Do Big Stars Equal Big Box Office?

The vast majority of stars in Hollywood certainly deserve their position. They've worked extremely hard to get to where they are, and they possess tons of talent. Directors and casting agents both know that nothing gets a flick's profile higher than mentioning that <insert name of big star here> has signed on for a role. Therefore it's not surprising that animated studios go for the biggest stars to make it easier for them to shake money from investors.

Huge Stars Don't Make for Huge Pay-Off

But there are major risks involved with casting huge names in animated movies. Firstly, they command huge salaries, driving up a film's budget. How much of Bee Movie's $150 million price tag went to pay Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Renée Zellweger, Sting and Oprah Winfrey, among others? Could that money have gone to animators and storyboarders instead? Yarp.

Secondly, big stars don't guarantee big box office. Bee Movie tanked, along with Beowulf, starring Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie, and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, featuring Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer. Big name actors, big costs, but small pay-off.

The worst is when casting directors pick actors who aren't known for their voices to work on animated films. Moviegoers will willingly check out Jessica "The Body" Biel wearing a bikini, but will they throng to Planet 51 just to hear her voice? Martial arts movie fans love Jackie Chan's death-defying stunts in live-action films like Supercop and Legend of Drunken Master, but will they pay just to hear him speak in Kung Fu Panda while someone else draws the character in combat?

Director Roger Zemeckis tried to have it both ways, using Angelina Jolie's voice and bitmapping her booty in Beowulf. However, that film failed to make $83 million in domestic theatres, despite a $150 million studio cost.

What Would Pixar Do?

It's easy to be a Pixar fanboy when the Emeryville studio consistently gets it right. Yes, they brought in Tom Hanks and Tim Allen for Toy Story. But their stellar performances helped make Buzz and Woody iconic Disney characters just like Mickey Mouse and Sleeping Beauty, and justified Pixar greenlighting 1999's Toy Story 2 and the upcoming Toy Story 3.

After the success of Toy Story, Pixar ignored the star system and only cast subsequent movies with the right voices. They cast talented C and D list actors like Craig T. Nelson in The Incredibles and Albert Brooks in Finding Nemo, and plowed the rest of their budget into making the animation and story as good as possible. The one post-Toy Story movie that featured big names was 2006's Cars, which feaured Owen Wilson and Paul Newman. Most animation fans considered that film to be Pixar's weakest project.

Look at it another way: how many other animation studios would hand one of their grunts a leading role in a major motion picture, like Pixar did to Lou Romano in Ratatouille?

And it paid off: no Pixar flick has ever lost money. Ratatouille pulled an Academy award for Best Animated Feature Film, and was the best reviewed film of 2007. And their upcoming flick WALL-E is one of the most anticipated movies of 2008, despite featuring almost no voice talent, other than Jeff Garlin and Fred Willard. No mega names here folks.

Herein lies the lesson for animation studios. The success of animated films are driven less by the star power and more by the visuals and (gasp!) story. Certainly find the best voices to bring your characters to life. But don't needlessly jack up your budget trying to get top stars who aren't noted for their voice work. That'll kill a film's chances faster than "directed by Uwe Boll."

Angelina Jolie in Beowulf

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