Antz

Antz is a 1998 American animated comedy film directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson, and written by Todd Alcott, Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz, with additional sequences directed by Lawrence Guterman. Produced by DreamWorks Animation and PDI, the film stars the voices of Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Jennifer Lopez, Sylvester Stallone, Christopher Walken, Dan Aykroyd, Anne Bancroft, Danny Glover and Gene Hackman. Some of the main characters share facial similarities with the actors who voice them. The film involves an anxious worker ant, Z, who falls in love with Princess Bala. When the arrogant General Mandible attempts to seize control of the ant colony, Z must combine his desire for purpose with his inner strength to save everyone.

Development began in 1988 when Walt Disney Feature Animation pitched a film called Army Ants, about a pacifist worker ant teaching lessons of independent thinking to his militaristic colony. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Katzenberg had left the company in a feud with CEO Michael Eisner over the vacant president position after the death of Frank Wells. Katzenberg would later go on to help co-found DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, and the three planned to rival Disney with the company's new animation division. Production began in May 1996. DreamWorks had contracted Pacific Data Images (PDI) to begin working on computer-animated films to rival Pixar's features. During its production, a controversial public feud erupted between Katzenberg of DreamWorks and Steve Jobs and John Lasseter of Pixar, due to the production of their similar film A Bug's Life, which was released a month later. The feud worsened when Disney refused to avoid competition with DreamWorks' intended first animated release, The Prince of Egypt. Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell composed the music for the film.

Antz premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on October 18, 1998, and was released theatrically in the United States on October 2, 1998 by DreamWorks Pictures. It grossed $172 million on a budget of $42–105 million and received positive reviews from critics, who praised the voice cast, animation, humor, and its appeal towards adults. Years later, Jeffrey Katzenberg, then chairman of Disney's film division, had left the company in a feud with CEO Michael Eisner over the vacant president position after the death of Frank Wells. Katzenberg would later go on to help co-found DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, and the three planned to rival Disney with the company's new animation division. At the newly founded studio, Katzenberg began developing projects he tried to pursue or suggested while at Disney, including The Prince of Egypt, a collaboration with Aardman Animations which resulted in Chicken Run, Sinbad, and Army Ants. Also many ideas for the film were borrowed from a scrapped PDI film pitch for a computer-animated film from 1991 called Bugs: Lights Out about microscopic robots that take apart machinery.

Production began in May 1996, after production had already commenced on The Prince of Egypt. DreamWorks had contracted Pacific Data Images (PDI) in Palo Alto, California to begin working on computer-animated films to rival Pixar's features. Woody Allen was cast in the lead role of Z. According to Allen, his decision to be in the film was made as a favor to Jeffrey Katzenberg. Allen made some uncredited rewrites to the script, to make the dialogue better fit his style of comedic timing. An altered line from one of his early directed films, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) was included – "I was going to include you in my most erotic fantasies..." Sarah Jessica Parker was originally cast as Princess Bala and even recorded some lines, until she was fired and replaced by Sharon Stone.

Feud between DreamWorks Animation and Pixar

During the production of Pixar's A Bug's Life, a public feud erupted between Katzenberg, and Pixar's Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. Katzenberg, former chairman of Disney's film division, had left Disney in a feud with CEO Michael Eisner. In response, he formed DreamWorks with Spielberg and Geffen and planned to rival Disney in animation. By this time, Pixar's project was well known within the animation community. Both Antz and A Bug's Life center on a young male ant, a drone with oddball tendencies that struggles to win a princess's hand by saving their society. Whereas A Bug's Life relied chiefly on visual gags, Antz was more verbal and revolved more around satire. The script of Antz was also heavy with adult references, whereas Pixar's film was more accessible to children.

