From stretch:
Darjeeling was a lot lower budget, and I feel like Fox didn’t expect huge numbers from it.
It appears with Mr Fox, that they’re going to carefully place the release date. I think this bodes well, and I think Wes’s meticulous attention to detail will translate well to clay (or whatever they use — models). I really hope Mr Fox can be upper echelon stop motion — approaching Nightmare Before Christmas status.
Certainly, Wes has accumulated more fans with each film, so all those people will be interested. What do you think Mr Fox needs to be? Light? Detailed? Epic? Rated G?
It’s going to be interesting, but I’m not overly hopeful for the film’s box-office prospects. Stop motion features tend to run hot and cold. The Nightmare Before Christmas was not particularly successful upon release, and Burton’s more recent Corpse Bride didn’t do very well. This year’s Coraline, on the other hand, has been doing very well.
But at least, as was pointed out, the thing cost enough to get some real marketing attention from Fox.