PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (2023): Paramount Brilliant Marketing Idea Amid Actors Strike

Cast participation is especially crucial for animated film.

But the strike commenced July 14, roughly six weeks before Mutant Mayhem opened.

“We could tell people all these stars are in the film, but unless someone sees them out in the world, it’s tough,” says Weinstock. “The week of opening, you would have seen all our stars on late night shows, just like they would have gone to theaters to meet with fans.”

Foreseeing the possibility of strike, Paramount brought in members of the Mutant cast to prerecord media and featurettes.

That wasn’t the case, however, for PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, which Paramount opened Sept. 27.

PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie
Theatrical release poster

The necessary footage wasn’t available in time. For a second time, Weinstock was cut off from his most valuable asset, the talent, which includes Taraji P. Henson, Kristen Bell, Kim Kardashian and James Marsden.

“We were like, ‘Not again,’ ”says Weinstock. “We came up with the idea of setting Guinness record for the largest number of dogs to see a movie.”

On September 24, 219 canines gathered at Griffith Park to watch an outdoor screening of the PAW Patrol sequel hosted by Kevin Frazier, from ET.

The pooch audience generated plenty of headlines, and while he couldn’t leverage his talent, PAW Patrol opened to strong numbers, though it might have done more business had stars been free for publicity.

The loss of star power dinged the film’s box office grosses by about 10 percent.

Budget $30 million–Box office $198.9 million 

The screening had to turn away 4 dogs that were official members of SAG.