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Happy Feet still on top

animated movie keeps number one spot for 3rd week

Dec 6, 2006

It's conservative pundits' worst nightmare: Happy Feet hangs onto the top spot for the 3rd week.

Oh yeah, it really sucks to be CNN's Glenn Beck and Fox TV's Neil Cavuto right now. Both of them railed against the animated movie Happy Feet, claiming it was "boring" and "an animated Inconvenient Truth." Beck even went so far as to claim the movie only made $42 million in its first week because the producers had hidden the movie's pro-environment message from consumers.

Guess what? Three weeks in, and Happy Feet has racked up another $17,545,418 at the box office, for a total haul of $121,501,018. That number also kept Happy Feet in the top spot for the 3rd week, not only beating Casino Royale (the most profitable James Bond flick in a very long time) but a shockingly weak performance from The Nativity Story.

Another bit of info for Glenn and Neil: this means that $79 million worth of moviegoers knew about Happy Feet's "far-left" message and either didn't care, or they approved of it. How does that shoe leather taste, boys?

In other animated news, Flushed Away is circling the drains at #11. It added another $2,205,862 to its piggie bank for a 5-week total of $60,042,437. That looks all right until you realize the movie cost a whopping $149 million to make. It also killed DreamWorks and Aardman's 3-movie collaboration deal.

Surprisingly, Flushed Away is the #1 contender at this year's Annie Awards with 9 nominations, including Best Feature Film. If the flick wins that award, it means that Flushed Away stands a very good chance of also taking the Oscar for Best Animated Film. So far, Annie Award winners have had a 100% track record of winning the Oscar.

This would also make it the second time in as many years that a DreamWorks/Aardman flick sputtered at the box office while wowing AMPAS voters. The first was last year's Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Once again, here's Ye Compleat Liste, sung by an asthmatic aardvark with alliterating angina:

1) Happy Feet (W.B.): $17,545,418 ($121,501,018 over 3 weeks)

11) Flushed Away (D.W./Aardman): $2,205,862 ($60,042,437 over 5 weeks)

33) Open Season (Sony): $81,557 ($84,303,558 over 10 weeks)

45) Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D (B.V.): $40,554 ($8,538,588 over 7 weeks)

71) Everyone's Hero (Fox): $5,765 ($14,522,427 over 12 weeks)

The copyright of the article Happy Feet still on top in Animated Films is owned by Dominic von Riedemann. Permission to republish Happy Feet still on top in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.