Archive: November, 2011
Gary Thompson, Daily News Film Critic
This weeks DVD pile includes "Cars 2," which Pixar has been aggressively spinning as an underrated classic. A recent NYT story appeared to trade access to John Lasseter for a company-line story about how critics treated the movie unfairly.
Forget critics. The movie's audience share dropped 60 PERCENT from week one to week, a catastrophic decline by Pixar standards. That's pure word of mouth. I think audiences saw the same thing that some critics did: a company taking a disappointing step toward blockbuster-minded story-telling -- a sequel with a globe-hopping scenario ready made for international sale, a spy-spoof framework that was less a work of imagination that a forum for gag-writers to make movie references.
What does a real animated hit look like? "Puss N Boots," which made another $30 million in week two and saw it's audience drop a mere 3 percent.
