Opening Pooh On Same Night As Potter: Smart or Stupid?

Crockett

Crockett

Banned
Original Poster
Is it just me, or does it seem like a bad marketing move for Disney to release the new Winnie The Pooh film on the same date as the final Harry Potter film? I may be way off-base on this, and it may not make a difference if Pooh fans were not going to see Potter anyway, and Potter fans would not see Pooh...despite what dates they opened.

But something tells me Disney could have picked a more opportune weekend to release their 51st animated feature, than on the same day as the concluding film to the most popular film saga of recent years.

Anyone else think this?
 
erasure fan1

erasure fan1

Well-Known Member
Im not real sure it would matter if it was the same day or not. Pooh is for a much younger crowed than potter. I see parents taking there 3 and 4yr olds to this, just like I did for the last pooh movie. As this isnt a major tent pole release for Disney I dont think it matters to them. Maybe they think they might get some overflow from sold out shows.
 
HouCuseChickie

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
I think they are banking on people with little ones who have already seen Cars 2 to be seeking out something "non-Potter" and kid friendly (since Deathly Hallows 2 is PG-13). This is also the crowd that will buy the most merch. Additionally, there are a lot of people who don't like braving the crowds opening weekend for any of the HP movies. i.e. they'd rather wait a week and not be elbow to elbow with everyone in a packed theater. Plus, they probably figure everyone who did see HP opening weekend that also likes Pooh will probably go see Pooh the following weekend. Of course, there are also people who just don't like HP - period. So, I'm guessing they're banking on these factors. We know they won't even come close to the Potter numbers - no matter when they release it - so maybe timing it around Potter helps draw a little more attention to them and could possible even bring in a few extra $$$s.
 
DisneyDadof5

DisneyDadof5

Member
Funny enough it works for us. My wife is going to take the youngest ones to see Pooh, and I'm taking the older ones to see HP. Might have just been good planning on Disney's part.
 
Lucky

Lucky

Well-Known Member
One's G and the other's PG-13.

Releasing a PotC movie at the same time as Potter might have been a bad idea. But Pooh probably won't be affected.
 
C

CaptainShortty

Well-Known Member
DisneyDadof5 said:
Funny enough it works for us. My wife is going to take the youngest ones to see Pooh, and I'm taking the older ones to see HP. Might have just been good planning on Disney's part.
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I'm thinking this is what they're banking on. Interesting to see if it works. Saw HP last night, it was incredible. Now I have to see Pooh too! =D
 
njDizFan

njDizFan

Well-Known Member
I agree with the above posters, different audience. Looking at the previews it is definately for the under 8 crowd.

Although some people blamed Avatar for the not so impressive box office of PatF.
 
Disneyfanman

Disneyfanman

Well-Known Member
My 18 year old son works at the largest theater complex here in Salt Lake. He always comments on the trends for opening night. He said that all HP theaters were packed last night and completely sold out. He said that the two theaters showing Pooh were also sold out all night. They expected HP, but the Pooh sell outs were somewhat of a surprise to the management. My son said it was the busiest night that he had ever seen working there.

The interesting thing about Pooh is that my 22 year old daughter (no kids) and my 25 year old son (also no kids) both said that they were going to eventually see Pooh and were pretty excited about it. I, of course, will go too being the 50 year old geek in the house.

Maybe, just maybe, Disney has a minor hit on their hands and the counter programming strategy will look pretty smart.
 
Crockett

Crockett

Banned
Original Poster
njDizFan said:
Although some people blamed Avatar for the not so impressive box office of PatF.
Click to expand...
I blame Disney's previous attempts at 2D/traditional animation (Home On The Range, Treasure Planet, Atlantis, etc). Those three films alone made me almost skip P&F alltogether...thinking it would be the same. Thankfully, I gave the film a shot and really enjoyed it. It felt like the good 'ol days of Aladdin, Mermaid, B&B all over again. Sadly, not enough people gave P&F that chance, and if flopped. But still a classic film nonetheless. (Not that Avatar helped it any).
 
