Josh Spiegel echoes that point and expands on it further, explaining, ""The Rescuers Down Under" tanked with barely $3.5 million in its opening-weekend take, Katzenberg removed all television advertisements for the film. By itself, that's not the worst possible fate, but it proves that he had zero confidence in its ability to perform at a seemingly ideal time of year. Here's the thing: the more demoralizing fact isn't that Katzenberg yanked the marketing. It's that Disney set "The Rescuers Down Under" up to fail, opening it on the same weekend as a little film called "Home Alone", otherwise known as the highest-grossing film of 1990. He may not have been able to predict its long-lasting impact on popular culture, but Katzenberg likely had enough tracking information to tip him off that "Home Alone" would be a monster laying waste to everything in its path. "The Rescuers Down Under" was forced to take the hit, then and afterwards." Conversely, Ellen MacKay of Common Sense Media gave the film four out of five stars, writing, "A rare sequel that improves on the original".