Following the under-performance of Flushed Away, DreamWorks Animation did not renew its partnership with Aardman. In April 2007, Aardman signed a three-year deal with Sony Pictures. Originally titled Operation Rudolph, the project was first announced in 2007. Aardman spent 18 months on pre-production on the story and design in the UK before relocating to Sony's animation studio in Culver City, California, for another 18 months of production. On 27 April 2009, it was reported that production had begun with Aardman and Sony Pictures Imageworks working together on animation.
Arthur Christmas was released on 11 November 2011 in the United Kingdom, and on 23 November in the United States by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film received positive reviews from critics, and grossed $147 million against a $100 million budget.
Plot
Santa Claus is a hereditary title, handed down from father to son since the time of Saint Nicholas. Malcolm, the 20th Santa, is heading his 70th mission, but his role has been reduced to that of a figurehead. Instead of a sleigh, he flies in a high-tech vessel called the S-1, operated by hundreds of elves who deliver the gifts using military precision and automated gadgets. These operations are managed by Malcolm's son Steve from a control room beneath the North Pole, while Steve's nervous but cheerful younger brother Arthur answers the letters sent to Santa. During the mission, a child almost sees Malcolm; as the elves rescue him, a wrapped bicycle falls off the S-1's conveyor belt into the shadows.
After returning to the North Pole, Malcolm unexpectedly announces that he is still not ready to retire and hand over his role to Steve. Arthur and his mother Margaret try to get the rest of the family to enjoy Christmas via a board game, but tensions run high between Steve, Malcolm, and Malcom's ancient father Grandsanta, who believes Christmas has become too modernized.
While cleaning the S-1, an elf named Bryony finds the lost present. Arthur is horrified when he recognizes the present's intended recipient is Gwen Hines, a girl from Trelew, Cornwall; in her letter, she had expressed doubts of Santa's existence. Malcolm is at a loss how to deal with the situation; Arthur wants to take the S-1 out again to return the present, but Steve convinces Malcolm that one gift out of billions is an acceptable margin of error.
After the others have left, Grandsanta hears Arthur fretting and offers to take the old magic sleigh, "Evie", out from where he had secretly hidden it to keep it from being scrapped. Using magic Aurora dust and a team of untrained reindeer, Grandsanta and Arthur set out to deliver the present. Bryony stows away with them; along the way, the trio cause several mishaps, lose a few of the reindeer, and accidentally arrive in Trelew, Mexico, nearly setting off an international military incident in the process.
Rerouting to Cornwall, Arthur and Bryony learn that Grandsanta does not really care about Gwen; he just wants to prove he is still relevant. The elves suggest Steve can help Arthur deliver the present from the command center, but he refuses, calling Arthur and ordering him to return home. Arthur insists that Malcom would want them to deliver the gift, but Steve convinces a distraught Arthur that Malcolm likely has gone to bed unfazed. Arthur's party loses the sleigh, stranding themselves on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. Though disappointed in his father, Arthur realizes Gwen will still believe in Santa no matter who delivers the present, and manages to retrieve the sleigh.
Distraught by Steve's actions, several of the elves wake Malcolm and Margaret, who decide to set out in the S-1 to rescue Arthur and deliver the present. Steve comes along uninvited; unable to pilot the S-1 alone, Malcolm reluctantly allows Steve to take over. Like Arthur, the S-1 also initially arrives in Trelew, Mexico. While correcting the error, Steve discovers he is not good with children.
Arthur, Grandsanta and Bryony lose the remaining reindeer. A Predator jet opens fire on them over England, destroying the sleigh as its occupants bail out. All four of the male Clauses arrive at Gwen's house before she wakes up, only for Malcolm, Grandsanta, and Steve to argue over who gets to deliver the gift. Noticing that only Arthur truly cares about Gwen, Malcolm allows him to do it. The Claus family watches from a nearby closet as Gwen delightedly opens the gift; prompted by Malcolm, Steve acknowledges that Arthur is the true worthy Santa, and forfeits his birthright to his brother.
One year later, Malcolm retires to spend time with Grandsanta and Margaret, Steve becomes Arthur's Chief Operating Officer, Bryony is promoted to vice-president of Packing (Pacific Division), Grandsanta's lost reindeer eventually find their way home, and Arthur renames the S-1 "EVIE" in honor of Grandsanta's sleigh, refitting it to be pulled by five thousand reindeer.
Cast
Claus family
James McAvoy as Arthur Claus, Malcolm and Margaret's clumsy, eccentric, nervous and good-natured younger son who works in the mailroom and believes all children are special. He is Steve's younger brother and Grandsanta's younger grandson.
Hugh Laurie as Steven "Steve" Claus, Malcolm and Margaret's older son who runs mission control and is very serious and technologically minded; he is largely responsible for the modernization of the gift-giving process. He is Arthur's older brother and Grandsanta's older grandson.
Bill Nighy as Grandsanta, a 136 year old, stubborn, reckless, staunchly traditional former Santa unfamiliar with the modern world. A post-retirement joyriding incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis caused the Claus family to ban him from flying and attempt to scrap the sleigh, so he hides it and his trained reindeer in a secret vault. He is Malcom's father, Margaret's father-in-law, and Arthur and Steve's grandfather.
