Offering the first toon box-office showdown in a while, Disney’s Meet the Robinsons arrives in theaters to challenge box office champ TMNT. Threatening to skate past both of them is DreamWorks’ and Paramount’s heavily marketed ice-skating comedy Blades of Glory, starring Will Ferrell and Napoleon Dynamite‘s Jon Heder.
Meet the Robinsons is a sci-fi comedy is based on William Joyce’s book A Day with Wilbur Robinson. The film centers on Lewis, a 12 year-old genius inventor who meets a mysterious boy from the future named Wilbur Robinson. The two travel forward in time and spend a day with Wilbur’s eccentric family, who will rely on Lewis’ sharp mind for survival. Joyce has become a popular source of animation inspiration. The creator of the Rolie Polie Olie preschool series also influenced the design of Fox Animation/Blue Sky’s feature film, Robots.
Directed by Stephen J. Anderson (Journey Beneath the Sea, Toto Lost in New York), Robinsons was heavily tweaked when Pixar’s John Lasster took the reins at Walt Disney Feature Animation. If the film does well, it could mark a turn-around for Mouse House animation, which has had some hits but has largely dwelled in the shadow of Pixar for the past decade. Helmer Anderson is a veteran Disney artist and story man whose credits with the studio include Brother Bear, The Emperor’s New Groove and Tarzan.
Robinsons has been released in 3,400 theaters domestically, giving it a slight edge on Blades of Glory, which has a theater count of 3,372. Based on last weekend’s success, TMNT has added a handful of venues in its second week as Warner Bros. waits to see if the film has legs that stretch past the hardcore Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fanbase that turned out for its opening. Debuting in more limited release is Miramax’s critically lauded crime thriller The Lookout, which opens today on 955 screens.
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