Shocker: Mediocrely (not a word, but you can figure it out) animated movie with ugly characters voiced by C list actors in an unfamiliar storyline and a title that sounds like “Dildo”, not a box office hit.
While the scrappy determination that led independent animation house Fathom Studios to bring an animated feature to the big screen is admirable, the box-office results were not so commendable. It turns out that Delgo bares the distinction of having the worst wide opening in box-office history. Over the weekend, it earned just $511,920 in 2,150 theaters for a dismal per-theater average of $237. The record was previously held by last year’s parking-garage thriller P2, which bowed to $2.1 million in 2,131 venues.
Several factors play into Delgo’s poor theatrical performance. The film was essentially self-distributed through Freestyle Releasing, a for-hire distributor, a costly endeavor which apparently left little money for marketing as the film slipped into theaters with a whisper. The producers made good use of free publicity by stringing out their casting announcements with a series of press releases a few years ago, but there was little ink for the movie in the days leading up to the release. Reviews were largely unkind, and it didn’t help that it had to compete with big-studio animated releases Bolt from Disney and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa from DreamWorks Animation, which are still drawing in family audiences.
