(Image borrowed from the WSJ article linked within this post.)
While I’m talking about expensive brand errors, Disney/Pixar’s Cars 2 doesn’t exactly fit the mold — yet. As the WSJ article reports, merchandise sales of the animated sequel were through the roof before the movie even opened, and I have no reason to even begin to suspect that sales failed when every adult in the world realized what a terrible movie it was.
Currently boasting a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, Cars 2 was almost universally panned by critics, called “Pixar’s first bad film” and “an out-and-out stinker.” It prompted comments that “It’s finally happened. Pixar’s mythical run of great films is over.” But it’s Catherine Bray at Film4 who hit the nail on the head, saying “Cars 2 won’t win any new converts, but will sell an awful lot of car toys.”
That sound you hear is a brand breaking.
Movies, especially happy ones — double-especially happy, animated ones — are funny things. They require good dose of willing suspense of disbelief. We live in a cynical society, so to get anyone to sign up to see a movie about an old man who stuffs balloons up his chimney and flies away is a tough sell. But Pixar could do it, because we knew that when Pixar released a movie, it was a labor of love from the depths of their soul, representing the top of the craft and the best of what movies could be.
Unfortunately, anyone over the age of twelve could pretty easily see that Cars 2 had come not from the heart, but from the bank deposit slip. I understand that Disney is a company that needs to make money (especially given a run of mediocrities or outright stinkers like the one mentioned in yesterday’s note), and in the short term, Cars 2 (in 3D!) was great for cash flow in the Mouse House.
But Cars 2 was the first Pixar movie I didn’t go to see in theaters. Actually, I didn’t even consider seeing it. We own several Pixar films in our house — with Cars 2, we rented it on iTunes, and couldn’t get through the first ten minutes before turning it off in disgust. Yes, it’s that bad. And this is coming from a guy who has paid good money to watch a Raven-Symoné movie in theaters just to make snarky comments.
Up until now, I’ve been a brand evangelist for Pixar, and the studio had to really work to make me doubt them, even for a second. Before Cars 2, I would have maybe been an opening-day kind of guy, greasing the wheels of the hype machine among my co-workers, friends, and family. But now, I regard the admittedly-appealing trailers for the upcoming Brave with a mixture of tenuous hope and outright stand-offishness.
Because Pixar’s brand (the way the existed in the minds of their audience) was based on wonder and innocence and quality, by selling its soul with the unwatchable Cars 2, Pixar committed brand suicide.