The Princess and the Frog

[Macaluso]

I think Jim Cummings has a pretty recognizable voice honestly. I always thought it was Jim Cummings when I first heard the voice.

[estefan]

Still, it's nonetheless fantastic to see Disney hire a professional voice actor and not an on-screen celebrity to voice a major role in one of their animated films. As much as I enjoyed Kung Fu Panda, one of the issues I had with it was that they simply hired celebrities to voice the Furious Fice and I delt that professional voice-actors like Cummings, Kath Soucie, Rob Paulsen and others would have brought so much more to the roles.

[Whippet Angel]

On a side note, I still ended up buying tons of merchandise at Disney. There was never any doubt, really. Boy, do they have a lot! Got mini plushies of Naveen, Tiana as a frog, Louis and my Ray! And other miscellany stuff. Yes, I know nobody really cares, thought I would still mention it!

Gah, I think I'm in love with Naveen. I need to go find a plush now...

[droosan]

Wow .. the Prince's name really is spelled 'Naveen'..?

Up to now, I'd assumed it was spelled 'Navin'. Like the actual proper name, Navin.

[Locall]

It fell 50% this weekend at the box office, still nothing to worry about?

[estefan]

If you look up Aladdin's weekly box-office, it also fell 50% on its second week of wide-release, but it then picked up at Christmas. I expect the same to happen to Princess and the Frog, despite competition from those annoying chipmunks.

Let's face it, this week was all about Avatar. I even contributed to its opening weekend gross. But, I plan on seeing Princess and the Frog a second time at the cinema this week, which is very rare for me as I never see a film more than once during its theatrical run, but it shows how much I loved it (i.e. a lot).

[EricJ]

Think we mentioned, back during the "Oh, no, it's opening the same day as ALVIN!!! 0_0 " fears, there's a reason why every studio with a December tentpole waits to rush the Dec. 25th date:
Parents just don't want to go to the shopping malls anymore than they have to between Thanksgiving/Black Friday and Christmas vacation...And while they might brave the parking to take the kids to one family movie between that time (if there are two, pray you're not the second, less-promoted one, as you just might well go home now), the movie that opens the closest to Christmas school vacation is going have a slightly better chance.
A parent who wants to get the kids out of the house five snowy days after opening presents will watch ANYTHING, and Fox has counted on that for the last seven years. (Yes, they even went to see "Fat Albert: the Movie".)

As it happens, P&tF was the One movie parents went to see during shopping season (but only because older teens were waiting for Avatar), and did pretty well on its own merits despite the handicap of not coming out at Christmas...Although that does mean that Alvin will probably end up making a lot more money than it deserves to, even if it was never destined to "wipe Disney off the map" as we were all hypnotized into thinking six months ago.

[eddievalient]

Actually, the "Squeakual" looks like something of an improvement over the first film to me. I'll wait til it's on dvd to see it, but I still want to see it (what can I say, I loved the Chipmunks as a kid and there's still the nostalgia factor even though the new movies will never be better than the original animated one).

[EricJ]

Perhaps. I think "Down in New Orleans" or "Almost There" have a shot at a Best Song nomination.

Just FTR, the official Song Consideration eligibles were released a week ago, and P&tF only had four up for competition:
- Almost There
- Down in New Orleans
- Ma Belle Evangeline
- Never Knew I Needed

The Best Song category is trying to get away from the "monopoly" of Dreamgirls, Enchanted and Slumdog running away with three nominations in the category while a foreign/indie gets one--
Rules now limit two nominated songs per movie, which is also going to hamper "Hanna Montana", "Doctor Parnassus" and "Nine" (the Fellini musical, not the Sackboy one.)

[estefan]

Disney's decision to submit five songs for Hannah Montana and only four for The Princess and the Frog is pretty ridiculous, considering Hannah Montana is not going to get a nomination anywhere at the Academy Awards.

[American_dog_2008]

Hannah Montana was not bad for off topic.

Well, give Frog some noms!

[Bill1978]

The Best Song category is trying to get away from the "monopoly" of Dreamgirls, Enchanted and Slumdog running away with three nominations in the category while a foreign/indie gets one--

Just for the record the new rule of limiting movies to 2 songs was bought in after Enchanted didn't win after 3 noms which followed the loss of Dreamgirls from 3 noms. The Academy thought that this was proving split voting (convenitnely ignoring Beauty and Lion King which won an award with 3 noms in the category). I remember thinking how funny it was with the new rules in play only 3 songs got nominated in 2009 and 2 were from the same movie (Slumdog).

I think Almost There has the best chance of securing Princess a nom this year. But I haven't actually seen the movie yet, just heard the soundtrack

[Locall]

Princess and the Frog just passed the 50 million mark in domestic box office,
Home on the Range, ended its run at 50 million 5 years ago.

[eddievalient]

That's good. When all is said and done and the international box office is taken into account, PatF should go in the books as a success, if a modest one.

[Locall]

Atlantis made 84 million in it's entire domestic run, which was years ago...
With Alvin being released It will be strugling to make that 84 million, and with inflation it should be even more...
Atlantis didn't go into the books as a succes, so I think P&tF won't go either.