Most Interesting Movie Weekend of the Summer

Everybody was excited for the big-time box office showdown between the three big sequels of the summer (all of which was, coincidentally, the third movie in the series): Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Who Remembers What the Rest of This Really Long Title Is Because No One Reads After the Colon Anyway. The first two have already crossed the $300 million threshold in US ticket sales, and Pirates should get there sometime in July.

But I've been more interested in the opening weekend receipts for only one movie this summer: Pixar's Ratatouille. Partially, this is because I am a big fan of all the Pixar movies -- they are consistently the best-written movies in Hollywood. But mostly this is because of a rumor I heard almost a year ago. After initial marketing tests, the studio executives discovered that people had little interest in seeing a movie called "Ratatouille." So, over the last nine months, Pixar and Disney have done a lengthy and sophisticated marketing campaign. They released a lengthy part of the movie (almost 9 minutes) as an Internet sneak trailer. They've carefully presented the title of the movie in different ways, including a pronunciation guide: "rat-a-too-ee".

Now all that remains to be seen is how effective this campaign has been. The only other big movie opening this weekend already opened, Die Hard or Live Free, and there's some counter programming, including a new chick-flick, Evening. But the other studios have conceded the weekend to the new Pixar movie. There's little doubt it will open as the #1 movie in the US, but it does remain to be seen how big the opening weekend will be (especially after last weekend's disappointing opening for Evan Almighty). My guess is that it will open around $50 million, which is good, but less than last year's Car's opening of $60 million. But I could be wrong....