Starz Animation and 20th Century Fox didn’t exactly hit a grand slam with their flagship CG-animated theatrical feature, Everyone’s Hero. The period piece about a boy and talking sporting goods who help Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees win the World Series made just north of $6 million to open in third place during a lackluster weekend at the North American box office.
Co-directed by Colin Brady, Dan St. Pierre and the late Christopher Reeve, Everyone’s Hero features the voices of Rob Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, William H. Macy, Forest Whitaker, Brian Dennehy, Richard Kind, Raven-Symone, Mandy Patinkin, Robert Wagner, Jake T. Austin, Ed Helms and Dana Reeve. The film is one of several independently produced animated movies to get wide distribution this year. We’ll see how its performance compares to that of Open Season, Sony Animation’s debut feature, which arrives in theaters on Sept. 29.
Sony’s The Gridiron Gang took the top spot over the weekend, earning an estimated $15 million from fans of football and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Meanwhile, director Brian De Palma’s heavily promoted true-crime thriller, The Black Dahlia, only mustered around $10 million to debut at No. 2. The romantic comedy The Last Kiss from Paramount and DreamWorks pulled disappointing numbers as well, opening in fourth place with around $4.7 million. Rounding out the top five is last weeks’ champ, Screen Gems’ The Covenant, which managed an estimated $4.7 million in its second week.
The next animated feature arrives this weekend as Miramax introduces U.S. audiences to the French hit Renaissance, which features the voices of Daniel Craig, Catherine McCormack and Ian Holm. Directed by Christian Volckman, the black & white, neo-noir, sci-fi crime thriller is set in Paris in the year 2054 and has been compared to Blade Runner and Sin City. For more information, go to the film’s official web site at www.renaissance-lefilm.com/accueil.htm.
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