Happy Feet Performs A Happy Feat For Its Makers
The Age
Thursday December 28, 2006
EXECUTIVES of film company Village Roadshow are tapping their feet after the Australian-made animated film about singing and dancing penguins topped the Boxing Day box office.
On what is traditionally the busiest day of the year for Australian cinemas, Happy Feet beat weak competition, including Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum, to take the No. 1 spot, with $2.24 million in ticket sales.The next highest-grossing Australian film at the box office this year was the mockumentary Kenny, which took four weeks of screenings to reach what Happy Feet took in one day.Happy Feet's Boxing Day feat makes it the second biggest film opening of 2006, behind Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest, which broke one-day records in July.However, it does not come close to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which reaped a record $6.58 million on Boxing Day last year.Narnia also out-earned the final episode of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, which put smiles on the faces of cinema owners from 2001 to 2003. The third episode, The Return of the King, took $5.26 million on Boxing Day 2003.Happy Feet, directed by George Miller, of Mad Max fame, stars the voices of Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Robin Williams and many others. It was produced by Sydney company Animal Logic, whose previous credits include work on Moulin Rouge! and The Matrix series. The film has now made $280 million around the world, according to the website Box Office Mojo.ONLINE? Watch the movie trailer at theage.com.au
© 2006 The Age