I think because Tangled came so quickly after The Princess and The Frog. It didn't get enough time to get so much attention.

Winnie the Pooh also struggled.

The story is way to complicated and the side characters, with the exception of Lottie, utterly unlikable. But they also made some mistake in the marketing. They picked the wrong time to let it hit the theaters, just for starters. But, even worse, the whole advertising was based on the princess concept, something which speaks to girls, but not to boys. And then those little girls who have been told by disney that everyone can be a princess see a movie, which starts out moking the concept of "believing in stars and wishes", and ends up with making clear that Tiana only could become a princess by marrying a prince - they basically subverted their own message.

And the racism!

Since no one really makes 2D animated films anymore, I guess that's the reason

Or "No way I'm watching a movie with a BLACK PRINCESS!" says a random loser. My reason for not seeing it in the theatre was just me being money wise. I don'twant to waste money on something I wouldn't like

Mixed with some racism(I heard a ton of people saying they didn't want to see it because it as a black princess, either because they were racist, or because they were worried Disney was going to disappoint them with Tiana's character), the fact it was 2D and the story wasn't as well thought out as Tangled (Even though I do love PatF to bits)

I think they are racist. At first, they wanted to make Tiana's name "Maddie" from the word, "Maid". And they made Tiana, a very hard worker, while Charlotte, the "white" one and other princesses are daydreamers. They chose the year when America was racist at black people. Tiana do not believe about fairy tales and kissed a frog prince for money.

I agree with Nostalgia Critic's review link. I think the biggest problems with this movie is yes, that the story is too complicated but also it's not as funny as Tangled. I can remember so many funny lines from that movie but almost none from PatF and most of the ones that I can remember don't make me laugh as much. Also even though this movie does have action, the action just doesn't compare to Tangled.

911LOL, I don't think Tiana didn't "believe" in fairytales, she just didn't have time to think about it and had her mind on living her fathers dream for her since he died off screen

I think this movie is actually BETTER than Tangled. I don't know what peoples problem is.

I also think the songs played a big part in it. I think it's the fact that the movie had a jazzy songs compared to Tangled's pop songs made people like it less.

I do think race had some effect, at least in the USA, but I think the 2D animation was a bigger factor. Like I said, Winnie the Pooh also struggled, and the only human character in it was a white boy.

As for the complicated or supposed anti-fairy tale plot...clearly, neither of those apply to Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh had a sweet and simple plot that unabashedly believed in its own fairy tale.

Winnie the Pooh also had a perfect promotional campaign.

Winnie the Pooh struggled for other reasons - I haven't even watched it yet, because I still can't get over the fact that Christopher Robin looks so different. Plus, it's a fairly short movie. Plus, I really loved Winnie the Pooh when I was a child, but I'm not sure if I can connect the same way to it now that I'm an adult. Plus there have been a lot of medicore sequels inbetween, which were fun for children, but certainly not for adult. In short, the problem of Winnie the Pooh was not the animation, it was that it drew in a very limited audience. You just don't expect it to be enjoyable for an adult, even though Disney movies are normally made for children and adults alike.

About the race issue: I'm sure that there were some people who skipped the movie because Tiana was black. I'm equally sure that just as many if not more people watched this movie because she was and they finally got their black princess. And I'm totally sure that this was barely an issue outside of the US, especially not in Europe, since racism against blacks is way less widespread here due to the lack of contact.

I'm also sure that PotF got more viewers than it normally would have, because it was the first 2D movie in a long time, and so many people really wanted to like the movie, because they wanted a 2D comeback. I'm sure, if TLM would hit theaters now, it would be just as successful as years ago, 2D animated or not.

@Swanpride - I don't know if you're in the target market of Winnie the Pooh. It was heavily targeted at parents with kids similar in age to their age when they watched Winnie the Pooh. The promotional campaign was perfect for this segment.

Yes, and I'm sure it did well in this segment. But surely not as well as movies which are target all age groups. Disney movies are normally not "just for kids" or "for parents with small kids", they are supposed to be enjoyable for everyone, and most of them are. Winnie Pooh had a way smaller target audience compared to that.

