Chicken Run is considered the Holy Grail of European feature production opportunities. © DreamWorks.

Between 1926 and 1997, Europe produced a total of 51 animated feature films, most of them after World War II. In the six-year period 1997-2002, 34 feature films were produced in Europe (1). Today, there are at least 20 features in development or currently in production and nothing seems likely to stop this growth phenomenon. Europe now produces more animated features than the United States and Japan combined. However, these figures require some qualification. Many of these films are released on a small scale, to a very local market, and, with very few exceptions, do not sell abroad. A list of the top 10 most successful international animated feature films in Europe contains only one European feature film, namely Chicken Run, which is a truly exceptional case.

Very few European films achieve real international success. Some of them do not even manage to perform across Europe as a whole. Some enjoy critical success in their home country, but this is clearly not enough to ensure their profitability. Yet a number of European animated features, such as Kirikou and the Sorceress, Chicken Run, Belleville Rendez-Vous, Lucky and Zorba, Raining Cats and Frogs , Black Mor’s Treasure, are, whatever their flaws, proof of a new creative energy. This might well contribute to a renewal of the genre by moving away, once and for all, from the post-Disney style, which is proving increasingly unsuccessful at the box-office, even though it remains, in quantitative terms, the dominant tendency.

Kirikou and the Sorceress has had a lasting effect on feature production across Europe.

A “Kirikou Effect”?
What has really happened in Europe in recent years? In France there has been much talk of the “Kirikou Effect.” Michel Ocelot, previously known for his short films, alongside his producer Didier Brunner, battled for years to get financing for an unusual story and a personal graphic style for the animated feature film Kirikou and the Sorceress. After many ups and downs, a long and complicated process, which meant the physical production being spread out over several geographical locations, the film was released in French cinemas in 1998. The film was an unexpected success in cinemas, compounded by its triumphant video release. Two million Europeans finally saw the film in cinemas and the film was also sold to many other countries in several continents.

The period immediately following saw a flood of feature film projects developed in France, hence the notion of the “Kirikou Effect.” Although the film’s strong sales have undoubtedly helped overcome skepticism and encouraged a range of different initiatives, the gestation period required for animated feature films suggests that in fact most of the films attributed to the Kirikou Effect were already in pre-production or even in production before Kirikou was released. Nonetheless, Corinne Jenart, from Cartoon (the European Association for animation film, part of the European Union’s Media Program) stresses that Kirikou’s success helped her organization to “sell” the industry on the idea for Cartoon Movie, an annual forum held near Berlin which has, year upon year, attracted an increasing number of producers and investors to look at projects seeking funding.

On the evidence of its dazzling European box office results, why is there no talk of the Chicken Run effect? Nobody dares, since that particular hit film is quite atypical. Financed by Pathé and DreamWorks and benefiting from their worldwide distribution networks, the film is in a totally different category from other European films, if in no other terms than its budget, considerably higher than any other animated film in Europe. The film is all the more problematic as an example since Aardman’s production of further feature films seems, for the moment, to be somewhat delayed.