By Crishelle Christman
In September, Dreamworks Animation released what will be their last fully animated in-house film by their Burbank studio animators. The Wild Robot is based on a children's novel of the same name by author Peter Brown.
Since being purchased by Universal Studios, Dreamworks has had a mixed bag of success, with their recent sequels performing moderately yet still better than their original stories. They have even competed with their sister animation studio Illumination, known for films like Despicable Me and Sing. The release of The Wild Robot looks like it will be a creative and finaicial boost for the studio, and has overperformed exponentially more than expected at the box office.
With its relatively low budget of $78 million, a pretty minimal marketing campaign, and a small premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film had a slow start at the box office. But against the odds, it soon gained traction online, with people posting their reactions and tears to the film's unexpected heart-warming themes.
Both audiences and critics have loved the film's experimental partial 2D style animation that gives it a hand-painted impressionistic look. Earlier versions of this same animation style can be seen in the previous films The Bad Guys and Puss In Boots: The Last Wish.
With the online buzz and the raving reviews of all critics and outlets across the board, The Wild Robot has continued to draw audiences to the box office even over a month after its initial release, and it has even garnered Oscar buzz and been greenlit for a sequel, based on the next book in the series.
Longevity is difficult to secure in the already struggling post-COVID movie theater box office, with even the large-scale blockbusters struggling to make a profit, making nowhere close to what their pre-pandemic sister films were bringing in. All of this underlines just how exceptional The Wild Robot is for it to stand out in a year where the top ten highest-grossing films of 2024 have all been sequels to major franchises. Its success makes a case for audiences' hunger for creative, experimental animation and original stories.
I watched the film on opening night at AMC CityWalk Universal with a packed house, and when the film ended, the audience erupted with applause. I brought my friend with me to the screening, and as the lights came up and the credits rolled, she lifted her glasses to reveal a stream of tears down her cheeks. We laughed about it for a second but immediately started talking about our surprise with how good it was and even considered seeing it again.
We agreed that, in many ways, the film felt more heartfelt and emotional than this year's earlier release, Inside Out 2, and captured meaningful themes that seem to be absent in recent children's media and films.
The Wild Robot, starring Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, and Kit Connor, is now playing in theaters and will surely tug at your heartstrings in the best way possible.