ADVERTISEMENT

‘Coco’ Strikes a Chord in Mexico, Bodes Well for Film's U.S. Run

‘Coco’ Strikes a Chord in Mexico, Bodes Well for Film's U.S. Run

(Bloomberg) -- “Coco,” a Walt Disney Co. film about a Mexican boy who yearns to be a guitarist like his matinee idol, is proving to be a runaway hit in the country. 

The picture has taken in $28 million since its Oct. 27 release in Mexico, the first country where it’s opened. More significantly, receipts rose 12 percent in its second weekend in theaters, a rarity in a business where even blockbusters dip by a third or more from week to week.

‘Coco’ Strikes a Chord in Mexico, Bodes Well for Film's U.S. Run

“Coco” is based on the Dia de los Muertos holiday that honors the dead. In Oaxaca, a city well known for its celebrations of the day, a community group took elderly residents to a screening. Paint company PPG Comex teamed up with 10 local artists to create 30 “Coco”-inspired murals in trendy Mexico City neighborhoods like Condesa, Roma and San Miguel Chapultepec.

The film, made by Disney’s Pixar unit, is resonating with Mexicans at a time when relations between the U.S. and Mexico have been tense, with President Donald Trump generating widespread condemnation in the country for his positions on trade and immigration. A lot of research and collaboration with Latino artists and activists, as well as the film’s focus on universal themes, have prevented a backlash.

“I think it goes beyond respecting Mexican culture -- it venerates it,” said Natalie Roterman, a freelance writer in Mexico City who often critiques the entertainment industry. The “cempasuchil petals, the Xolo’s tongue -- every detail reflects the love that the team behind the movie has for our culture.”

‘Coco’ Strikes a Chord in Mexico, Bodes Well for Film's U.S. Run

The film is projected to take in $60 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. and $270 million in its domestic run, according to BoxOfficePro. That would put it among the top 10 pictures of the year and represent a bona fide hit for Pixar, which has had a mixed record recently. Last year’s “Finding Dory” was the studio’s biggest domestic release, while this summer’s “Cars 3” and 2015’s “The Good Dinosaur” were its lowest-grossing films, according to the research site BoxOfficeMojo.

“Coco” could have gone the other way. In 2013, after reports came out that Disney was trying to trademark the term “Dia De Los Muertos,” a Change.org petition began circulating accusing the company of “trying to appropriate and exploit Mexican religion and culture.”

Disney enlisted Latino artists and advocates including cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, playwright Octavio Solis and independent producer Marcela Davison Aviles. They provided input on clothing, set design and dialogue, Disney said.

Evelina Fernandez, a playwright and TV writer in Los Angeles, and others advised Pixar not to overdo the Flamenco guitar strumming in the soundtrack, for example. The company is scoring points by letting Latino arts organizations use the film for fundraisers before its Nov. 22 U.S. release.

“They’ve really reached out to the community,” Fernandez said.

Olaf Disliked

Indeed, the biggest protest from Mexican moviegoers has been that the 21-minute “Olaf’s Frozen Adventure,” a “Frozen” spinoff being shown before “Coco,” is too long and boring. The newspaper El Heraldo de Mexico reported that groups had organized on Facebook calling on Mexican theater chains to stop running the short film.

In “Coco,” 12-year-old Miguel Rivera and his dog Dante, a popular breed known as Xolo, travel to the land of the dead where they learn family secrets and the reason why he hasn’t been allowed to become a musician.

The film’s theme of family scored well in test screenings all over the world, according to Dave Hollis, president of worldwide distribution for Disney’s studio division.

“‘Coco’ is definitely becoming a local cultural phenomenon,” Hollis said. The box office success “is a reflection of the way everyone in Mexico is receiving the film. It’s next to impossible to even predict where this film goes from here.”

At the movie’s Mexico premiere, held Oct. 20 during a film festival in the colonial city of Morelia, Lee Unkrich, one of the writers and directors, said he spent six years working on the picture.

“We did all this research, it was very, very important to us,” Unkrich told a packed crowd at an historic theater. “It was our intention from the very beginning of this project to tell a story that was not only as authentic as we could possibly make it but was also as respectful as possible.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net, Andrea Navarro in Mexico City at anavarro30@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Bruce Rule, Rob Golum

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.