Wall Street Reverses View on Disney/Pixar's Up

Pete Docter, Bob Peterson Directs Film Starring Ed Asner

Jul 13, 2009

Wall Street analyst Richard Greenfield admitted he was "dead wrong" about his assessment of Up's box office chances. Disney/Pixar film has earned $273 million so far.

A Wall Street analyst offered an apology of sorts when he admitted he was "dead wrong" in his predictions for Disney/Pixar's latest film Up.

According to The New York Times, analyst Richard Greenfield of Pali Research admitted that, "The recent success of Pixar’s Up (well ahead of our forecasts) has renewed investor confidence in Disney’s creative capabilities.”

In March of 2009, Greenfield recommended that investors sell their Disney stock, claiming that the Mouse House was in trouble, and that Up's 78-year-old protagonist, and lack of a significant female character, would doom its box office chances. However, the movie – directed by Monsters Inc.'s Pete Docter and Bob Peterson – has since earned $273 million in domestic box office so far, making it the 2nd most successful movie in Pixar's history.

This is the 3rd year in a row that Greenfield has underestimated the Pixar brand: he harboured similar reservations about Ratatouille and WALL-E's box office when those movies came out in 2007 and 2008. Those films went on to earn $621 million and $534 million in worldwide box office respectively, and both won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.

Since 1995's Toy Story, every single one of Pixar's films has earned a significant profit.

Despite his mea culpa concerning Up, Greenfield did defend his previous decision to place Disney stock in the "sell" column, claiming that the next 12 to 18 months will be "substantially more difficult for Disney than investors are currently anticipating.” Those troubles include low ratings for Disney's television subsidiaries – part of an industry-wide slump – and difficulties cutting costs in their theme parks.

Despite the gloomy forecasts, no one on Wall Street disputes the wisdom of Disney's $7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar in May of 2006, with Anthony J. DiClemente of Barclays Capital calling Up's box office triumph a “continued affirmation of the Pixar acquisition as financially and strategically sound.”

Disney/Pixar's Winning Streak Continues From Toy Story to Up, Despite Risky Plotlines

Wall Street isn't the only place where Pixar's box office value has been underestimated. After a preview screening in Pixar's studios, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner gleefully informed the Mouse House's head office that the Emeryville studio's 2003 film Finding Nemo was going to bomb and be "a major wake-up call for these guys."

Ironically, Finding Nemo – which Up co-director Peterson helped write – would become Pixar's box office champ to date, earning $864 million worldwide. Its runaway success helped fuel a bitter battle between Eisner and Pixar's Steve Jobs, when Pixar's contract with the Mouse House came up for re-negotiation in 2004. Eisner's attempts to play hardball with Jobs and Pixar acted as a partial catalyst for Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold's Save Disney campaign in 2006, which resulted in Eisner's ouster.

The copyright of the article Wall Street Reverses View on Disney/Pixar's Up in Hollywood Animated Films is owned by Dominic von Riedemann. Permission to republish Wall Street Reverses View on Disney/Pixar's Up in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.