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Pixar boss John Lasseter finds himself in a strange place today.
His “Cars 2” opens on 4,100 screens and is expected to carry the weekend box office and ultimately ring up sales of roughly $250 million — a hit by almost any standard.
But the sequel to the 2006 original is attracting some of the worst reviews of Lasseter’s career.
“A lemon,” said New York magazine, while the Wall Street Journal called it a “dollar-driven Edsel.” In The Post, Kyle Smith wrote: “They said it couldn’t be done. But Pixar proved the yaysayers wrong when it made its first bad movie, ‘Cars.’ Now it has worsted itself with the even more awful ‘Cars 2.’ ”
In addition, “Cars 2,” which continues the exploits of Lightning McQueen, voiced by Owen Wilson, and features a pan-European car race, got poor reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, an online movie site closely watched by Wall Street analysts.
So far, the movie has garnered 35 so-called “rotten reviews,” versus 22 so-called “fresh,” or positive reviews; other Pixar movies such as “Toy Story” received 100 percent positive reviews.
But you’ll excuse Lasseter if he isn’t sweating the bad reviews. The 54-year-old animation master probably has his eyes on another type of review — the “Cars” franchise has raced to licensed retail sales of $10 billion from the 300 or so products on the market, making it among the best sellers of movie merchandise ever.
Those number make the estimates of between $50 million to $70 million opening weekend sales seem subcompact. The original rang up $60.1 million in its debut weekend.
“Cars 2″ licensed product sales are forecast to come in above ‘Toy Story 3’s” $2.8 billion.
Barton Crockett, entertainment analyst at Lazard Capital, said the latest Pixar film should do fine. “Kids don’t read the reviews; parents don’t care as long as kids are happy,” he said. “Kids love ‘Cars’; they want this stuff whether critics like the movie or not.”
Crockett adds that Pixar’s track record has been unrivaled and that mediocre reviews — while a new thing for Lasseter — aren’t the end of the world.
Doug Creutz, entertainment analyst with Cowan & Co., however, thinks Pixar risks diluting its brand with this latest movie. “Pixar has only ever put out great films and has an unbroken track record of success. You see a film that is well wide of that mark and you ask, ‘Why?’ This clearly got made to sell toys.”
Creutz, who has visited Pixar several times over the years, said, “They were so totally focused on excellence in filmmaking, and something changed.” Disney paid $6.4 billion to acquire Pixar in 2006.
Creutz is predicting the movie will take in $70 million in its opening weekend and a final box office tally of $250 million. A Pixar spokeswoman said, “We are extremely proud of ‘Cars 2,’ and we’re looking forward to people going this weekend and making up their own minds.”
A spokesman for Disney consumer products said, “It is going to be the biggest merchandise sale based on a movie ever. It will surpass last year’s ‘Toy Story.’ ” catkinson@nypost.com