If you saw the Pixar vs. DreamWorks Animation cartoon last week, you probably thought it was making fun of the latter studio. For Wall Street, however, it might well have been an illustration of why DreamWorks is a better investment. All those movies about talking animals make for great merchandising opportunities. Toys, especially. And in addition to DreamWorks’ apparent ease in licensing its characters, the studios’ movies are, as the cartoon points out, simpler and obviously therefore more commercial.

The New York Times has an article by Brook Barnes in today’s Business section, in which Pixar’s latest film, Up, is said to be unpopular with both Wall Street and manufacturers because it follows Ratatouille and WALL-E in the studio’s supposed descent in commerciality. Sure, Up’s relative lack of licensing possibilities seems odd for Disney, which probably wouldn’t have been as successful had Walt and Roy never started the merchandization of Mickey Mouse 80 years ago, but wasn’t it enough that Pixar sold its soul with the very toy-friendly Cars (and Cars 2)? Besides, Up apparently does have talking animals, so there’s no reason for the money men to worry.

See what other blogs are saying about this story after the jump.

• Michael Giltz at The Huffington Post argues against six points made by the Times article, pointing out that an animated film doesn’t necessarily have to put toys before story and that any Wall Street analyst who’d bet against Pixar is an idiot. He proposes such a wager to one such analyst quoted by Barnes:
  

  I will bet [Richard Greenfield of Pali Research] $1000.00 today that Up grosses at least $400 million total box office worldwide and it’ll be the safest money I’ve ever made. That does not include DVD sales and rentals, pay per view, cable and TV sales and so on.

• Coincidentally, “The Editors” at The Carpetbagger, to which Barnes often contributes, ask, “Does anyone dare to bet against Pixar?”
• Lane Brown at Vulture merely implores Wall Street to lay off:
  

  Honestly, though, if anyone’s earned the right to ignore focus groups, it’s Pixar. Even though this argument seems to come up every time they make a movie, we sort of didn’t expect it this time. Doesn’t Up also feature an adorable talking dog, for godsakes? And what does it say about our society when we’re worried that audiences might find an elderly hero less sympathetic than a rat and a garbage-disposal robot?

  Come on, Wall Street — this is the same noxious thinking that ruined all the other movie studios. Leave Pixar alone!

• “A complete embarrassment for the Paper of Record,” writes David Poland at The Hot Blog about Barnes’ reporting. He also lists the box office figures for all of Pixar’s movies, and points out that:
  

  Even just using domestic gross - which only someone who is ignorant or willful would do - there are two movies that didn’t break $200 million while Ratatouille and Wall-E did. But The Rat is Pixar’s #2 ALL TIME foreign and Wall-E is #4.

  Do those numbers not count?

• Scott Mendelson at Film Threat calls the Times piece libelous for claiming Ratatouille and WALL-E weren’t successful, noting that it’s not the first time a journalist has ignored the facts in order to run with a chosen narrative:
  

  I wrote last year about a review of Lakeview Terrace in Variety that basically said that the film would have ’so so box office like Changing Lanes, instead of boffo numbers like Crash‘. Both films had nearly identical domestic and international grosses. They just don’t check the numbers or they just pick and choose the numbers because it otherwise wouldn’t fit into their narrative of choice.

• Scott Kirsner at CinemaTech also argues against the article yet reminds of his own criticisms with Pixar:
  

  While I have been critical in the past about Pixar’s reluctance to experiment with new forms and formats for animation (Internet stuff, mobile phones, interactivity/gaming, etc.), I don’t think it makes sense to worry about their ability to produce big hits … hits that often do great on the merchandising and theme park front.

• Gina Telaroli at TakePart shares part of Disney’s response to the article:
  

  This is somewhat infuriating to read - but thankfully Pixar released a statement proving that they actually are awesome:

  We seek to make great films first. If a great film gives birth to a franchise, we are the first company to leverage such success. A check-the-boxes approach to creativity is more likely to result in blandness and failure.

• John Frost at The Disney Blog believes, in the long run, a less-merchandise-friendly film is better for Hollywood:
  

  If every time you lure a family in to spend $60 in a movie theater all they see is a giant advertisment to go and buy stuff, the family will stop coming.