Sony Pictures Animation has kicked off the holiday season with a look back at Arthur Christmas. The studio posted a concept art sheet from the 2011 film yesterday, one day before the movie's 15th anniversary. Arthur Christmas opened in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2011. Check out the official post down below:
The sheet shows 12 poses of Arthur on a green background as he tries to pull on an oversized cream knit sweater over his red shirt. In the top row, he steps into it, gets his head and arms stuck, and ends up with the sweater swallowing his whole upper body. The bottom row shows him finally getting his head through the turtleneck, tugging at the sleeves and settling into the sweater, all while wearing striped socks and his reindeer slippers with red pom-pom noses.
Character designer Peter de Sève was nominated for the Annie Award for Character Design in a Feature Production for his work on the film.
What Arthur Christmas Is About
Arthur Christmas was directed by Sarah Smith, who wrote it with Peter Baynham, with Barry Cook joining as co-director in 2009. In the film, Santa Claus is a hereditary title passed from father to son since the time of Saint Nicholas. Malcolm, the 20th Santa, is on his 70th mission, but the job has been modernized into a military-style operation run by hundreds of elves aboard a high-tech ship called the S-1, overseen by his eldest son Steve from a control room beneath the North Pole.
Steve's younger brother Arthur works in the mailroom answering letters to Santa. When a wrapped bicycle for a girl named Gwen Hines in Trelew, Cornwall falls off the S-1's conveyor belt and gets left behind, Steve decides one missed gift out of billions is acceptable. Arthur refuses to accept that. He teams up with Grandsanta, who has secretly kept the original sleigh, Eve, and its reindeer hidden away, along with an elf named Bryony who stows away, to deliver the present before Christmas morning.
James McAvoy voices Arthur, with Hugh Laurie as Steve, Bill Nighy as Grandsanta, Jim Broadbent as Malcolm, Imelda Staunton as Mrs. Claus and Ashley Jensen as Bryony. Ramona Marquez voices Gwen, and Michael Palin, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Joan Cusack, Andy Serkis, Robbie Coltrane and Dominic West also appear. Harry Gregson-Williams composed the score.
Sony And Aardman's Holiday Team-Up
Arthur Christmas was a co-production between Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation and Aardman Features, and it was Aardman's 2nd computer-animated feature after Flushed Away. Aardman signed a 3-year deal with Sony Pictures in April 2007 after its partnership with DreamWorks Animation ended, and the film was first announced that year under the title Operation Rudolph. Aardman spent 18 months on story and design in the UK before the production moved to Sony's studio in Culver City, California for another 18 months, with Sony Pictures Imageworks working on the animation.
The film arrived in U.S. theaters on November 23, 2011, and grossed $147.4 million worldwide against a $100 million budget. Bill Nighy won the Annie Award for Voice Acting in a Feature Production as Grandsanta, and the film was nominated for the Golden Globe and the BAFTA for Best Animated Film. Justin Bieber's version of "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" plays over the end credits. The partnership produced one more film, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, in 2012.
Check out Sony Pictures Entertainment's official trailer for Arthur Christmas below:
What Sony Pictures Animation Has Coming Next
Sony Pictures Animation's most recent release is GOAT, the sports comedy from Stephen Curry and Erick Peyton's Unanimous Media that opened on February 13, 2026, as covered in GOAT Trailer And Poster Sees NBA Icon Stephen Curry Voice A Giraffe In New Movie From SPIDER-VERSE Studio. It has grossed $193 million worldwide.
Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse is next on the calendar for June 18, 2027. The Haunting of Hotel Transylvania follows on October 8, 2027, and the original film Buds is dated for December 22, 2027. A KPop Demon Hunters sequel from directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans is in production for 2029, as covered in KPOP DEMON HUNTERS Sequel Officially Moving Forward... But It's A LONG Way Off.
Is Arthur Christmas part of your holiday movie rotation, and would you want Sony and Aardman to make a sequel with Arthur as the new Santa?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.