Why were PatF and Winnie the Pooh (2011) not box office hits?

I think that it's because of the other films that came out when those two released (Avatar and Chipmunks 2 for Pat F, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 for Pooh)

What do you guys think?

Same reason why you think they are not box office hits.

Same reasons as you. I mean, harry potter and avatar are hugely popular. The two movies couldn't compete.

Which is a shame, cause Princess and the Frog was an awesome movie.

I thought that Pat F was pretty good. I still have not seen Winnie the Pooh (2011). I feel like a bad man for not doing so...

I still think Disney tried to sabotage Winnie the Pooh so they'd have an excuse to kill the 2D department. And I think PatF isn't as good as its supporters say it is, but that's another discussion.

edited 14th Sep '14 9:49:25 AM by Mort08

I didn't like p.a.t.f that much either aside from the songs. It was pretty boring.

Winnie the pooh was okay but didn't have the same charm as the shorts. The songs weren't that great also.

edited 14th Sep '14 9:54:55 AM by teddy

I will say that Disney isn't the only company to have their animated movies compete with uber-popular blockbusters movies.

The biggest examples being the last two Peanuts movies (Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown and Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!)) coming out the same summer as A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back respectively (Though Race For Your Life was a month after ANH, Bon Voyage was the weekend after ESB)

Based on what I read from Ed Catmull's Creativity, Inc. Princess was a failure due to Misaimed Marketing thus the rapid-fire title change in Rapunzel Tangled. Pooh, on the other hand, wasn't a failure and they actually expected it to underperform due to the box office weekend.

If this discussion is going to devolve into,"Pat F and Pooh killed 2D Disney Animation", I can guarantee that is not the case. Both movies, while not financial successes, are still both viewed as achievements for the studio. They just wanted to give the filmmakers the option of doing 2D or 3D and most of them chose "the new stuff"

In the former's defense, no one thought ANH was going to be popular.

I didn't even know Disney stopped making 2d films until recently. Huh..

then again, it's not like 2d makes a film or cartoon better..

edited 14th Sep '14 10:18:45 AM by teddy

Let's start with Pat F: This is a movie which had more or less everything against it from the get go. It came after a string of bad movies from Disney. It was mostly marketed for Girls. It was controversial long before it even hit the theatres. And maybe because of those controversies the plot was kind of a mess, so there was no way that it would gather enough recommendations to get the crowd into the cinema. In addition I remember vividly the weather in Europe around the time it hit the theatres. There was so much snow that even the countries which are used to it had troubles to deal with. After Christmas my car was snowed in up the windows. Nobody in their right mind would risk driving around just to go to the theatres in this condition.

Winnie the Pooh had the problem that it was perceived as a "kiddie movie". Plus, I doubt that the common audience knows the difference between a direct to video production which somehow got a theatrical release and the real deal. After one sequel after another...why should anyone believe that this one would be better without being informed?

Add that none of the movies had truly successful song or anything else which made them stand out, the box office result is kind of what you could expect of them. To be honest, I was kind of surprised that Winnie the Pooh made as much as it did.