This animated film was such a box office disaster that it put its studio in jeopardy. 1 year later, he is living his best life on Netflix by being TOP 1

News culture This animated film was such a box office disaster that it put its studio in jeopardy. 1 year later, he is living his best life on Netflix by being TOP 1

It’s difficult to make a name for yourself in the world of animated films. Between Disney, Sony Pictures and Studio Ghibli films, you have to know how to stand out in order to succeed at the box office.. Obviously, with all the releases each year, not everyone manages to do well. Unfortunately, this is the case of this feature film released in 2023 which jeopardized its studio, Dreamworks, while it is one of the largest on the market.

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An animated film about generational conflicts

Released in 2023, Ruby, the Teenage Kraken which tells the story of Ruby Gillman, a young sixteen-year-old kraken who descends from a long legendary lineage of the seas. However, she seeks to integrate Oceanside High, against the orders of her mother who forbids her from going to the beach. After disobeying him, she discovers that she is descended from the Kraken Warrior Queens and will ascend the throne as the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas, like her grandmother, to protect them from the vain and power-hungry mermaids. The generational showdown comes to a head when a popular mermaid named Chelsea enrolls in Ruby’s school. Despite this fairly classic scenario for an animated film, the latter is far from having been a success at the box office.

A failure announced in advance?

For a budget of 120 million dollars, Ruby, the Kraken Teenager only brought in 46 million, or barely more than a third of its cost. To put it into perspective, this is the second biggest failure for DreamWorks Animation after Spirit: The Indomitable released only two years earlier, in 2021. Enough to forget the global success of Puss in Boots 2: The Last Quest released same studio in 2022. This failure hurts all the more as the feature film took more than seven years to produce.which is a long time for this type of project.

Result, the studio announced in a press release the dismissal of around sixty employeesnotably in “the features, television and technology departments”. If the screenwriters’ strike that hit Hollywood is mentioned, it’s a safe bet that the failure of the film has a lot to do with its forced departures. Beyond its far from positive reviews from the media (66% recommended on Rotten Tomatoes), but more from the public (81%), several elements can explain the failure of the film.

Weak marketing start three months before the film’s release, an unclear age target or even the lack of a strong license are the keys to understanding what happened. But in reality, the film especially suffered from being released against Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Elementaire which were a hit. Fortunately, you can now give it a chance on Netflix where it gets a second life.