Defying analyst expectations, Disney/Pixar’s UP has come in first in the box office battle yet again. This time with $44.2 million barely beating out “The Hangover” and totally trouncing “The Land Of The Lost.” That brings the animated feature to $137 million domestic total.
I finally was able to see ‘UP’ myself last night. It ranks up there with the best films from Pixar. It tugs at the hearts strings, tells a simple but effective story, and is technically masterful. But it was slow in the middle, enough that my son wanted to leave early, and I felt it enough plot holes and cliche’s to fill a zeppelin.
This is not a big criticism, but ‘UP’ is certainly the most adult film of Pixar’s stable (although there might be some argument for Wall-e there). I think it’s asking a lot of kids to understand the nuances of a life of love and losses and how it affects a person.
update: just wanted to add this thought — Pixar is moving into a new area of animation story telling. Before humor was directed at kids with a wink to the parents to keep their attention. Now the story is for the parents and the humor/action is added to keep the kids attention. It makes for a very different film than classic animated features. Even from Pixar’s earlier works. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues and if it keeps producing big attendance numbers for the The Lamp.
That said, if you haven’t yet seen ‘UP’ go ahead and get to a movie theater. You’ll find yourself moved and amused as only the story masters at Pixar can do. Plus, ‘UP’ deserves another great weekend at the Box Office, don’t you think?
Yeah, it’s a really dark movie, in the way that the early Disney films were dark–and in a way that post-World War II Disney films are not. But it was wonderful.
Saw Pixar’s UP this weekend and helped it to a second box office win this weekend. Here’s my non-spoiler review – http://is.gd/T1Dt
RT @TheDisneyBlog Saw Pixar's UP this weekend & helped it to a 2nd box office win this wkend. Here's my non-spoiler review http://is.gd/T1Dt
RT @TheDisneyBlog Saw Pixar’s UP this weekend & helped it to a 2nd box office win this wkend. Here’s my non-spoiler review http://is.gd/T1Dt
um, The Hangover is actually first place
check boxofficemojo and rottentomatoes
At the time I wrote that article Up was #1. It appears that both studios have recounted and places were switched.
I would disagree with your text in orange and refer to the President’s quote:
“It’s very important not to make films for children. If you think about it, children live in an adult world. They’re used to hearing things they don’t understand and they listen to things over and over again because they’re trying to figure out the world. If you talk down to children, they know they’re being talked down to, and adults can’t listen to it. So instead, we make films that we can enjoy. By the virtue of the fact they’re animated, we do put in physical humor, which children love, and we don’t put in things that would turn families off, clearly. But in terms of the dialogue, we put in things that adults understand. And by putting in things that we enjoy, that we want to see, and then having it for the physical comedy that all of us like, then it has a, it touches people in a very broad way. And that’s really our goal, to touch a lot of people.”
-Ed Catmull
Comments are closed.