Top 10 Best Animated Movies That Flopped
Top 10 Best Animated Movies That Flopped
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This is just a friendly reminder that box office returns are not indicative of a movie’s quality! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Best Animated Movie Flops. For this list, we’ll be looking at various animated movies that flopped at the box office, but which earned high praise from critics and viewers. The movies included on this list will be fully, or at least mainly animated, so we won’t be counting live action movies with animated elements like “The BFG.”
#10: “Missing Link” (2019)
Stop motion is a HUGELY risky endeavor. Not only is it wickedly expensive and time consuming to produce, but it often tends to scare off general audiences. Sadly, such was the case for “Missing Link.” What is “Missing Link?” you may ask. Exactly. This movie cost an astounding $100 million to produce, complete with over one hundred sets and the vocal talents of Hugh Jackman, Stephen Fry, and Emma Thompson. Like most of Laika’s movies, it was visually splendid and emotionally resonant. In fact, it may have been the finest animated movie of 2019 - with a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film to back that up! But it also made around $25 million at the box office and is now regarded as the biggest bomb in animation history. And that’s “Missing Link!”
#9: “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” (2001)
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And while we’re on the subject of enormously expensive productions, let’s take a look at “The Spirits Within.” In order to process the film’s photorealistic effects, Square set up 960 workstations that accumulated fifteen terabytes of information over four years of work. The movie also consisted of nearly 142,000 frames, each of which took ninety minutes to render. The film came with a $137 million bill, and as you can imagine, it looked positively gorgeous. “Style over substance” could certainly apply to this movie, but the style is just so good that it makes up for a lot of the movie’s shortcomings. However, it failed to connect with audiences and grossed just $85 million, losing the studio upwards of $94 million.
#8: “Flushed Away” (2006)
Aardman Animations was a pretty big name in the early 2000s, having produced the likes of “Chicken Run” and “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” Their third feature film was “Flushed Away,” an adorable and hilarious movie about a pet rat who is flushed down the toilet. It performed well at the box office, taking in $178 million. However, it also cost $149 million to produce, and in the end, DreamWorks was out $109 million. It was bad enough that DreamWorks immediately ended their partnership with Aardman, who proceeded to disappear for five years. They wouldn’t return until 2011’s “Arthur Christmas.”
#7: “The Black Cauldron” (1985)
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You see, this is why Disney keeps rehashing all their classics! We joke, but also kinda not. Disney took a pretty big risk with “The Black Cauldron.” Not only was it the most expensive animated movie at the time (with a budget upwards of $44 million), but it was also the first Disney movie to receive a PG rating. It was wonderfully imaginative and surprisingly mature, but it was also a little too dark for general audiences. It only grossed $21 million and nearly put the animation department out of business. It is now known as “the film that almost killed Disney,” and they were so ashamed of the movie’s performance that they hid it away until 1998. “The Black Cauldron” turned into the black sheep.
#6: “The Road to El Dorado” (2000)
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When it comes to underrated musicals, few movies match “The Road to El Dorado.” There’s a lot to enjoy about this movie. There’s the stellar voice cast which includes the talents of Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh in the lead roles. There’s the visually stimulating landscape and culture of El Dorado. And there’s a ton of great music written by none other than Elton John and Tim Rice. However, it struggled at the box office against “Erin Brockovich” and made about $75 million against its $95 million budget. It has since, and rather unfairly we may add, faded into irrelevance.
#5: “Rise of the Guardians” (2012)
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Whenever Guillermo del Toro is attached, you know a movie is going to be good. Granted, he only serves as an executive producer, but “Rise of the Guardians” still has his personality written all over it. This movie about holiday icons battling the evil Pitch Black was very well received and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature. And, perhaps to your surprise, it also did very well at the box office, scoring just north of $300 million. And while the production “only” cost $145 million, inflated marketing costs resulted in DreamWorks losing over $80 million. This in turn resulted in the unfortunate letting go of approximately 350 employees.
#4: “Titan A.E.” (2000)
This movie was an enormous undertaking by Fox Animation. It took nineteen months and upwards of $90 million to make, which consisted of extensive CGI mixed with traditional 2D hand-drawn animation. Not only did it look resplendent, but it mixed well with the mature sci-fi story, creating a feel which is often compared to that of an anime. Perhaps this was too alien for Western audiences, or perhaps they were expecting a traditional, kid-friendly animated romp. Either way, “Titan A.E.” grossed just $36 million and lost Fox $100 million. A planned video game was cancelled, and Fox Animation was forced to shutter its doors as a result.
#3: “Osmosis Jones” (2001)
This movie was sort of like “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” for the new millennium. It starred Bill Murray (in a live action role) as Frank Detorre, a zookeeper who contracts a deadly virus. Attempting to stop the virus inside his body are Osmosis Jones and his band of cold pills, blood cells, and microorganisms. It’s a great concept, it teaches kids a thing or two about the immune system, and the animated segments are frenetic and fun. The lead character being voiced by the perpetually zestful Chris Rock certainly helps. However, it grossed a pitiful $14 million against its $70 million budget. That’s what industry experts call “a colossal disaster.”
#2: “Treasure Planet” (2002)
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If there’s one thing we’ve learned throughout this list, it’s that the early 2000s were a REALLY rough time for animation! “Treasure Planet” was yet another bungle that fell by the wayside, despite being one of Disney’s better efforts of the dark ages. Serving as a sci-fi spin on Robert Louis Stevenson’s iconic “Treasure Island,” “Treasure Planet” was an ambitious, richly imaginative, and beautifully animated film that remains one of Disney’s most underappreciated efforts. However, it came with a rather large $140 million budget and was dead on arrival. It was utterly squashed by “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” and ended up making just $109 million, making this one of the biggest flops in movie history.
#1: “The Iron Giant” (1999)
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What happened to “The Iron Giant” is a certified tragedy. The movie was immediately praised for its ambitious scope, gorgeous animation, and surprisingly complex story and character work, scoring a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and an A CinemaScore. Its reputation has only grown throughout the years, and it is now regarded as one of the finest animated movies of all time. Add it to director Brad Bird’s lengthy list of accomplishments. And despite a relatively meager budget of just $70 million, the movie only took in $23 million and was quickly thrown from theaters. Many experts attribute the movie’s failure to bad timing, as it had to compete against the unstoppable forces that were “The Sixth Sense” and “The Blair Witch Project.”
