With Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swinging to spectacular new heights at the global box office since opening early last month, you'd be forgiven for thinking animation is riding high.
Unfortunately, we recently saw that wasn't the case with Pixar's Elemental and the same can now be said for DreamWorks Animation's Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. The movie faced stiff competition from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, but as that underperformed, it looked like this fantasy adventure would be a draw for younger moviegoers and families.
Instead, it debuted in sixth place with an abysmal $5.3 million weekend.
That's worst than last year's largely forgotten Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, and makes Disney Animation's Strange World - which opened with $12 million - look like a hit. DreamWorks' latest animated effort cost $70 million to produce, and after making just $12.8 million worldwide, this has all the makings of a box office bomb.
This is a somewhat surprising result after audiences awarded Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken an A- CinemaScore, while we'd be remiss not to mention the fact reviews have been fairly positive due to it receiving a decent 68% Rotten Tomatoes score.
It seems audiences just weren't grabbed by what they saw in the trailers, and despite an impressive cast, it doesn't really have a huge A-Lister to market the concept around. The animation style is also somewhat lacking compared to recent releases.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken dives into the turbulent waters of high school with a hilarious, heartfelt action comedy about a shy teenager who discovers that she’s part of a legendary royal lineage of mythical sea krakens and that her destiny, in the depths of the oceans, is bigger than she ever dreamed.
The movie stars Lana Condor, Toni Collette, Annie Murphy, Sam Richardson, Liza Koshy, Will Forte, Colman Domingo, Jaboukie Young-White, Blue Chapman, Eduardo Franco, Ramona Young, Echo Kellum, Nicole Byer, and Jane Fonda.
Directed by Kirk DeMicco (The Croods) and produced by Kelly Cooney Cilella (Trolls World Tour), with Faryn Pearl (The Croods: A New Age) serving as co-director, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is now playing in theaters.