Disney Pixar Under Pressure To Sell More Merchandise

Traders in Wall Street have voiced their concerns over the commercial strength of Disney Pixar recently.Many quality films have come out of this company over the last couple of decades but there are lots of people that think they have lost their commercial edge these days.

This news comes after their worst two performing productions yet, WALL-E and Ratatouille. Although all of their films are making profit, they are just not making as much as their top competitors such as Dreamworks.The latest release 'UP' has just hit the screens and contains many of the same floors as highlighted in previous films.  The overriding opinion is that there is a serious lack of marketable characters and they are not as appealing or purchasable as their previous efforts (think Mickey Mouse) or indeed those of their completion. Dreamworks have been producing some merchandising god-sends lately include the Shrek and Wallace and Grommit films and their latest, Monsters VS Aliens. These products feature easily identifiable heroes and villains, and also cute talking creature or animals that covert well the merchandise war. Toys, books,  DVD’s, clothes even more obscure products such as dolls houses, all play their part in making up the films overall profits.The ability to sell these products is what is lacking in the story lines and characters in Pixar's latest products.

In counter to this attack, those who support Pixar say that they would rather be known for creating great, meaningful films than making something to simply promote merchandise sales. They would rather be able to promote the selling of educational toys instead of cheap tacky stuff. Having said this, there is a great deal of pressure on the company from shareholders and linked businesses to up their game in terms of commercialism.Richard Greenfield from Pali research downgraded the shares of Disney to sell last month, giving a poor commercial success prediction as a reason.