RISE OF THE GUARDIANS

Rise Of The Guardians

DreamWorks Animation financed Rise Of The Guardians for $145 million and the pic marked the final release through Paramount, which the animation company was in contract with for the last seven years for distribution. The animation studio inked an output deal with FOX for their future slate. Rise Of The Guardians opened over the Thanksgiving frame against the Red Dawn remake and Life Of Pi. It also faced competition with Wreck-It Ralph, which was still going strong in its fourth weekend in release. Rise Of The Guardians was tracking below most of DreamWorks Animation’s usual fare and came in far below expectations with $23,773,465 — placing #4 for the weekend led by The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, Skyfall and the DreamWorks co-production Lincoln. The pic posted a 43.7% second frame decline to $13,388,852 and it leveled off the following weekend, with a 22.3% drop in attendance to $10,400,618. Rise Of The Guardians continued to post modest weekly declines and the domestic run closed with $103,412,758.

The film took in a decent sized overseas cume at $203,528,912 bringing the worldwide total to $306.9 million — but after the massive worldwide P&A spend, DreamWorks Animation took an $87 million write down on the picture and laid off more than 350 employees because of its box office failure. Rise Of The Guardians kicked off a series of money losers for the animation studio, which saw a losses for Turbo (2013), Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) and Penguins of Madagascar (2014).