Cars

The year's Top 10 most successful animated movies

2006 has been a good year for animation. While not all animated movies released raked in enough money to make back their budgets, some of the animated features did very good business. Now that the year is over, we can look at the list of the ten most successful animated movies of the year. The biggest surprise? Ice Age 2 being the most popular animated movie of the year, mainly thanks to an enormous international (non American) gross, beating out Pixar's Cars by almost 200 million dollars. Another surprise is the 10th position for Curious George, the only traditionally animted movie of the list, showing Disney that going back to 2D might not be such a bad idea after all. I was hoping for Monster House to end up higher, since I thought that was the most amusing animated movie released this year, but it has to settle for sixth place, in between Open Season and Flushed Away.

1. Ice Age 2: The Meltdown $ 647.3
2. Cars $ 461.8
3. Over the Hedge $ 331.6
4. Happy Feet $ 291.8
5. Open Season $ 177.2
6. Monster House $ 135.3
7. Flushed Away $129.7
8. Barnyard $ 104.9
9. The Wild $ 96.3
10. Curious George $ 69.6

Review: Cars (2006)

While Cars is a very enjoyable, beautifully crafted piece of animation, it also shows the first tiny cracks in the heretofore unstoppable Pixar machine. While many of the previous Pixar-movies shone thanks to their oiginality and freshness, Cars is too predictable. The reason for this is the fact that Cars follows the Pixar formula that we know too well from their previous movies (which in turn was more or less modelled after the tried and tested Disney Formula for Animated Success), meaning the movie never surprises us with unexpected happenings. Before the movie starts, just by looking at the plot, you can map out exactly what is going to happen, and if you would get up during the movie and leave the theater for fifteen minutes, you would be up to speed again the second you sit back in your seat. Luckily though, even a Pixar movie that isn't up there with the best things they have made so far is filled to the brim with scenes, characters and other elements that set it apart from most other animated movies. Compare this with something like Chicken Little or Hoodwinked and you realize that Pixar is operating on a whole different level.

Continue reading "Review: Cars (2006)" »

While Cars is a very enjoyable, beautifully crafted piece of animation, it also shows the first tiny cracks in the heretofore unstoppable Pixar machine. While many of the previous Pixar-movies shone thanks to their oiginality and freshness, Cars is too predictable. The reason for this is the fact that Cars follows the Pixar formula that we know too well from their previous movies (which in turn was more or less modelled after the tried and tested Disney Formula for Animated Success), meaning the movie never surprises us with unexpected happenings. Before the movie starts, just by looking at the plot, you can map out exactly what is going to happen, and if you would get up during the movie and leave the theater for fifteen minutes, you would be up to speed again the second you sit back in your seat. Luckily though, even a Pixar movie that isn't up there with the best things they have made so far is filled to the brim with scenes, characters and other elements that set it apart from most other animated movies. Compare this with something like Chicken Little or Hoodwinked and you realize that Pixar is operating on a whole different level.

Cars stays ahead of the pack

In it's second weekend in theaters, Cars has remained on top of the North American box office. The movie made another $ 31.2 million, bringing it's total to $114.5 million. The question is now: will the movie have enough steam left to keep performing well in the next couple of weeks, so that the total gross will end up in the region of previous Pixar movies? To add to the sizeable gross, the movie sees it's release outside the US in several countries this week, including (yay!) The Netherlands.

Cars changing into 5th gear

Even though Cars made a lot of money over the weekend, box office analists were calling the gross for Pixar's new animated movie dissapointing. They based this on the fact that the gross was lower that that of several other big animated movies, including recent Pixar-pics like The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. Cars seems to be getting it's second wind, however, since the movie is holding up execeptionally well in the first two days of the regular week. Both Monday and Tuesday saw grosses that were more than double those of The Incredibles on the first two regular days, and at this rate, Cars will overtake The Incredibles before the week is over. Seems like Disney's strategy to release this movie in summer isn't such a bad one after all, and I'm interested to see how well the movie will hold over the coming weekend.

Cars races to first place

It's not completely unexpected: Cars was the top grossing movie at the North American box office. The latest Pixar extravaganza took in $62.8, which was an opening that fell behind previous Pixar movies like The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, but which still solidifies Pixar's spotless track record of turning out the hits. If you consider the fact that the theaters are being flooded with new animated movies, and they are no longer more or less a novelty (like when the aforementioned movies came out), plus add the fact that the year has already seen a few very succesful animated movies, the opening figure is all the more impressive. It will be interesting to see how well the movie is going to perform in the coming weeks, and how much money will flood into Disney's treasure chest when the movie is released internationally.

New International poster for Cars

Impawards has a new international poster for Cars. From the look of the letters, I am guessing the language is Korean, but the only thing that really matters about this poster is that it's well worth your clicking time, especially for the international viewers who will have to wait for this movie a bit longer...

So, how good is Cars really?

Only a few more days and Cars is going to premiere in the States, with the rest of the world to follow shortly after. As with any movie made by Pixar, the question is not whether or not it will be any good, but more: how good is it going to be? Is it going to be just 'good', like A Bug's Life was, or is it going to be fantastic, like the other Pixar movies? According to American critics, the verdict swings more towards the latter category. "Fueled with plenty of humor, action, heartfelt drama and amazing new technical feats, Cars is a high octane delight for moviegoers of all ages," says Rolling Stone Magazine, while Hollywood Report says the movie is a step ahead of the movies made by Pixar's competitors. "While the other guys are still hawking talking animals, the folks at Pixar continue to up the anthropomorphic ante with terrific characters and crowd pleasing storytelling, that are as much a part of the company's much-deserved success as all that state-of the art technology." Most critics share this sentiment, but there are a few critics who are not as convinced. "Once you start running into Jay Leno as 'Jay Limo' and Bob Costas as 'Bob Cutlass', the whole thing starts to feel almost as annoying as a Dreamworks movie," says Philadelphia Weekly. Ouch! Still, the score over at Rotten Tomatoes is 88 percent so far, although right now only 21 reviews have been tallied.

Betting shops bet on Cars

It's a new fad that is slowly rising to prominence: betting on opening grosses for big new movies. And if you are betting on the opening of Cars this weekend, you'd better bet big. Odds makers believe that the movie will make at least 77 million dollars this weekend. Heh, that's funny, because 77 is also the grade the movie has at IMDB right now (7.7 to be precise, after some 600 votes). Could this be a secret hint that you would do right to bet over 77 million?

Newman didn't have to think about accepting his part in Cars

Paul Newman, self proclaimed racing fanatic, did not have to think twice when they asked him to take a role in Cars. As he says in an interview with Canadian newspaper The National Post, the car connection made it very easy for him to sign on the dotted line. Plus, "I knew it would be good because of Pixar." He further on admits that the character he voices in the movie is pretty close to how he is in real life. Click!

More Cars clips to see

Website Total Eclips has some new clips from Cars. In these four clips you can see some stuff that we have not seen in the trailers yet, and the clips are a further indication that this movie is going to be a lot of fun. Clicking the link will take you to a page over at JoBlo, where there are links to the four clips, since Total Eclips does not seem to have it's own page for the movie yet. The clips take a little while to load but are more than worth your trouble!