ANIMATION
WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 3.10 - January 1999
Films
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| Tuck & Roll from Pixar's A Bug's Life. © Disney Enterprises, Inc./Pixar Animation Studios. All Rights Reserved. |
AWN Animated Box Office Report.
December 18-20: This year's final and quite
possibly, most anticipated, animated feature, DreamWorks' The Prince of
Egypt debuted this past weekend at number two with a respectable but not
stellar $14.5M. While DreamWorks reps blame the impeachment proceedings, the
White House affair didn't seem to have much effect on the strong $18.4M number
one opening for the live-action Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan film, You've Got Mail.
It is too early to make any guesses on the success of DreamWorks' Prince
and the next few holiday weeks will be integral in determining the film's
profitability. Disney/Pixar's A Bug's Life held strong as well, due
in part to the release of additional bloopers in the end credits, taking in
$10M for a one-month total of $96.3M. Warner's visual-effects film Jack
Frost brought in a chilly $5.1M in fifth place accumulating $13.7M in
ten days, while Paramount's The Rugrats Movie continued to bring in
the kids at eighth place with $2.9M for a one-month total of $76.9M. . . .
December 11-13: After two weekends at No. 1, A Bug's Life slipped
to second with $11 million for the Friday-to-Sunday, December 11-13, period
due to a strong opening from Star Trek: Insurrection, the ninth addition
to the consistently profitable sci-fi franchise. Warner Bros.' effects-laden
film Jack Frost had an acceptable but underwhelming $7 million opening.
Paramount's The Rugrats Movie continued to attract little tykes taking
fifth place with $4.5 million. A Bug's Life has now grossed a total
of $83.3 million in 24 days of release while The Rugrats Movie has
brought in $73.2 million in the same amount of time. Universal's sausage-less
oinker Babe: Pig in the City took in $1.8 million to place eighth.
. . . December 4-6: Disney/Pixar's A Bug's Life led the way
at the box office for a second straight weekend beating out Universal's shot-by-shot
remake of Alfred Hitchcock's classic Psycho. The computer-animated
film dropped a respectable 48%, earning $17.4M for a total cume of $68.7M.
In fourth place, Paramount's The Rugrats Movie had a heavier drop of
64% from Thanksgiving weekend adding $7.6M for a grand total of $67.5M in
17 days. Still struggling, the live-action/visual effects film, Babe: Pig
in the City, placed sixth with $2.4 million tying with Universal Pictures'
other underperformer Meet Joe Black. DreamWork/PDI's Antz is
well out of the rankings now, dropping into the twenties for the first time
after a successful and profitable run in theaters. . . .
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| A wide-eyed Z and Bala discover "Insectopia" in the world of Antz. © DreamWorks LLC. |
November 27-29: Disney/Pixar's A Bug's Life
dominated the box office this weekend with a staggering number one debut of
an estimated $33.3M over the Friday-to-Sunday period and a record-setting
$45.7M over the five-day holiday frame. If the estimates hold, the computer-generated
bug picture will become the largest Thanksgiving opening in history topping
Disney's 1996 release 101 Dalmatians which debuted with $33.5M and
$45.1M over the comparable periods. In addition, A Bug's Life is the
second-best debut for an animated film ever, coming in behind Disney's The
Lion King which made $40.9M when it opened in 1994. Another family animated
film, Paramount's The Rugrats Movie, held up during its second week
of release and landed in second place with an estimated $21M three-day weekend
cume and $27.4M over the five-day holiday. The feature adaptation of Nickelodeon's
popular children's program has now amassed $57.9M in only ten days of release
ensuring the sequel which was already in development prior to the first film's
release. With an estimated production cost of only $25M, combined with the
expected revenues from merchandising, worldwide home video and overseas theatrical,
Paramount has uncovered an extremely profitable franchise. Less notably, Dreamworks'
Antz dropped out of the top ten for the first time in two months placing
17th with $1.2 million for a grand total of $85.7M. . . . November 20-22:
Animation played a very big role in last weekend's U.S. box office which
saw strong performances from three animated features. After eight weeks, Antz
remained in the Top 10 at No. 8 pulling in $2.3 million for a total of $84.2
million. A Bug's Life was explosive in its one-theater debut in Hollywood,
California's historic El Capitan theater, grossing an amazing $291,000 over
the weekend. This opening set house records at the El Capitan topping the
1995 El Capitan opening of Toy Story, which made $274,000. The biggest
story this weekend though was Paramount's The Rugrats Movie grossing
a commanding $27.3 million, averaging $9,821 per theater, despite lackluster
reviews and limited appeal to older audiences. This performance easily makes
it the best opening for a non-Disney animated film ever, and fourth overall
among feature cartoons behind The Lion King ($40.9M), Pocahontas
($29.5M), and Toy Story ($29.1M).
