Animated movies are always tricky for a movie studio. They may have all of the high costs associated with action and sci-fi films because of extra labor required and they can prove difficult to forecast. However, Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) has scored a major win with its "Happy Feet" animated penguin movie.

If you had told me that it would beat out a "new" James Bond movie on opening weekend and that it would have been this successful, I would have said your crystal ball needs fixing. The movie was expected to be a success, but this level of success has been quite surprising.

Analysts and critics of Time Warner were pointing out just three and four weeks ago that the company did not have any major hits from its movie studios. Yet Happy Feet has now rung up $121 million in domestic box office sales. This weekend it rang up another $17 million in ticket sales, beating Bond's $15.1 million sales again.

Jeff Goldstein, general sales manager for Warner Bros. put a $185 million or more target on the sales according to the Associated Press. But with another four to six weeks of theater shelf life, Happy Feet could do far more than that.

So much for critics saying that Time Warner didn't have any mega hits in its pipeline.

Happy Feet's success must baffle the naysayers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 04 Dec 2006 11:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.