A rare Disney hand-drawn, 2D animated feature grabbed the top spot this weekend at the box office, surpassing both “The Blind Side” and the Matt Damon film “Invictus.” But what is more surprising: that Disney can still open a film, even without a little help from the animation wizards at Pixar, or that the movie is actually getting very positive reviews? The film has been getting a lot of attention for the fact that it’s the first Disney film to feature an African-American female protagonist. It also is one of the few animated features to use old-school techniques instead of the more modern computer-generated graphics.

In what was neither a blast-off nor a crash, The Princess and the Frog marked Disney’s return to 2D animation with $25 million in its debut weekend in wide-release. Mid-December releases are notorious for insanely long legs. The last traditional 2D Disney cartoon to open in this slot, The Emperor’s New Groove (the funniest toon of the decade and Eartha Kitt’s finest hour) in 2000, made 9.1x its $9.3 million opening weekend ($89.3 million). So it’s tough to ascertain long-term prospects for this one. So let’s just concentrate on the opening we

ekend. First of all this movie is pretty terrific. It’s funny, emotional, scary, and genuinely romantic; so everyone who has kids or likes animation should really make a point to check it out before the end of the year. Second of all, the cold truth is that this opening was actually pretty weak. When you consider the publicity that this film received for its ‘groundbreaking’ African American characters and the buzz over the return to traditional 2D cell animation, I’m pretty sure Disney was hoping for at least a bigger opening than Bolt or Meet the Robinsons. Heck, it barely beats out the October 03 $19 million opening of Brother Bear when adjusted for inflation ($23 million at 2009 prices). And it certainly sold fewer tickets than the various $20-$22 million openings of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire back when Disney was in an alleged post-Lion King ‘slump.’

Having said all of that, in terms of pure dollars, it still had the biggest 2D opening since Lilo and Stitch, which opened with $35 million back in June, 2002 ($43 million adjusted for inflation). Besides, this film was very much a ‘girl movie’, and there has always been a certain hesitancy for boys when it comes to seeing female-centric entertainment. Girls will flock to The Lion King or Tarzan, but guys have to be dragged to Mulan.

I won’t go so far as to say that women (and men) should flock to movies like this in order to convince the studios to make more, as that’s not my business. But I will say that Princess and the Frog is a worthwhile antidote to the discomforting gender politics in New Moon (down a reasonable 48%, new total – $267 million). And the $105 million budget is actually quite a bit less than the $175 million-ish budgets of the recent Pixar or Disney 3D works and/or the Dreamworks features. So it doesn’t have to do Pixar business to make a tidy profit.

And, as noted above, it’s a very good movie, so I imagine there’s a decent chance of real legs as it becomes the family movie of choice for the rest of the year. Yes, Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakuel will open big on Christmas Day, but it won’t have the staying power of the first film as there will actually be demo competition this time. If you’re a parent, which film would you rather take your kids to? And Disney seems to be playing a long game with their prized animation library. No one should have expected Disney to hit Lion King numbers ($41m/$70m adjusted) the first time out anymore than they should have expected Michael Jordon to score 55 points in his first post-retirement comeback game.

The traditional 2D animated film started dying out right around the time that opening weekend numbers exploded (summer 2001), so there’s only so much fair comparison to be made between this 2009 film and the films from the lower opening but leggier 1990s. Point being, I sincerely hope that this frog’s legs are strong during the brutal one-two punch of Avatar and Sherlock Holmes over the holidays.

[From Huffington Post]

Even “Entertainment Weekly” film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum, who hates everything, gave the movie an “A.” As for the question, “Which movie would you rather bring your kids to: Princess and the Frog or Alvin and the Chipmunks? sequel?” I’m going with “none of the above,” and choosing the new Sherlock Holmes movie! One of the perks have having kids who are a little older is that I don’t have to sit through cartoons all the time.

One promotional image from ‘The Princess and the Frog’. Anika Noni Rose at the premiere of ‘The Princess and the Frog’ in California on October 15, 2009. Credit for all: WENN.