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the take

Apparently, ‘Ratatouille’ WAS Pixar's First Flop

Courtesy of Disney/Pixar

Way back in June, we wondered if the difficult-to-market Pixar-Disney concoction Ratatouille would become the first Pixar movie in the studio's charmed run to underperform at the box office. Turns out it was! Now Disney watchblog Jim Hill Media claims that the finger-pointing has begun inside Disney over the movie's subpar receipts, with Disney and Pixar both blaming each other for Ratatouille being the first Pixar movie ever not to land in the top five of the year's box-office hits. (It's currently No. 8 and likely to be passed by at least one or two other movies before the year is out.)

Apparently, Pixar people think the Disney marketing team did a lousy job selling the movie, and the Disney marketing team is all like, "What the hell, Pixar dudes, you gave us a movie about a French rat in a chef hat in the middle of the biggest summer of threequels ever. What did you expect?" And there's some truth to that; Ratatouille made $200 million, which seems pretty damn good, considering.

Anyway, now the Pixarians are demanding that they be put in charge of selling next summer's WALL-E. Needless to say, the Disney team is all like, "Go for it! It's about a robot who doesn't talk, set on a barren future Earth! Knock yourselves out!"

Why "Ratatouille" 's good-but-not-great box office numbers are now causing problems for Disney's marketing department [Jim Hill Media]
Earlier: Will ‘Ratatouille’ Be Pixar's First Flop?