The budget for “Up” is about $175 million excluding marketing, on par with other Pixar titles. “Up” will not arrive in theaters until May 29, but Pixarphiles  nudged along by the studio, which has been screening footage  are already effusive.

“Sophisticated, mature, poignant,” wrote Blue Sky Disney, a blog that chronicles everything Pixar. The Cannes Film Festival is so excited about “Up,” which will be released in 3-D, that it slotted the film on its prestigious opening night, a huge promotional platform that has never before gone to an animated film or a 3-D one.

Adjusted for inflation, Pixar’s films have generated a combined $2.65 billion at North American theaters, a spectacular showing. “Finding Nemo” in 2003 was the high point, selling $405.6 million in tickets.

Pixar’s last two films, “Wall-E” and “Ratatouille,” have been the studio’s two worst performers, delivering sales of $224 million and $216 million respectively, according to Box Office Mojo, a tracking service. Attendance for Pixar films has also dropped sharply over the years, suggesting that ticket price inflation helped prop up overall sales for “Wall-E” and “Ratatouille.”

Retailers, meanwhile, see slim merchandising possibilities for “Up.” Indeed, the film seems likely to generate less licensing revenue than “Ratatouille,” until now the weakest Pixar entry in this area. (“Cars” wears the merchandising crown, with sales of more than $5 billion.)

Target and Wal-Mart say they will stock little “Up” merchandise, mainly because there was not much interest from manufacturers: Thinkway Toys, which has churned out thousands of Pixar-related products since 1995’s “Toy Story,” will not produce a single item. Disney Stores will offer “Up”-related products, but even that will be on a limited basis, according to analysts.

Disney sees the worry as unfair and tiresome given Pixar’s track record.

With “Ratatouille,” analysts fretted about whether moviegoers would go to see a movie about a rat in the kitchen. They did. With “Wall-E,” people feared the lack of dialogue would bore children. It did not.