The Princess and the Frog

Post by **Ben** » May 12th, 2009, 10:51 am

I'm not "amazed"...it's nice, but just your general, run of the mill Disney feature poster. No kind of design format that we haven't seen before.

Post by **Rodney** » May 13th, 2009, 6:04 pm

I have to say this trailer really got me excited. It's obvious they are targeting this movie to adults and other people who grew up during the 2nd Disney Renaissance. Why else show images of the Fab Four? I think it's smart. They need to maximize the number of people who go and see this film, and it might work.

Post by **Darkblade** » May 14th, 2009, 8:08 am

I smell box office success with this movie....

Post by **Once Upon A Dream** » May 14th, 2009, 1:51 pm

Rodney wrote:It's obvious they are targeting this movie to adults and other people who grew up during the 2nd Disney Renaissance.

You do realize that they made this movie mainly to sell more Disney Princess merchandise with the first black princess,and less to bring back hand drawn animation?.

Post by **Foxtale** » May 14th, 2009, 3:54 pm

Daniel wrote:Yep, it's simply georgious.

Looks like the link is dead now, luckily it's still in my browsing history so I uploaded it here. Let me know if that works.

It's a stunning poster. I really like it.

Post by **Ben** » May 14th, 2009, 5:02 pm

Well, Once, it's actually both.

Post by **Neal** » May 14th, 2009, 9:15 pm

Yeah - Lasseter wants the 2D back, but Disney marketing wants bigger paychecks.

Post by **Tyler_Legrand** » May 15th, 2009, 2:21 am

I'm pretty sure you don't need hand drawn animation to sell merchandise *cough* Shrek

Post by **EricJ** » May 15th, 2009, 10:22 am

Once Upon A Dream wrote:You do realize that they made this movie mainly to sell more Disney Princess merchandise with the first black princess,and less to bring back hand drawn animation?.

I thought it was to ram Michael Eisner's "Audiences only want Dreamworks/CGI" defeat down his own throat, being announced so soon after Chicken Little went down the toilet--
"Now that you're gone, our next movie's a MUSICAL!...With a PRINCESS in it!...Ink and paint! 'Cause that's what real audiences like!--Bwahahahaha!!!

"

Post by **Once Upon A Dream** » May 15th, 2009, 3:06 pm

Maybe a little,somewhat,but the main reason is to sell more Princess merchandise,you haven't noticed that she already has books and more and she's even on that Disney Princess race thing in the Disney parks when it's a whole year before her movie will be released? I"m pretty sure that Mulan or Belle didn't had merchandise a whole before thier movies were released,why even that far? Giselle didn't had anything before her movie was released but Tiana has lot of merchandise before her movie even got released.

Post by **EricJ** » May 15th, 2009, 3:20 pm

Once...We know you're on this tangent, but a little reminder:
It was the FIRST DECISION John Lasseter made on Day One. In combination with hiring back animators and directors personally fired by Eisner.

Call me jumping to conclusions, I'm still going with the "Sweet Revenge", aka "Justice For the People, aka "Topple the Lenin Statue" theory on this one, and so, IIRC, did a few million animation fans at the time.
You're just looking for somethin' that ain't there. Period.

Post by **Jake** » May 15th, 2009, 4:24 pm

Everyone knows PIXAR is releasing Cars 2, their least critically successful movie, because the merchandise sold so well.

I think "Princess and the Frog" has less to do with merchandise and more to do with recreating what they think made their renassiance so successful. I'm just glad they're resurrecting the 2D musical, no matter what the intention. And you know what? I'm a 21 y/o guy and I'll definitely be buying some of the merchandise just like I did when I was a kid. It's part of the fun

Post by **EricJ** » May 15th, 2009, 5:22 pm

Jake wrote:I think "Princess and the Frog" has less to do with merchandise and more to do with recreating what they think made their renassiance so successful. I'm just glad they're resurrecting the 2D musical, no matter what the intention.

Once just seems to be grabbing the wrong end of the "Tiana marketing" stick and beating about the bush with it (don't ask me where I ever picked up that expression...

), but that's also rationally explainable--

Remember when Disney was trying to market the grungy Cajun firefly as the "marketable" character from the movie?--
After the collective "Umm.....yeah

" from the audience, it's reasonable to assume Disney is a little more insecure about how their first big Toes-Back-Into-The-Water tentpole will sell, and they're taking no unnecessary risks. (Or to put it simply, remember that first "Cars" teaser with Mater, that Pixar quickly de-historized?)
Expect to see a LOT of "New princess in the Hall of Fame" comparisons to their old canon--Princesses and fairytale trimmings are a known quantity, over dialect-ridden dentally-challenged insects...

Post by **Ben** » May 17th, 2009, 7:51 am

What all you guys seem to forget is that this is a legacy thing.

Walt started his feature business with a princess. When the company was close to going under, he relied on the same formula, to a degree, and his faith was rewarded when another princess came through for him. True that third time wasn't the charm when princess number three didn't provide a similar kind of bounty, but it was a very ornately produced film and she did become very popular in merchandising even back then. More recently, the new Disney team put their all into a new princess and kick started the Renaissance, added to when their next princess very nearly won an unprecedented Oscar and the one after that co-starred in the high grossing movie of its year.