Cmdr_Crimson

Cmdr_Crimson

Well-Known Member
While Not a Potter Fan I did enjoy the little Throwback Disney Animation did since it was opening with Harry...
[youtube]WMeTL1seIWo[/youtube] [youtube]A6GMxyYdcpU[/youtube]
 
Hakunamatata

Hakunamatata

Le Meh
Premium Member
Went and saw Winnie the Pooh today. Finally some quality Disney classical animation that was excellent.

On a side note there were more people in our theater watching Pooh than the HP theater showing at the same time. :cool:
 
erasure fan1

erasure fan1

Well-Known Member
Crockett said:
I blame Disney's previous attempts at 2D/traditional animation (Home On The Range, Treasure Planet, Atlantis, etc). Those three films alone made me almost skip P&F alltogether...thinking it would be the same. Thankfully, I gave the film a shot and really enjoyed it. It felt like the good 'ol days of Aladdin, Mermaid, B&B all over again. Sadly, not enough people gave P&F that chance, and if flopped. But still a classic film nonetheless. (Not that Avatar helped it any).
Click to expand...

I really feel the princess and the frog suffered from a horrid marketing push. It was very much geared toward little girls and not the great for the whole family that the film was.
 
C

CaptainShortty

Well-Known Member
Pooh's running time is only 69 minutes. Personally, I'm not spending $11 to see it in theaters even though I like to think of myself as quite a big Pooh ran. I just can't warrant it.

On the other hand I have already seen Harry Potter (at midnight on Thursday) and plan to go again this week. So it's a tough movie to put it up against, but it's a different audience so hopefully it'll work for them.
 
jt04

jt04

Well-Known Member
Crockett said:
I blame Disney's previous attempts at 2D/traditional animation (Home On The Range, Treasure Planet, Atlantis, etc). Those three films alone made me almost skip P&F alltogether...thinking it would be the same. Thankfully, I gave the film a shot and really enjoyed it. It felt like the good 'ol days of Aladdin, Mermaid, B&B all over again. Sadly, not enough people gave P&F that chance, and if flopped. But still a classic film nonetheless. (Not that Avatar helped it any).
Click to expand...

No it did not flop. That is pure urban legend. It was never meant to be on the scale of Rapunzel. It was meant to serve as a means to begin to get Disney animation back up to proper standards. They could have started with something on the scale of Rapunzel but that would have been a big risk and the studio may not have survived if something on that scale had flopped. PatF had a relatively modest budget and did very respectable Box Office globally and has done very well since on DVD and merchadise sales. I would be shocked if we don't see the character again through other offerings by Disney.
 
dxwwf3

dxwwf3

Well-Known Member
Well I think we got our answer: $8 million opening weekend, which was 6th place this weekend. This has to be one of the worst marketing decisions since deciding to NOT open up Brother Bear on a traditional Friday and miss out on an extra day of box office to boost up the all important weekend total.

The good news for Disney is that it didn't cost much to make and they will make money on it, but this has been the weakest summer movie season I can honestly ever remember and they decided to release this at the worst possible date. Even opposite Transformers would have been better.
 
Disneyfanman

Disneyfanman

Well-Known Member
Crockett said:
I blame Disney's previous attempts at 2D/traditional animation (Home On The Range, Treasure Planet, Atlantis, etc). Those three films alone made me almost skip P&F alltogether...thinking it would be the same. Thankfully, I gave the film a shot and really enjoyed it. It felt like the good 'ol days of Aladdin, Mermaid, B&B all over again. Sadly, not enough people gave P&F that chance, and if flopped. But still a classic film nonetheless. (Not that Avatar helped it any).
Click to expand...

I don't know if I would call P&F a flop. It did 267M world wide on a production budget of 105M. It certainly wasn't the hit they hoped for. I thought it was the story myself. It played a little too much like the Rescuers in pacing and not enough like the classics from the 90's. In any case, Pooh at 8M (coming in lower than Zookeeper in it's 2nd week and Cars in it's third) is a bad sign. It may do better long term though because of the Potter "suck in every ticket possible" phenom. I hope so. It was very well reviewed.
 

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