Wild Brain Does A Dog Cartoon. San Francisco-based Wild Brain
has completed an in-house seven-minute short film called A Dog Cartoon,
featuring a highly-energetic dog who faces many perils as he attempts to recover
his coveted bone. Wild Brain animation director Dave Thomas, who came up with
the idea for the film, credits Saturday morning TV as his inspiration for
A Dog Cartoon. Says Thomas, "The dog character lived in my head
for a long time...this film is my homage to the great cartoons I watched as
a kid." The dog character is now being developed into a television series,
Harvard's Yard. While at Wild Brain, Dave Thomas has been an animator
on high profile commercials for companies such as Nike, Sprite, Nestle and
KFC, and director on The New Guy, a pilot for Microsoft Network. The
film will premiere with a live musical score when The Sprocket Ensemble Goes
to the Dogs at a screening in Berkeley's Fine Arts Theater. See Last Month
in Animation for further information on the screening.
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| Bunny. © Blue Sky|VIFX. |
A Bunny From Blue Sky. Chris Wedge, one
of the founders of Blue Sky Studios (now Blue Sky|VIFX), has released his
personal film, Bunny. The seven-minute computer-animated film utilizes
"radiosity," an advanced computer rendering technique, a relative
of the ray-tracing technology, that mimics subtle properties of natural light.
The three-year project was written and directed by Chris Wedge, produced by
Nina Rappaport, with music by singer/songwriter Tom Waits. Bunny is
the story of an old, fragile bunny-woman who receives an annoying late-night
visitor in the form of a large moth whose reasons for visiting are not immediately
obvious.
PDI's Newest Trek Is Tusker. Coming off their successful animated
feature, Antz, Pacific Data Images (PDI) and DreamWorks have announced
that their next collaboration will be Tusker, directed by Tim Johnson
(co-director of Antz) and Brad Lewis (producer of Antz). The
film will be PDI/DreamWorks' third project and will follow the release of
Shrek, which is currently in production. Tusker follows a herd
of elephants as they make a perilous trek across Southeast Asia confronting
numerous dangers including a malevolent group of poachers. Says DreamWorks
head, Jeffrey Katzenberg, "Tim, Brad and the entire PDI team brought
an enormous amount of creativity and energy to `Antz.' It will be fun to see
what they can do with bigger things - like elephants. We think Tusker
has all the right ingredients to make a great movie, and PDI is just the team
to make it happen."
More Bug's Life Bloopers Are Coming. Disney may not have an
animated film to put up against DreamWorks' Prince of Egypt, but they've
come up with an ingenious way of profiting from the November release of A
Bug's Life. The company announced that starting December 18th, a completely
new set of animated bloopers will accompany the closing credits of the film.
As word has spread about the film, these "faux" film flubs have
proven to be a hit with both filmgoers and film critics, thus making the change
a perfect way to relaunch the film for the upcoming Christmas season and garner
repeat viewings. Pixar came up with so many ideas for the blooper reel that
they originally animated two sets and chose half of them for the initial film
release. The original set of outtakes is now viewable on the movie's web site
at www.abugslife.com.
The Prince Of Egypt Goes Egyptian. DreamWorks' The Prince
of Egypt was the inaugural film to screen at the American Cinematheque's
newly restored Egyptian Theater. The Egyptian Theater was Hollywood Boulevard's
first movie palace erected in 1922 and a gala grand re-opening was held on
December 4 after a four year restoration project dedicated to bringing the
theater back to its original splendor. Although a number of special screenings
will be held at the Egyptian prior to the film's wide release date, The
Prince of Egypt started a two-month run at the theater on December 18.
The American Cinematheque organization has many screenings planned through
1999 at the Egyptian Theater including a retrospective screening of the works
of Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Ptushko, whose stop-motion animated film The
New Gulliver (1933) will be among the movies screened. The American Cinematheque
can be reached at (323) 466-3456.
Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.
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