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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 4.7 - OCTOBER 1999

Films

Haly Joel Osment and Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense. © The Walt Disney Co.

AWN Animated Box Office Report. August 20-August 22: Buena Vista's supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, with visual effects by DreamQuest, finished first at the US weekend boxoffice for the third consecutive week, grossing $23,950.008, which is only slightly below last week's $26.1 million, for a total of $107,506,281; The Walt Disney Company's Inspector Gadget, with digital effects by DreamQuest, finished eighth, grossing $4,316,854 for a total of $83,161,640; Warner Bros.' shark thriller, Deep Blue Sea, with digital effects by ILM and Cinesite, finished ninth, grossing $3,980.468 for a total of $63,843,209; and Universal Studios' Mystery Men, with digital effects by POP Film and Rhythm and Hues, finished eleventh, grossing $2,716,045 for a total of $24,459,175. Unfortunately, in an ongoing animation tragedy, Warner Bros.' The Iron Giant has dropped from the top ten. While reportedly $30 million was spent on the film's advertising campaign, the approach failed to draw in viewers to this critically acclaimed film. Other factors, such as releasing the film against a wave of stiff competition and the lack of licensing and marketing partners, are also being blamed for the film's poor performance. The Iron Giant finished twelfth, grossing $2,320,113 for a total of $16,659,344. Other animation related features in the top fifty were: DreamWorks' The Haunting, with digital effects by ILM, finished fifteenth, grossing $1,673,358 for a total of $86,750,650; Lucasfilm's Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Empire finished sixteenth, grossing $1,221,405 for a total of $417,800,897; Disney's Tarzan finished eighteenth, grossing $740,036 for a total of $165,477,219; Universal's The Mummy finished thirtieth, grossing $226,395 for a total of $154,703,255; Warner Bros.' The Wild Wild West finished thirty-fourth, grossing $175,929 for a total of $111,629,242; and South Park finished fortieth, grossing $120,747 for a total of $51,118,648. . . August 27-August 29: Buena Vista's supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, with visual effects by DreamQuest, finished first at the US weekend boxoffice for the fourth consecutive week, grossing an $20,099,149 for a total of $138,853,903. No other animation related film finished in the top ten. Other animation related films in the top twenty: newly released Universal's Dudley Do-Right, a live-action film which stars Brendan Fraser, and is based on the series about a Canadian Mountie from Jay Ward and Bill Scott's early 1960s The Rocky And Bullwinkle Show, finished eleventh, grossing $3,018,345; The Walt Disney Company's Inspector Gadget, with digital effects by DreamQuest, finished twelfth, grossing $2,367,348 for a total of $87,554,569; Warner Bros.' shark thriller, Deep Blue Sea, with digital effects by ILM and Cinesite, finished thirteenth, grossing $1,867,206 for a total of $67,186,258; Warner Bros. The Iron Giant finished eighteenth, grossing $1,014,928 for a total of $18,817,413; Universal Studios' Mystery Men, with digital effects by POP Film and Rhythm and Hues, finished nineteenth, grossing $1,012,530 for a total of $26,868,815; and Lucasfilm's Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace finished twentieth, grossing $910,246 for a total of $419,423,967. . . September 3-September 5: Buena Vista's supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, with visual effects by DreamQuest, finished first at the US weekend boxoffice for the fifth consecutive week, grossing an estimated $28.5 million over the US Labor Day holiday weekend, $8 million more than the previous week. Its total now stands at $175.5 million. No other animation related films finished in the top ten. . . September 10-September 11: Buena Vista's supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, with visual effects by DreamQuest, finished second at the US weekend boxoffice after topping the list for its first five weeks of release, grossing an estimated $17 million over the weekend, for a total of $198.2 million. No other animation related films finished in the top ten. . . September 17-September 18: Buena Vista's supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, with visual effects by DreamQuest, finished third at the US weekend boxoffice, grossing an estimated $11.2 million over the weekend, for a total of $216.7 million. No other animation related films finished in the top ten.

