The Kazakh reporter character played by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is fond of saying to his enemies, “I will crush you,” and that’s exactly what he did at the North American box office over the weekend. Despite opening in just over 800 theaters, 20th Century Fox’s Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan raked in an estimated $26.3 million to claim the top spot. Meanwhile, Flushed Away from DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Animations debuted in third place behind Disney’s The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.
It was certainly a weekend of surprises. While Borat proved that a film can succeed without flooding the marketplace, a holiday franchise that was seemingly running low on steam managed to steal family audiences from a major CG-animated release. Santa Clause 3 made an estimated $20 million to Flushed Away‘s $19.1, but those figures may be adjusted in DreamWorks’ favor once actuals are posted. Still, Katzenberg and crew were obviously hoping for a better showing considering the pervasive marketing push and 3,700-theater rollout given to Flushed Away.
Flushed opened only slightly better than DreamWorks’ and Aardman’s last collaboration, the clay-animated Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which debuted to just over $16 million in October of 2005. However, that film did a bang-up job overseas, resulting in worldwide box office just shy of $200 million on its way to Oscar success. No matter how well Flushed Away ends up doing, it is likely to be the final joint venture for DreamWorks and Aardman. The Bristol-based British toon studio is reportedly seeking a new North American distribution partner as DreamWorks focuses on developing its own material and banking on a proven franchise with Shrek the Third and the spin-off Puss in Boots, which is coming to theaters rather than going straight to video as originally planned.
Shrek the Third is slated to bow on May 18, 2007, followed by the Jerry Seinfeld insect comedy Bee Movie on Nov. 2. On deck for 2008 are DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda and a Madagascar sequel, while 2009 will see the debuts of the studio’s original concept Monsters Vs. Aliens and an adaptation of Cressida Cowell’s children’s book How to Train Your Dragon.
The year of the animated feature, also known as 2006, rolls on with the Nov. 17 debut of Warner Bros.’ musical penguin flick Happy Feet. The Weinstein Co. and MGM will cap off the parade of toons with its release of French director Luc Besson’s Arthur and the Invisibles on Dec. 15.
Leave a Reply