MovieChat Forums > Winnie the Pooh (2011) Discussion > Why isn't this getting more of the atten...

Why isn't this getting more of the attention all the Smurfs are getting?

posted 14 years ago by amcguire12
16 replies | jump to latest

I see so much talk on TV and the internet explaining the Smurfs' $30 million opening because "parents with young kids needed an alternative to Harry Potter" or something similar. Well that's exactly why Disney put Winnie the Pooh on HP's opening weekend in the first place! You'd think parents would take their kids to the movie that was... you know... good. So do parents not have any taste anymore, or what? Is it that the kids would rather watch the Smurfs? What am I missing???

[–] Wman1996 14 years ago

People cannot see what's good anymore. Kids want stupid bathroom humor and wacky spastic characters instead of subtle and charming films.

[–] gabby_bm 14 years ago

Pooh is so 2D. The smurfs, aside from their parents having grown up on them, are also computer-generated Pixar-esque critters like all the other crap that kids are already used to.

Now, imagine if Smurfs had the same advertising budget that Pooh has. They would be doing considerably worse than Pooh. This is why they are blitzing the media with advertisements. Without mass-saturation and parental idiocy, they wouldn't get squat.

"Atlas Shrugged- Part 2"- Coming in 2012! --The saga continues!

[–] QueenFanUSA 14 years ago

gamerguy79 said:

"Kids want stupid bathroom humor and wacky spastic characters instead of subtle and charming films"

Sad, but oh so true.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] number1212 14 years ago

It's because Winnie the Pooh did not have all the advertisement as The Smurfs. I remember seeing a trailer for the Smurfs like a year before it came out.

[–] megaruda 14 years ago

shame on mankind... winnie pooh is so much better than the smurfs movie

[–] BrycleySuxx 14 years ago

Exactly this. I didn't see a Pooh trailer until April and it was only in the Universal Citywalk (Hollywood) theater for two weeks. I was going to see it today but it was already gone.

[–] icicle_feast 14 years ago

And it seems like Pooh isn't being shown in very many theaters...I only found one theater playing it in my whole state.

[–] gdeangel 14 years ago

It's been mentioned in other threads, but with a runtime of 63 minutes, you start out already with an idea that a trip to see Pooh will be a $40 excursion to watch what is basically a 1 hour TV special.

Smurfs may be a lousy movie (my guess from watching the preview) but at least they put it out there with a 100+ minute run time.

[–] gabby_bm 14 years ago

30 minutes of Smurfs is considered torture. I can't even imagine what 100 minutes of Smurfs qualifies as. I'm sure I wouldn't qualify it as a bargain or an equitable deal.

Dammit! for $40, I don't want 60 minutes of quality for my money, I'd rather have 100 minutes of crap so i feel like i got something for my money!

This must be why buffet restaurants do so well

"Atlas Shrugged- Part 2"- Coming in 2012! --The saga continues!

[–] WBSlinger63 14 years ago

To bring up a topic that has been drilled to death, you'd rather see a 100 minutes of a really bad movie than 63 minutes of a really good one, as long as you know you got your $10 worth? Trust me, Meet the Spartans was longer than Winnie the Pooh, and I wanted to pull my eyes out of my skull.

[–] iCrazyDavey 13 years ago

because kids today are dumb.... and Disney is more dumb for putting it against Harry Potter. Seriously. This film should've been released the same week as the Smurfs. THAT would've made more sense!!!!!

http://twitter.com/#!/CrazyDavey25

[–] onelostfanpaul 13 years ago

There are a multitude of reasons for Winnie the Pooh not doing as well as The Smurfs. Runtime may or may not have been one of them, but marketing almost certaintly was. Disney probably assumed that since Winnie the Pooh is such a recognizable brand, it didn't need much marketing. But I assume that audiences' familiarity with Pooh was actually another reason for the film not doing so well.

Disney has made countless Pooh movies since the original '77 film, but none of them have been done by WDAS. In addition to the theatrical films produced by DisneyToon Studios, there have been numerous T.V. shows and Direct to Video films. While I have not seen all of the different Pooh films that Disney has made since the original and those that I have seen I haven't seen in years, given the track record of DisneyToon Studios they probably weren't great. I am aware that some of the theatrical Pooh films released by DisneyToon Studios recieved fairly good reviews, but still, they were most likely not as good as the original or as this one. Winnie the Pooh has become associated with cheap kiddie fare, much like the other Disney sequels. Most people are not aware that this film is actually the first official sequel to the original Winnie the Pooh movie and thus they probably think that its just another bad Disney sequel.

[–] number1212 13 years ago

No kids aren't any dumber than they were 10 years ago or whatever. This was Disney's fault. It should have been released in a less crowded time of the year.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] cjd-16 13 years ago

I'm going to agree with the marketing comment.

I saw a trailer for "The Smurfs" almost a full year before it came out, and many more times since then.

The only reason I knew about Winnie the Pooh, though, is because I am a Disney fanboy, and follow everything that they are making. But if I was relying completely on commercials and advertising to let me know that a movie was coming out, I would have only seen ONE advertisement total for Winnie the Pooh, the week before it came out.

Someone in Disney's marketing department seriously needs to be fired... this is like the 4th movie in a row that they have completely mucked up. They just don't know how to get people excited and make their films look like huge theatrical events like they used to.