Phantom Menace Continues World Tour [AF 8/31/99]. Lucasfilm's Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace passed the $300 million mark in overseas boxoffice, making it the eleventh most successful film of all time outside of North America. It opened last week in Switzerland with $1.1 million, the fourth-biggest opening there. In three regions where it was in its second week of release, it took in $7.5 million in Germany for a total of $24.7 million; $2.7 million in Spain for a total of $10.9 million; and $893,000 in Sweden for a total of $3.1 million. The film's total gross from 27 countries last weekend was $18.4 million bringing its international gross to $307.4 million. This is more than films such as Ghost ($300 million) and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial ($305 million). It is given a good chance to surpass the third ranked film, Independence Day, which grossed $503 million. Titanic, with a $1.2 billion gross, remains on top of the list.

Read more about Phantom Menace in the August 1999 issue of Animation World Magazine in Karl Cohen's "The Animated Side of Star Wars: An Interview with Rob Coleman, the Film's Animation Director"

A New Fractured Fairy Tales Cartoon Premieres!
Several movie critics have said that while Universal's new live-action Dudley Do-Right, which opened in the US on Friday, August 27, misses the mark, the new cartoon by Universal Cartoon Studios which is playing with the film, Fractured Fairy Tales: The Phox, The Box And The Lox, is a winner. The cartoon is based on a script by Bill Scott, who wrote most of the episodes of the Fractured Fairy Tales series which was originally part of NBC's early 1960s The Rocky And Bullwinkle Show. It was animated for Universal by Powell, Ohio-based Character Builders, produced by Character Builder's Leslie Hough, and directed by Oscar Moore, who is actually Stephen D. Moore, the Oscar nomimated director of Redux Riding Hood (According to Leslie Hough, Moore "decided that he had been mistaken for The Simpsons' Steve Moore one too many times and decided he wanted his credit to read 'Oscar Moore,' his father's name.") Jay Ward's daughter, Tiffany, executive produced. Dudley Do-Right, which stars Brendan Fraser, is based on the Dudley Do-Right series, which was also part of The Rocky And Bullwinkle Show. The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle, a live-action feature that stars Robert DeNiro, Rene Russo, and Jason Alexander alongside computer animated Rocky and Bullwinkle characters, is currently in production and is due for summer 2000. Jay Ward, along with Bill Scott, created and produced The Rocky And Bullwinkle Show.

The Passenger of Story Land. © SABA Animation Company.

SABA Completes First Iranian Feature. Iran-based SABA Animation Company has released an 85-minute animated film, The Passenger Of Story Land. The film is a re-edited version of a six part, thirty-minute television series, and uses live-action, puppet animation and CGI to tell the story of a puppet who escapes from a film studio. The puppet befriends a boy whose father is a reporter who is covering the film from which the puppet escaped. The boy and puppet try to discover the end of the film, until they finally decide to write the ending themselves. The film was directed by Yosof Babareza.

Fox Sets Release Date For X-Men. Twentieth Century Fox has announced that X-MEN, the live-action film adaptation of the Marvel comic books about mutant superheroes which promises to be visual effects heavy, will be released on June 30, 2000. Uncanny X-Men #1, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, appeared in 1963, but the series was not popular until it was revamped by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum in 1975. Since then it has spawned many spinoffs, and is probably the most popular US comic book series of the last twenty years. According to publicity, X-Men comics have sold more than 400 million copies, making it the most successful comic book property ever. The comic books previously provided the basis for the popular television series of the early 1990s. The film will be directed by Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects), and the cast currently includes: Ian McKellen (Gods And Monsters) as villain Magneto; Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation) as Professor X; Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible 2) as Wolverine; Anna Paquin (The Piano) as Rogue; Famke Janssen (Goldeneye) as Jean Grey; and Halle Berry (Bulworth) who will portray Storm. Ray Park (Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace), Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and wrestler Tyler Mane will portray Magneto's cohorts.


Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.