'Ratatouille' a diifferent Disney movie

Forget the toys and normal tie-ins. The animated movie about a rat who longs to be a chef will be promoted with merchandise targeting adults. 'On the Money's' Julia Boorstin reports.

That’s Ratatouille, he is a rat, he cooks, he wants to be a chef. But what really matters is what Disney wants from Ratatouille? The answer is your money. So they are doing a different kind of marketing. Forget about kids' toys, they are going after you. Julia Boorstin is 'On The Money' live in Los Angeles. Julia?

Melissa, Disney is opening its big Pixar film of the year Ratatouille on 3,500 screens tomorrow. The story of a rat cooking in a fancy French restaurant actually makes more sense than you'd think.

Ratatouille’s original story sticks out in a summer crowded with sequels.

I can’t cook, can I? But you, you can.

And pixar's animation continues to amaze.

It’s incredibly high quality, great storytelling. It's made for kids and for families. The hope is it's part of family entertainment which is the whole market of Disney's brands.

Disney’s and Pixar's brands from Pirates to Toy Story are known for huge consumer product potential. But Ratatouille’s Remy, the rat chef, may be at a disadvantage in that department. There is tough competition this summer from a crowd of other kid-friendly movies, Transformers, Harry Potter, Shrek and others. And rat dolls may not have the appeal of Pixar’s Toy Story fair.

Some of our consumer product people are nervous that it’s easy to sell cars to American kids, maybe harder to, for, you know to imagine children at night cutting up with our French rat. So Disney is taking a different approach, targeting adults. With kitchen and cooking ware both at mass retailers and luxury kitchenware chain Sur La Table. Taking its consumer products in a new direction, for the first time, it is selling fine wine and cheese at Costco. Ratatouille shard named Burgundy, a pet project of Pixar chief, John Lasseter, who owns a nap of vineyard.

It’s a very logical extension, and I think maybe in our growth of the fact it is very crowded at the Toy Isle. And maybe we had to come up some creative ways to lavish franchise.

And what of the movie’s performance? Some analysts say they expect it to underperform Cars by 10 to 15 percent. And if it does?

Even if Ratatouille underperforms Cars, and let’s say it does, and I think the estimates we have are in the 200-million-dollar range at the box office domestically, and maybe another 200 overseas. You are still gonna make, you know, maybe 250 million dollars, or 300 million dollars in ultimate profit.

Because the expectations are so low for products, like this Ratatouille wine and cheese, there is some room for some upside surprise in how well they perform. Melissa, I think these are actually pretty cute, don’t you think?

Absolutely, I know you are gonna tell us how that wine is as well. Thanks a lot, Julia.

The cheese is good.

Notes:
Pixar: Pixar Animation Studios is an American computer animation studio based in Emeryville, California (USA) notable for its seven Academy Awards. It is best known for its CGI animated feature films—such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Cars.