Swanpride I entirely agree. I had such high expectations about this movie and ended up being highly disappointed. First off, the characters, save for Lottie, Tiana's parents and Ray Ray were very unlikable, underdeveloped and overall flat and one dementional with unconvincing motivation and even more unconvincing character development. Take Naveen for instance - he started out as a self centered and spoiled nacissistic jerk who has a tendency to humiliate less privileged people insulting them for their social status or even their appearence - like he did with Tiana on more than one occasion when mocking her working class or when he called his friend "fat". But then suddenly we are supposed to buy into his completely rushed and inorganic personality change that happens within few seconds when Tiana makes him cook a soup. And voila! - our spoiled narcissistic jerk with offensive standards regarding people suddenly turns into a respectful, hardworking guy willing to get a job and looking at Tiana with puppy eyes because he suddenly realized she ws "his Evangeline". Like, really? I don't care about the fact that he had an inferiority complex which was supposed to be an excuse for his uncaring nature and his treatment of people, it doesn't explain the fact that he supposedly changed his entire world view out of the blue for no valid reason at all. Compare this to Flynn's character development that was actually amazingly done because it was made clear from the beginning of the movie that he wasn't a bad person, more of a lost person who got off track and chose a wrong way of dealing with his rather complecated life situation and his desperate attempts to measure up to his childhood ideal and he didn't have anyone to guide him, being an orphan and an overall very damaged person with massive insecurities, untill he met Rapunzel who didn't judge him and accepted him for who he was in spite of his flaws. Basically, Tangled story was about acceptance whereas Tiana/Naveen teach us that if you insult and disrespect each other and basically represent everything the other despises about life you can work out as a romantic couple. Once again, if it was supposed to show a gradual process of falling in love, then PaTF failed massively here as well, especially compared to Tangled, because Flynn/Rapunzel also were far from being love at first sight, but they didn't despise or hate each other or each other's worldview in the beginning, he was just annoyed with the fact that she took his satchel blackmailing him into taking her to see some "stupid" lanterns and she was annoyed with the fact that he tried to scare her back home in order to get it back. It had nothing to do with prejudices or even anything personal and when their relationship finally DID become personal and they got to know each other, they actually got drawn to one another and started developing feelings. Tiana and Naveen on the other hand disliked each other from the get go because of reasons directly linked to their outlook on life, because Naveen was a prejudiced and dellusional jerk who judged people based on their social status and Tiana thought Naveen was lazy and useless, but hey, soup can fix everything so it's ok.

I like PaTF now more than I did when I fist watched it but I still think it could never measure up to Tangled in it's genuiness and beauty of it's message.

i like it but i think that tangled was better and you make a good point about the whole anti fairytale thing but i also think that it might be that it was as promoted as much and yeah some ppl are racist but i don't think that would affect it to much it also might be cause of the time period

the movie is WAY better than Tangled. Tangled was basically a mix of many movies, and honestly the 3d ruined it

I heard A LOT of people say they didn't want to see it because of the voodoo stuff.

Regardless of your personal opinion of The Princess and the Frog vs Tangled, both of them were well received in reviews and among audiences. I don't think there's a case to be made that there was any big difference in ticket sales as a result of difference in quality.

^Shrek? Don't really like It for same reason as yours.

A lot of factors causes this movie didn't do well. Beside that this movie itself isn't really good and entertaining, also because how they made it anti-fairytale and more realistic (ironically for me because it was adapted from a fairytale too, and in this case they fail to bring good adaptation of The Frog Prince/Princess). Maybe some racism too as certain peoples aren't ready with black princess as a protagonist.
2D animation isn't really influence.

People tend to look down upon 2D animation (for some reason). Stupid.

^This...Disney subverted their own legacy from Walt himself. Walt said "hard work with the capacity to believe." Walt was a visionary and used imagination. It wasn't only hard work that did it all.

Then...also the statement that this movie just wasn't that good. It wasn't any fun because the protagonist was a continual lecturer on work, work, work. There was no dimension to her, outside of work, except for her memory of her dad's wish for the restaurant. It was hard for me to relate to her, justify liking her, and I never could love her. Her ethnicity had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with it. Tiana could have been white with the same work ethic, and I would still definitively place her in slot #11.

As for 2D, if Disney had come out with a better plotline for that movie--- it would have succeeded. But they chose to make their last 2D flick for the Disney hater base. And that's why most of Tiana's fans usually are "self-identified": "I used to hate Disney, because their stupid princesses weren't for me. I'm not stupid enough to like the "old" princesses. I love Tiana, and basically everyone after her." lol. Pandering to a certain audience's wishes. It shows so badly.

No one cared for it in my country.