Summary
The world of animated movies has long been a major box office factor due to how appealing they are, often to families. The very best animated films bring something to the table for both kids and adults, bringing families together to enjoy something that can become iconic as a masterpiece, just as much as, and sometimes even more so, than live-action films.
Though these films might have failed initially in one of the big metrics that determine how a film is viewed by some, they all recovered to havemuch larger lasting legacies and fan basesthan some might have expected given their initial performances. Here they are, ranked by approximately how much money they lost at the box office when first released.
8Rise Of The Guardians
A Curious Crossover Which Became Surprisingly Fun
Another film that didn’t drastically fail, but still did poorly enough to haveDreamWorks back away from releasing as many original filmsin the following years, and saw it fail to get a sequel.Rise of the Guardiansfeatured a team of holiday-based fictional characters coming together to fight against a dark rising evil.
Although it didn’t pull off big results at the box office,Rise of the Guardianshas since been proclaimed one of DreamWorks’ best films ever by many fans. The great voice cast, a memorable story and beloved characters brought this film many more fans than the ticket sales might have suggested.
7A Christmas Carol (2009)
A Disney Experiment Which Didn’t Work Out
Although this was one of the higher earners in the year it was released, the astonishingly high budget makes this take onA Christmas Carol, which heavily involved Robert Zemeckis, reasonably disappointing. Featuring an incredible voice cast including Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman and Colin Firth, this motion-capture animation film was ambitious but ended up lacking at the box office compared to what it needed to achieve.
Not helped by the many versions of this famous story which have come before,A Christmas Carolmight have been ambitious, beautifully animated and featured a great version of the tale, but the huge budget and difficulty in bringing in a wider audience due to so many previous adaptions left it slightly floundering at the box office.
6Flushed Away
Aardman’s Big Swing Deserved Better
Another DreamWorks release which deserved better,Flushed Away, was created by Aardman with their stop-motion and claymation techniques. British-focused with many of the jokes and themes, it nevertheless has captured hearts around the world.
Unfortunately,Flushed Awayfailed to perform at the box office. Part of this came down to it being incredibly expensive to make, and part of it was possibly down to Aardman’s style being quite different from the mainstream, prompting DreamWorks’ fans not to flock as they did for some of the more traditionally animated movies.
Early DreamWorks Swashbuckling Mythological Adventure
Another DreamWorks film which was beloved by a generation despite an initially poor showing at the box office, Sinbad was representative of the era when DreamWorks used a more adult style in their animated movies. This included the scripting, the in-jokes, and the type of characters they allowed to be both heroes and villains.Sinbad’s journey to being a hero was much more complicated than that of many characters in family-friendly animation today.
Nevertheless, it was a spectacle of a film which deserves to be appreciated as much as it is by fans that grew up with it. Unfortunately, it failed to make much impact at the box office as preferences in animated film styles were changing at the time,and DreamWorks was failing to marketseveral of its films in a short space of time.
4Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson’s Bizarrely Fun Foray Into Animation
Although it wasn’t a massive failure,Fantastic Mr. Foxcertainly wasn’t a success. This film, a bizarre blending ofthe styles of Wes Anderson and Roald Dahl, was about a family of foxes who are hunted because of the thefts enacted by their patriarch. The stop-motion animation and general directing style of Anderson led to some alienation of wider audiences, but this film has been heavily praised as a masterpiece since then by many.
Fantastic Mr. Foxfeatures a huge voice cast, a beloved and memorable childhood story, and some of the most accessible aspects that Wes Anderson’s work has ever shown. With constant hilarity and much for both adults and younger viewers to enjoy, this is not one to be missed.
3The Iron Giant
A Genius Film Let Down At The Time
There is no crueler or less-deserving box office failure, perhaps in the history of cinema, thanThe Iron Giant. Made by Warner Bros when they didn’t truly believe in animated properties, and thus refused to properly market them, this film made by Brad Bird before he went to Pixar and developedThe Incrediblesfilms, was about as emotionally powerful an animated film as has ever existed,and it helped define a great era.
Made on a much lower budget than most animated films of the time, and featuring a character that would later become a pop culture icon,The Iron Giantis considered by many to be one of the greatest animated films of all time. This was a film that no number of initial setbacks could stop from becoming every bit as beloved across the world as it deserves to be.
2Treasure Planet
Disney’s Biggest Undeserved Failure
Disney has had huge success with some major adaptations of beloved books. Their versions of theRobin Hood,Peter Pan, andAlice in Wonderlandstories are some of the most well-known versions of those tales. However, attempting to dosomething similar with a sci-fi adaptation of Treasure Islanddidn’t work out as well, mostly due to the huge budget.
The $140 million to make the film, more than some recent Disney animated film budgets despite twenty years of inflation sinceTreasure Planetwas released, was enough to stop this idea from working out. However, despite Disney’s marketing flailing throughout much of the 00s, this is now regarded as a classic, and one of Disney’s best films of the 21st Century, by many fans who recognize the emotional powerhouse of a film thatTreasure Planetis.
1Titan A.E.
Ridiculously Ambitious Sci-Fi Animation Epic
There arefew sci-fi epic stories told in animated form, andTitan A.E.was thus considered especially ambitious. Although the film didn’t succeed at the box office, the creators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman have been credited since for their hugely ambitious attempt to tell such a wide-spanning story within the realms of ninety-minute animated movies.
Following humanity fifteen years after the destruction of Earth,Titan A.E.focuses on the bleak imminent destruction of the last remnants of Earth’s people. Despite the adult themes, there was something here for everybody, and with Don Bluth’s traditional style and a great voice cast including Matt Damon, Bill Pullman and Drew Barrymore, it is a true shock thatTitan A.E.failed at the box office.