Lasseter and Jobs believed that the idea was stolen by Katzenberg. Lasseter had high hopes for Toy Story, and he was telling friends throughout the tight-knit computer-animation business to get cracking on their own films. He told various friends, "If this hits, it's going to be like space movies after Star Wars" for computer animation companies. Lasseter recalled that Katzenberg began explaining that Disney was "out to get him" and Lasseter felt that he was cannon fodder in Katzenberg's fight with Disney. Disney afterward announced release dates for films that were going to compete with The Prince of Egypt, and both studios had to compete with Paramount Pictures, which was releasing The Rugrats Movie in November, based on Nickelodeon's animated series Rugrats. Katzenberg suddenly moved the opening of Antz from February 1998 to November 1997, in order to successfully beat A Bug's Life into cinemas.

David Price writes in his 2008 book The Pixar Touch that a rumor, "never confirmed", was that Katzenberg had given PDI "rich financial incentives to induce them to whatever it would take to have Antz ready first, despite Pixar's head start". He told Jobs that he had enough power with Disney to convince them to change specific plans on their films. Jobs believed it was "a blatant extortion attempt".

Release fallout and comparisons

As the release dates for both films approached, Disney executives concluded that Pixar should keep quiet on Antz and the feud concerning DreamWorks. Regardless, Lasseter publicly dismissed Antz as a "schlock version" of A Bug's Life; however, Lasseter later admitted that he never saw the film. Lasseter claimed that if DreamWorks and PDI had made the film about anything other than insects, he would have closed Pixar for the day so the entire company could go see it. In the end, Pixar and PDI employees kept up the old friendships that had arisen from working in computer animation for years before feature films.

Music

Jeffrey Katzenberg initially wanted Hans Zimmer to compose music for Antz, but because of his commitments with The Prince of Egypt, he suggested his protégés, Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell, who were working for Zimmer's Media Ventures, to score the film. The soundtrack was released on November 3, 1998, by Angel Records.

Release

Theatrical

On November 27, 1996, a teaser trailer for Antz, depicting the opening scene with Z in an ant psychiatrist office, first played in theaters in front of select prints of 101 Dalmatians (1996 film). Anticipation was generally high with adults rather than families and children. Antz premiered at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival on October 18, 1998, and entered wide release on November 7, 1998.

Home media

Antz was released on VHS and DIVX on January 6, 1998, and on DVD on February 10, Additionally, Paramount signed a six-year distribution agreement for past and future DreamWorks Animation films, with DreamWorks Animation having spun off into a separate company from the live-action division in 2004. Paramount Home Entertainment controlled the home media rights for the film during this time, but did not create any new releases for it, despite releasing other DreamWorks Animation films on home video.

On December 31, 2012, DreamWorks Animation's distribution agreement with Paramount officially ended, The film was released on Blu-ray on October 16, 2018, by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, for the film's 20th anniversary.

Reception

Box office

The film topped the box office in its opening weekend ahead of Rush Hour and What Dreams May Come, earning $17,195,160 for a $7,021 average from 2,449 theatres. It surpassed Stargate to have the highest October opening weekend. This record would last for two years until it was beaten by Meet the Parents in 2000. In its second weekend, the film held the top spot again, with a slippage of only 14% to $14.7 million for a $5,230 average and expanding to 2,813 sites. It held well also in its third weekend, slipping only 24% to $11.2 million and finishing in third place, for a $3,863 average from 2,903 theatres. The film's widest release was 2,929 theatres, and closed on February 18, 1999. The film altogether picked up $90,757,863 domestically, but failed to outgross the competition with A Bug's Life. The film picked up an additional $81 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $171.8 million.

According to DreamWorks, the film's budget was about $42 million, Metacritic gave the film a score of 73 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Conversely, Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert praised the film, writing that it is "sharp and funny". The variety of themes, interesting visuals, and voice acting were each aspects of the film that were praised. Ebert's partner, Gene Siskel, greatly enjoyed the film and preferred it over A Bug's Life. He wrote the film "boasts a smart and funny script that will appeal even more to adults than children." Siskel later ranked it as number 7 on his list of the 10 best films of 1998. Todd McCarthy of Variety praised the voice acting, the script, and the animation in his review. McCarthy summarized: "On its own terms, Antz is fresh and inventive, visually stimulating and extremely well-served by a starry cast largely new to the animation field."