Although other strong female roles have come along since then, there hasn't been a true "fairytale romance" princess picture since then, and with this being all about the company finding its roots again, it's actually a kind of tradition that they would go with a princess movie. It's just that we now live in a different time when most of these films are actually paid for by the amount of spin-offs they can generate. And this is a big deal for the Mouse: if it fails spectacularly then it's curtains on Lasseter's big 2D plans because basically he will have been proven wrong.

Hence the move back in dates so as not to compete with the Chipmunks.

Hence the promotions resting on the legacy and the recent similar films.

Hence the early promotions...they want to get these characters out there just like they do with CGI films.

Hence the merchandise...they need this to be a hit and the way to get kids to fall in love and want to go and see the eventual movie is for them to know it and it feel like a recognisable brand by the time it comes out.

What is all boils down to is an old fashioned, basic will for this film to reflect the glories of old, to prove 2D has a place in big-budget commercial filmmaking, to return the flame of quality animation to Walt Disney Studios and to create another "classic" that can stand up alongside those previous princesses. If they need - in this now cynical world changed from even the 20 years ago that the first Disney Renaissance chimed in - to throw a few marketing tricks at the thing to make it stick, then fair play to them. If they don't then their film will sink without trace and all you guys mocking the way they're selling it will moan that Disney never makes any 2D films anymore.

The real hope, and what we should really be looking at, is whether the film underneath all this building hype, will actually match what has come before and have the steam to build a new generation of traditional films.

In attacking the merchandise, you're already making it more important than the movie itself!

Post by **EricJ** » May 17th, 2009, 11:00 am

Ben wrote:Walt started his feature business with a princess. When the company was close to going under, he relied on the same formula, to a degree, and his faith was rewarded when another princess came through for him. True that third time wasn't the charm when princess number three didn't provide a similar kind of bounty, but it was a very ornately produced film and she did become very popular in merchandising even back then. More recently, the new Disney team put their all into a new princess and kick started the Renaissance, added to when their next princess very nearly won an unprecedented Oscar and the one after that co-starred in the high grossing movie of its year.

Although it may have contributed that the Ron Miller era (and mid-80's followup) had beaten the post-Jungle Book "Talking critters" safety net so far into the ground for twenty-two years--to the point it'd become a pop-negative stereotype for the company--it helped that the audience could be grabbed by a humanoid narrative story again.

Although other strong female roles have come along since then, there hasn't been a true "fairytale romance" princess picture since then, and with this being all about the company finding its roots again, it's actually a kind of tradition that they would go with a princess movie. It's just that we now live in a different time when most of these films are actually paid for by the amount of spin-offs they can generate. And this is a big deal for the Mouse: if it fails spectacularly then it's curtains on Lasseter's big 2D plans because basically he will have been proven wrong.

And although some here still wear black armbands for Chris Sanders being fired over "American Bolt", Lasseter knew his apples:
The one thing the company DIDN'T want, getting its image and financial standing back on its feet, was more "quirky" idiosyncratic pet-project burps--The company's financial standing was on image, Disney's image was Big Fairytales Done Right, and fairytales on occasion have princesses in them.
Belching blue aliens and 70's-song-reffing farm animals can apply later.

Hence the move back in dates so as not to compete with the Chip--

...WILL YOU STOP THAT??????

Hence the promotions resting on the legacy and the recent similar films.

As stated, it's their liferaft, and they're clinging to it. Bless 'em.

Hence the early promotions...they want to get these characters out there just like they do with CGI films.

Frogs, fireflies, princesses, hamsters, Boy scouts, dogs or curmudgeons, Disney is determined that you walk into their next movie already on a familiar basis with SOMEONE from it.

What is all boils down to is an old fashioned, basic will for this film to reflect the glories of old, to prove 2D has a place in big-budget commercial filmmaking, to return the flame of quality animation to Walt Disney Studios and to create another "classic" that can stand up alongside those previous princesses. If they need - in this now cynical world changed from even the 20 years ago that the first Disney Renaissance chimed in - to throw a few marketing tricks at the thing to make it stick, then fair play to them. If they don't then their film will sink without trace and all you guys mocking the way they're selling it will moan that Disney never makes any 2D films anymore.

People are still dopey enough to blame the more repetitive elements of the 90's Katzenberg Formula (uh, guys, how do you think it might've gotten its name in the first place?) on It's All Eisner's Fault<tm>--
And by "still", we mean, "Even two years after Lasseter and Iger took over the company"--Like Bill Gates with Microsoft, some corporate boogeymen become legend enough to haunt their company's image for years after their "death".

Lasseter has enough savvy with the animation dept. to know that we don't want Eisner back, and we certainly don't want Katzenberg back, but we do want whatever abstract element it was that they did right, before David Stainton ruined the whole thing.
By putting musicals, princesses and Big Stories out there, Lasseter wants to put the message out to the audience of "Okay, guys, do-over...Let's just say that that whole '98-'05 thing never happened, Chicken Little was really a Dreamworks movie that got mislabeled, and it's really 1991 again."