo — but only two featuring WALL-E and none with Ratatouille.
Even if they never become a major theme-park attraction, analysts say the most recent Pixar films, given their tremendous reception in movie theaters, do still have an intangible value beyond the box office.
“They continue to create a halo around the Disney brand,” said Chris Marangi, an analyst with Gabelli & Co.
The people charged with bringing the movies to life inside Disney theme parks say they have conceived scores of projects based on all of the Pixar films. Turning them into more than blueprints, they say, is simply a matter of finding an opening.
“We’ve thrown out some really fantastic ideas with all of those more recent properties,” said Roger Gould, creative director for theme parks at Pixar. “It’s a combination of a great idea inspired by a Pixar film and the right opportunity and the right location and the right park somewhere around the world.”
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