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly called Antz a "sophisticated, funny, and joyously subversive animated bug epic that, for all its snazzy computer animation that can claim the 1955 cartoon version of George Orwell's Animal Farm as a first cousin." James Berardinelli of ReelViews wrote Antz "is a very good movie, no matter how you look at it. Visually, it's more impressive than Disney's Toy Story, the pioneer in this burgeoning genre. On a script level, it was developed as much with a mature audience in mind as with the usual pre-pubescent crowd." Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post called the script "cleverly written" and was "an old-fashioned yarn about the triumph of individuality over conformity that taps into the universal desire to root for the underdog. As directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson, however, [Antz] actually accomplishes what many live-action narratives fail to do: It makes you care about its speck-sized characters."

Janet Maslin for The New York Times however found the story to be "overplotted in bizarrely grandiose ways", but felt the film worked best by "just showing off its prodigious voice talent ... and playing lightheartedly with the curious possibilities of a buggy world." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times complimented the visuals, but was unimpressed with the script calling it "too predictable to make an impact even in such a short space." Overall, he opined: "When everything is added up, Antz is more weird than funny, a film that has the potential to make both parents and young children uncomfortable." Rita Kempley of The Washington Post negatively compared Antz to previous Disney animated films as she disliked the adult innuendos, the script, and the use of product placement. She wrote in summary: "For whatever ill-conceived reasons, the material is obviously tilted toward grown-ups. But it's hard to believe that adults will be drawn to a cartoon about an ant no matter how remarkable his accomplishments."

Accolades

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin:auto; font-size:100%;"

! Award

! Category

! Recipient(s)

! Result

| AFI's 10 Top 10

| Animated

| Antz

| 1998 ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards

| Top Box Office Films

| Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell

| rowspan="4"| 27th Annie Awards

| Outstanding Achievement for Directing in an Animated Feature Production

| Eric Darnell, Tim Johnson

| Outstanding Individual Achievement for Music in an Animated Feature Production

| Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell

| Outstanding Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Feature Production

| John Bell

| Outstanding Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production

| Todd Alcott, Chris Weitz & Paul Weitz

| 52nd British Academy Film Awards

| The Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects

| Philippe Gluckman, John Bell, Kendal Cronkhite, Ken Bielenberg

| rowspan="2"| 1998 Golden Reel Awards

| Best Sound Editing in Animated Feature Film — Music Editing

| Adam Milo Smalley, Brian Richards

| Best Sound Editing in Animated Feature Film — Sound Editing

| Antz

| Golden Satellite Awards 1997

| Satellite Award for Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature

| Brad Lewis, Aron Warner, Patty Wooton

Video games

{| class="wikitable sortable"

! Title

! Release date

! Platform

! Developer

! Publisher

| Antz || September 24, 1999 || rowspan="3"| Game Boy Color || Panet Interactive || Infogrames

| Antz Racing || March 30, 2001|| RFX Interactive || Light and Shadow Production / Club Acclaim / Electronic Arts

| Antz World Sportz || November 30, 2001 || M4 Ltd. || rowspan="2"| Light and Shadow Production

| Antz: Panic in the Anthill! || 2001 || Microsoft Windows || Light and Shadow Production

| Antz Extreme Racing || August 28, 2002 September 5, 2002 September 19, 2002 November 20, 2002 || Microsoft Windows Xbox PlayStation 2 Game Boy Advance || Supersonic Software Magic Pockets (GBA) || Empire Interactive

Cancelled sequel

A direct-to-video sequel was in development at DreamWorks at the time of the release of Antz. Like the first film, it was planned to be produced by Pacific Data Images, and was also considered for theatrical release. By early 1998, when DreamWorks closed its television animation unit and merged the direct-to-video unit with the feature animation, the sequel was still planned, but eventually the project was never made.