merchandising Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Since I don't have a dog and I don't shop at Kroger stores, I apparently missed the news that the Walt Disney Co. has been selling Old Yeller brand dog food. A lot of it. Never mind the fact that if I did have a dog, I wouldn't feed it a product named for an infamously killed animal from an old film. Other people are into the idea, though, and now Disney is into the idea of further merchandising its brand into the pet food and accessory markets. First up, the company is planning for a cat food line (may I suggest Aristocats brand?) and a Pirates of the Caribbean-themed aquarium. And thanks to Paris Hilton and her penchant for playing dress-up with her Chihuahua, Disney wants to concentrate much of its focus on pet clothes and collars.

I don't know what is more surprising, that Disney execs are making decisions based on what they see Paris Hilton do, or that they've now discovered they can market pretty much anything. What is next after they take over the pet product industry? Honestly I think they could sell Bambi brand deer poop and people would buy it.

As carefully detailed by Disney-watcher Jim Hill, that company has a strong, long-standing relationship with Toys 'R' Us. Radio Disney and the retailer are close partners, and Disney reportedly helped design some of the very successful Toys 'R' Us feature shops, areas within Toys 'R' Us stores that spotlight specific Disney characters or releases.

Because of these strong retail ties, it's no surprise to hear that Disney approached the company about creating and selling at least one The Wild tie-in, specifically a doll of the character named Bridget, a (somewhat grumpy, I assume -- she's played by Janeane Garofalo, after all) giraffe. And, if loyalty and the chance to work with the lovely people at Disney wasn't enough, the animators had also thrown in a huge corporate shout-out to their toy-selling homies: there's a scene in the film of the animals passing the Times Square Toys 'R' Us store, and Bridget gazing up with wonder at the giant giraffe she sees (who also just happens to be the Toys 'R' Us mascot). Irresistible, right? Wrong.

After seeing an unfinished rough cut of The Wild several months ago, Toys 'R' Us executives politely declined to participate in merchandising for the movie, essentially because they think it's going to tank, and won't help sell any merchandise. The funny/sad thing (depending on your perspective) is that, according to Hill's report, Target, Hasbro, Mattel, and Wal-Mart all said exactly the same thing. Ouch. And oh dear.

According to a great piece by the LA Weekly's Nikki Finke this morning, the makers of The March of the Penguins are considering suing Warner independent Pictures, the film's American distributor. Why? They want more goddamn money, that's why! The movie has made nearly $80 million at the box office so far and, apart from the $1 million for distribution rights and some back end money, the film's production team has seen precious little of it. The problem, of course, is that they SIGNED A CONTRACT that set up current payment situation so, unless pouting has suddenly become a valid legal argument, a lawsuit seems unlikely to stand much of a chance.

Interestingly, Finke points out that the Penguins team had multiple chances to expand their profits by agreeing to a licensing deal but that they repeatedly refused, quite reasonably fearing that such a thing would "cheapen" their film. So what happens? They show up at the Oscars with stuffed penguins. Nice.