... also bright shiny beads.
If you wonder where entertainment cash flow comes from, it's not just the ticket sales, dvd sales and licensing to teevee that makes our fine entertainment conglomerates love them their animated movies. There are also minor things like this:
'Toy Story is... a merchandising behemoth. ...Disney/Pixar has moved more merchandise than any other recent movie and ... it's not a terribly close contest ...
Toys, furniture, scooters, calculators and other such stuff ... from Disney/Pixar's latest hit was packed into 724 massive cargo containers shipped to the U.S., according to Panjiva, [a company that tracks international trade] ...
Since the early days of Walt and the gang at the Disney Hyperion studio, royalties from merchandising trinkets has been a goodly part of the life blood coursing through cartoon studios' veins. And as it was in the beginning, so is it to this very day:
... "Phineas and Ferb" is getting the full Disney treatment as the company revs up its well-oiled franchise machine. Soon it will uncork a full merchandise line, with 200 Phineas and Ferb-related items — including boxer shorts, skateboards and boxes of macaroni and cheese — headed to stores ...
The point of all this? When our fine entertainment conglomerates get themselves a hit, they make sure they squeeze all possible profits from all possible venues. And Toy Story and Phineas are just a small part of the story:
"Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" accounted for 248 shipments [of merchandise], followed by "Shrek Forever After" (230, "Monsters vs. Aliens" (182) ... [and] "How to Train Your Dragon" (174) ...
It's always useful to remember that animated features don't earn their keep on box office and silver disk sales alone. There's all that other stuff that rakes in the long green, as well. Snow White is still selling dollies and lunch buckets 72 years after her original release.
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It's also good to remember that although these shipping crates of merchandise may have been shipped here, a lot of it is never bought. Over half of all toys for both the new Star Wars and Harry Potter films are written off. Same with Shrek and recent Disney stuff. Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Cars may have sold lots of toys, but Wall-e, A Bugs Life, Ratatouille, and Up apparently did not (although Pixar--by a VERY WIDE margin--sells more toys based on their films than any other animation company).
A whole lotta write off, and a lot of disappointment from partners when it doesn't go well. It's one of the reasons we'll be seeing MORE Hasbro toy movies. Rather than make toys for others, they're making movies out of the toys they own.
So long as the movie is good, have no problem with toys--so long as they're good, too!!
I'm currently in Sydney Australia and "Toy Story3" opens here tomorrow. I don't think Disney will have any trouble selling toys.
So true regarding how other industries are impacted based on how well - or not - these type of movies do. Roll of the dice..
Actually Disney and other studios make their money from licensing fees and not sales. Though the bigger the sales the more they can ask for and command in licensing fees for the next film, but it is usually reliant upon past performance and future expectations. While TS3 might sell garner big fees the next non-sequel film might not because of weak performance of all the other Pixar films (other than Cars) and that's why Pixar will be more than glad to do these sequels and you can expect a TS 4 sometime in the future.
If a Ratatouille or Wall-E made good money from these fees (Rat very well might have due to good sales from Cars - maybe not so much for Wall-E), but the manufacturers were left with product they couldn't move then they will hesitate next time and probably didn't offer much for Up. That's why there was very little Up merchandise available and is currently a no-show even at Disneyland.
My guess is the next non-sequel Pixar film will garner a lot of fees and probably disappoint many companies
When they get around to making "Wall-e 2", all of the trash and garbage filling the planet should be Disney/Pixar merchandise
For those worried about the merchandisers that might only sell half of what they produce... consider that these items are made for pennies and sold for dollars. Their business plan accounts for the possibility of not selling out 100%, it's even expected.
They want to make sure there's no spot on earth where they leave money on the table by not having enough to meet demand. Once a shortage becomes apparent it's too late to get the pipeline going again and restock.
"While TS3 might sell garner big fees the next non-sequel film might not because of weak performance of all the other Pixar films (other than Cars) and that's why Pixar will be more than glad to do these sequels and you can expect a TS 4 sometime in the future."
Just checked the box office figures for all the Pixar movies
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/series/Pixar.php
Pretty much all grossing in the average of half a billion dollars each. I think we can all wish for such weak performance from our future endeavors.
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