Jim Broadbent as Malcolm Claus / Santa Claus, the affable and ineffective man in charge at the North Pole. He is Grandsanta's son, Margaret's husband and Steve and Arthur's father.
Imelda Staunton as Margaret Claus / Mrs. Claus, Malcolm's wife and Steve and Arthur's mother. She handles diplomatic relations and keeps things running smoothly at home while her husband is working. [4]
Christmas elves
Ashley Jensen as Bryony Shelfley, a Christmas elf with a Scottish accent who ends up tagging along with Arthur and Grandsanta on a mission to deliver the present for Gwen Hines.
Marc Wootton as Peter, a Christmas elf and Steve's obsequious assistant.
Michael Palin as Ernie Clicker, a Christmas elf and the former head of the Polar communications. He is brought out of retirement to help Steve find Grandsanta's old-fashioned sleigh.[5]
Aardman spent 18 months on pre-production on the story and design in the UK before relocating to Sony's Culver City, US, for another 18 months of production.[9] On 27 April 2009, it was reported that production had begun with Aardman and Sony Pictures Imageworks working together on animation.[10]
The film was originally set to be scored by Michael Giacchino and Adam Cohen,[11] but both were replaced by Harry Gregson-Williams at the last minute, having a short span to score the film. The music was distinguished into two approaches on how the Santa Claus family sees Christmas, especially through details that determine the two distinctive characters. Gregson-Williams described the score as devoid of electronics and led by tunes, melody and themes. He used an ensemble orchestra containing 80 players, to provide a colourful orchestration.[12] The album was released on 14 November 2011 by Sony Classical.[13]
Release
Arthur Christmas was released on 11 November 2011 in the United Kingdom and on 23 November 2011 in the United States.[11] The music video for Justin Bieber's rendition of "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", which plays over the end credits, was exclusively shown in theatres before the film.[14]
Home media
Arthur Christmas was released on DVD, Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D on 6 November 2012, in the US,[15] and 19 November 2012 in the UK.[16]
Reception
Critical response
Arthur Christmas holds an approval rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 168 reviews, with an average score of 7.2/10. The consensus reads, "Aardman Animations broadens their humor a bit for Arthur Christmas, a clever and earnest holiday film with surprising emotional strength."[17] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 69 out of 100 based on 32 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[18] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[19]
John Anderson of Newsday praised the film as "not only funny and fresh, but . . . a new way of tackling the whole yuletide paradigm: Santa as a high-tech hereditary monarchy."[20] Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post described it as "unexpectedly fresh, despite the familiar-sounding premise".[21]Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times wrote that "the plot may be a little too cluttered for the toddler crowd to follow, but the next age group up should be amused, and the script by Peter Baynham and Sarah Smith has plenty of sly jokes for grown-ups."[22] Rene Rodriguez of the Miami Herald stated that "the movie fails utterly at coming up with a story that merits all the eye candy."[23]Empire film critic Olly Richards gave the film four out of five stars, feeling that the "UFO plotline doesn’t really hold together and, like Santa, the film’s a little flabby around the middle, where it briefly quite literally starts going round in circles and loses a bit of the fun. But it finds an ending that stuffs in all the Christmas jollity and huggy business that is absolutely core to a Christmas movie but without the overdone syrupy nonsense that makes you want to go to the nearest shopping centre and kick over a nativity scene." He concluded that the film "could very well come to be regarded as a Christmas classic".[24] Independent Critic called Arthur Christmas, "a good-hearted, silly and sweet film that it feels like the closest thing we've had in a few years to a minor Christmas classic. The film's mid-section flags a bit as Smith and co-writer Baynham can't quite seem to figure out how to completely flesh it out, but they recover nicely and serve up the holiday season's first salvo of cinematic delight", and praised the voice cast, though felt that Bieber's song was "a disappointingly commercial twist on an otherwise tender-hearted and infectious Christmas film for the entire family."[25] One reviewer, while light in criticism of the animation, called Justin Bieber's rendition of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" "blatant" and "inexcusable".[26]
Box office
Arthur Christmas earned $46,462,469 in North America,[3] $33,334,089 in the UK,[27] and $67,622,914 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $147,419,472.[3]
In the United Kingdom the film opened in second place with a £2.5 million weekend gross, behind Immortals. It topped the box office in its fourth week, by which time the cumulative gross was £11.5 million. The film returned to the top of the box office on week seven, during Christmas week, grossing £2.05 million and a total of £19.7 million.[28]
In the United States and Canada the film earned $2.4 million on its opening day and $1.8 million on Thanksgiving Day. It would go on to gross $12.1 million over the three-day weekend and $16.3 million over the five-day period. This was on par with studio expectations. The film went on to gross nearly $50 million domestically against a $100 million budget.[29][30]
An iOS video game titled Arthur Christmas: Elf Run was released in the United Kingdom on 9 November 2011, on iTunesApp Store.[43] On 18 November 2011, the game was released worldwide on the iOS and Android platform.[44] Released as a free and a premium version, the game allows players to play as delivery elves, who must quickly and quietly deliver gifts to children. Another iOS app based on the film is Arthur Christmas Movie Storybook, which was released on 30 November 2011.[45]
↑ O'Sullivan, Michael (23 November 2011). "Arthur Christmas". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 24 November 2011. Retrieved 28 September 2012.
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