Arthur Box Office Report

Arthur and the Invisibles opened in theaters nationwide this past weekend, and the results were less than earth-shattering.



The film opened in 9th place with $4.3 million in ticket sales, making it the third lowest debuting computer animated film, just above "Doogal's" $3.6 million opening, but below "Happily N'Ever After," which opened last week with $6.6 million.

Now it's just a matter of seeing how the industry reacts, now that there have been more than a handful of animated flops released in the last year. Along with the two mentioned, films like "Everyone's Hero," "The Ant Bully," "The Wild," and "Flushed Away," have all underperformed, and there is an equally long list of films that just broke even.

For someone like myself who is trying to break into the business, it's scary on one hand to see this trend, as studios will inevitablly scale back production of animated films, leading to less job openings. At the same time, the quality bar will (hopefully) rise as studios re-focus on quality over quantity.

It will be interesting to see how the big name animated films such as "Ratatouille" and "Shrek the Third" perform in the year to come, as that will be a good measuring stick of whether or not audiences are fed up with animated films in general, or just fed up with bad ones.