'Lilo and Stitch' - The Business

[Another Voice]

You go away for a couple of days and there are hundreds of messages on this board….


First, I’m glad everyone seems to have enjoyed ‘Lilo and Stitch’. It truly is a great movie. For all the talk about “magic” around here is it very enjoyable to actually see some of it freshly created.

Second, the box office numbers. Others have written about the strong chance that ‘Lilo’ will be number one for the weekend. The numbers currently floating around are based on actual Friday, estimated Saturday, and projected Sunday numbers. For the most part, the system works okay, but it relies on the studios themselves to do the estimating. There’s always a chance for a little fudging. This weekend was a major embarrassment for 20th Century Fox – NO ONE wants to tell Steve and Tommy that they came in second to a cartoon or that they pulled “good, but not great” numbers. Going a little on the high side will at least postpone all the angry phone calls until Monday afternoon.

The numbers for ‘Lilo’ look tremendous at this point. Since family films tend to perform better during the week than event movies, the full week take should put ‘Lilo’ ahead by a nice margin. The real key will be the fall off for next weekend. Based on the word of mouth so far, ‘Lilo’ should remain very strong. If things pan out the film should play for an extended run (by modern standards anyway) and top well over $200 million.

Third, a message is being sent loud and clear. Disney’s two most successful animated films were both produced outside of Burbank. ‘Tarzan’ came from Paris and ‘Lilo’ from Orlando. The flurry of memo and gossip that’s going to erupt will be interesting to watch. There will be a significant struggle over the future of animation. And it’s still not clear if the good guys will win. Remember that both the CFO and the VP/Animation both called animated hit movies “flukes” so no one is sure if they will be able to see the trends so neon-obvious to the rest of the industry.

Fourth, why all the bad reviews? When you open a movie, you have to advertise it to two groups: the public and to the critics. Most movie critics are pack animals that go to the same parties, eat in the same restaurants and attend the same screenings. Like any closed community, a certain conventional wisdom develops. I’ve been hearing for a while that Disney’s effort on behalf of ‘Lilo’ wasn’t too good, and it looks like the reviews tend to support that rumor. By the way, a good campaign can work wonders. The single best move by anyone at Disney in the last twenty years was when Katzenberg showed the work-in-progress print of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to the New York film critics.

Lastly – speaking of current management: both a direct-to-video sequel and a weekly animated cartoon series are in production right now. One rumor said the pressure is to get the sequel out in time for the holiday buying season. Isn’t it comforting to know that some things never change?

[Bstanley]

AV - a question.

Do you know if the 'watercolor' choice of media for the background was made before they shifted the story to Hawaii or after? It just seemed so 'correct' for the setting.

Also - what's the thinking on the number of screens? The more the better? I'm guessing the theatre owner are the ones that decide what shows where? How long does it take to get a print - I mean if a theatre owner decided to switch a screen from one show to another...

Oh yeah - Hurrah for the storytellers!

[raidermatt]

Thanks for the insights, AV... Your possible explanation for the bad reviews makes sense, and if true, its too bad there wasn't a little more attention paid to this ahead of time. (a point you made several weeks ago, by the way). But I guess it just goes to show that critics can only do so much damage to a good film.

Bstanley- Regarding the water colors, its my understanding they were chosen because it was felt they would better capture the "essence" of Hawaii (meaning the choice was made after the location was chosen). After seeing them, I have to agree that it was an excellent choice.

[Bob O]

I hope AV is right about the total take of the movie, that would be great news!!!!
I hope they do slow down on the direct to video aspect, shouldnt they release the original into the dvd/vhs market before the direct to video.??
And i think all reviewers are west/east coast liberals so their reviews meant nothing to me at all!!! I take the opinions i read hear as a more true test of the quality of the movie/product etc.

[Another Voice]

To keep the conversation easier to follow, I’ve created a separate thread about the watercolors and the creative aspects of ‘Lilo’ . Since we seem to like to write about “creating the magic” around here, I thought that topic should deserve its own topic.

The number of screens that a film plays on is basically up to the theater, although many studio contracts now try to set a certain number and type. The few times where the studios have pushed really hard (Fox with ‘Star Wars Episode I’ and Disney with ‘Pearl Harbor’) have backfired and stalled the trend for a bit. Usually major theater chains will agree to a set number for a couple of weeks and then let the market dictate.

Depending on the format and length of a movie and other expenses, a print can cost between $30,000 to $50,000 or higher. While not a major expense of distribution, the costs are high enough to encourage the studios not to make too many prints at any one time. The process of striking a print is really nothing more than what your one-hour photo place does (except for the thousands of feet of film) and getting it to the theaters.

Since it costs the same amount to make a print of a film when the theater has 15 people as when it has 1500, the studios try to balance the theater size and the number of theaters showing to movie to maximize the number of people watching each print. Theaters, on the other hand, tend to want to offer more screenings of a film. Since they make their money off concessions, it’s better to offer convenient and frequent showings to bring as many people into the theater as possible – but not necessarily to fill up the audience for each individual movie screen in the place.

[Another Voice]

Final weekend numbers are starting to come in. It looks like 'Minority Report' just topped 'Lilo' by only $400,000. This is still a tremendous showing for the animated movie.

Early predications are that 'MR' will drop about 45% next weeked with 'Lilo' dropping between 30%-35%. Cinescores are showing that the buzz on 'Lilo' is much stronger than on 'Minority', so I'm still heartened that the public can still seperate quality from the bad stuff.

[Bob O]

As of Mondays numbers L & S has already passed up MR!!

[johare]

Final weekend numbers are starting to come in. It looks like 'Minority Report' just topped 'Lilo' by only $400,000. This is still a tremendous showing for the animated movie.This may be one of the first times (that I can think of) that bootleg copies of a movie actually made a big difference. There were no less than 4 different copies of L&S floating around on the internet by Saturday, 2 of which were pretty easy to locate. At the same time, only a very poor subtitled copy of Minority Report seemed to exist. Could have been more than enough to cause a $400,000 swing in box office numbers.