So IA3 is now the 2nd biggest animated film world-wide ever, not counting inflation or 3D ticket prices, and approaching the top 15 list of all movies. Even worse, way too many article writers in this country and the world over are looking just at the foreign take, where it now ranks 3rd among all movies, behind Titanic and one of the LoTR’s. They gloat over the fact that only 22.5% of the take was domestic, the rest foreign, as if the movie was made for them in mind or that the American market can be ignored. Praise be that our critics and somewhat sophisticated audience saw this movie for what it was. I agree with lizardgirl that it’s a sad day, kind of like Shrek3 and Blue Sky’s other franchise, Robots, where it’s really time to move on.
There are many international articles about what is going on, some in newspapers and others at blogs and websites, and very few in U.S. newspapers. Here is one of the latest:
boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2605&p=.htm
What really burns me up is how these ‘box office take’ people never address the actual quality of a film. They look at movies in a parallel primitive way that most popcorn moviegoers do. Money will take control over the Fox / Blue Sky relationship too, methinks.
It is the biggest film ever in a dozen markets, mostly unsophisticated ones, but for the year 2009 it is the biggest in France and Germany, two of the biggest and most mature ones. The truth is many people in the world, spread across various countries can get excited about something bland. The American studio’s know there is a lag time between when their product is fading and when the overseas ‘turkey’ markets figure it out. “Gobble, gobble…gobble, gobble”
Edit a month later: well, IA3 is not going to become the #1 animated ever. It will end up in the mid $880M’s, $40M below Shrek2.
Further edit in January: there is an interesting article I came across from the NYTimes about this studio, and addressed it in the ‘Blue Sky Studio’ thread, read about it here: