Why do you think the Princess and the Frog underperformed?

[ead79]

We had intended to see it at the theater, but we just ran out of time. We're always bad about going to the movies.

We just watched it on DVD earlier this week, and both DH and I really enjoyed it. I personally thought the hand drawn animation was beautiful, and the backgrounds in particular were true works of art. I enjoyed the story line and did find several parts of it quite funny. I'll be adding it to my Amazon wishlist.

 

[SideshowBob]

SSB didn't love the marketing ... but was very pleasantly surprised when I saw the film while still in theaters!

 

[TheDisneyGirl02]

I just saw it last week and it was okay for me. Not great and not terrible. Music was eh. They need to bring Alan Menken back. The music would have been much better if he'd been involved. I liked the beginning and end of the movie. The middle part with the two frogs just seemed long and boring to me.

Alan Menken (who I LOVE BTW) did the music for "Home on the Range" that Disney did several years ago. Even though I enjoyed the music, the movie really wasn't a big hit.

Most of the reasons I think it had trouble have already been mentioned:

Title turned off boys
Mainstream, Non-Disney audience not as drawn to hand-drawn animation as computer
Non-Pixar Disney animated movies seem to have a stigma at the moment due to some recent under performing movies (Home on the Range, Brother Bear)

Disney no longer looks at only box office to determine if a film has succeeded or failed. There is merchandising, DVD/BluRay sales, rental revenue, and other residuals that could make the movie a financial win even with a lower then hoped for box office.

Princess and the Frog merchandise is very popular. The Disney Store was sold out of the 'rag doll' Tiana for quite a while. The bathing suit is doing very well as is pretty much anything Tiana. I believe she is going to added to the princess merchandise very soon.

 

[MrsKreamer]

I have 2 little boys (5 and 3) and they love this movie. As a person from New Orleans I thought the movie was beautifully done even if I did roll my eyes at a few inaccuracies, ie: honey on beignets(no!), being Mardi Gras king 5 years in a row(nope!), and as another poster mentioned getting married in St Louis Cathedral on Mardi Gras day(lol!).

Oh and the Easter Bunny will be bringing us this movie.

 

[Planogirl]

I have 2 little boys (5 and 3) and they love this movie. As a person from New Orleans I thought the movie was beautifully done even if I did roll my eyes at a few inaccuracies, ie: honey on beignets(no!), being Mardi Gras king 5 years in a row(nope!), and as another poster mentioned getting married in St Louis Cathedral on Mardi Gras day(lol!).

Oh and the Easter Bunny will be bringing us this movie.

I'm going to have fun looking for these things!

This one is on my list because I decided to see all of the picture nominees this year. I'm about halfway through!

 

[pogo791]

Personally I think the "racism" angle is just an easy angle to blame. [ . . . ]

To me what likely hindered the film's box-office performance was:
1) It wasn't a Pixar film. You can't under-estimate the value that audiences have associated with the Disney/Pixar brand. And it isn't just the "gee-whiz" computer animation. The public knows that Pixar crafts great films both technically and in terms of story-line, characters, etc.
2) As pointed out previously, a lot of boys thought the film had cooties.
3) I suppose that you could try and put this film in the same class as Beauty & The Beast in terms of it being a well known tale thrown up on the screen by Disney. But a lot of the similarities end there. [ . . . ]

I'd agree with much of this. In particular it seems odd to blame racism, when for example Pocahontas (Native American) and Mulan (Chinese) both did well.

One factor that no one has zeroed in on so far is that PTF is basically a new story (even if the idea of a princess kissing a frog is age-old). So many generations had been brought up on Cinderella, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, the Beauty and the Beast, that the movies based on them were a pretty easy sell when they first came out.

Also Pocahontas was based on a familiar story. Mulan is an exception, but here the idea of a warrior princess probably quickly got rid of the cooties factor

Another exception was The Lion King, but that quickly became a hit not only because of the (non-cootiesh) story, but because of the great music.

Give her time, and the Princess and the Frog will generate the revenue in residuals. Heck, I'm an adult male, and I thought the movie was great!

 

[kydisneyfans]

Disney lost 1/2 of the potential audience (boys)with the word "Princess" in the title. We just had no interest in another Princess movie.

 

[Scurvy]

Disney lost 1/2 of the potential audience (boys)with the word "Princess" in the title. We just had no interest in another Princess movie.

It isn't just boys - I'm not a big fan of the princesses, either. I wasn't wild about another princess movie, especially since it seems like Disney is pushing princesses and focusing on little girls (or even tween girls) much more than boys, teens or adults lately. I saw the movie because I see all Disney movies, but I didn't have high hopes for it. I ended up loving it. If they had found a more gender-neutral title and if the ads had focused less on the princess thing then I believe that the movie would have performed better.

 

[Carl]

It isn't just boys - I'm not a big fan of the princesses, either. I wasn't wild about another princess movie, especially since it seems like Disney is pushing princesses and focusing on little girls (or even tween girls) much more than boys, teens or adults lately. I saw the movie because I see all Disney movies, but I didn't have high hopes for it. I ended up loving it. If they had found a more gender-neutral title and if the ads had focused less on the princess thing then I believe that the movie would have performed better.

Maybe Disney reads these boards. If you look thorough the threads, you see many more DDs than DSs. That would make them think that the majority of Disney fans have daughters and not sons. So, if I had that opinion, I'd slant my movies towards girls, too.