Kids The Third

Kids The Third is a 2007 American 3D flash animated science fiction buddy comedy film and the third installment in the Kids of the Neighborhood franchise, produced by Columbia Pictures, Xtranormal Animation Studios and Silver Pictures for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the sequel to 1998's Kids From A Sequel. Phil Lord and Chris Miller directed and co-directed the film, respectively, with the former also co-writing the screenplay with Jeffery Hatchet, Peter S. Seaman, and Aron Warner. Like the last film, most of the cast for the children and teenagers (as well as young adults) reprised their roles. while Bud Luckey reprises his role as General Marlon Horgat from the previous film and new cast members such as Channing Tatum, Amber Stevens West, and Chris Cooper. The story takes 1 year after the events of the first and second films. Reluctantly desperate to find out how the robbery in the first film started, Joe finds a time machine but accidentally sets all his friends off back in time with him and must fix the time and go back to the present before they are erased forever, while an enemy named Qordox the Time Keeper is plotting to over throw the children to get them erased.

The film premiered on June 5, 2007, at the Mann Village Theatre, Westwood in Los Angeles, and was released in the United States on June 22, 2007. It received positive reviews with most critics saying its "an improvement over the previous film" although the plot was slightly criticized and grossed $872.1 million on a $110 million budget, becoming the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2007, and the second-highest-grossing animated film of the year behind Computeropolis 2. It was nominated for Best Animated Movie at the 2008 Kids' Choice Awards, but lost to Ratatouille. It was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film at the 61st British Academy Film Awards. It was also the final non-Pixar animated film to be distributed by Buena Vista Pictures, after Disney retired the Buena Vista moniker across their company's divisions in the same year as well as the final film in the Kids of the Neighborhood franchise to be produced by Xtranormal Animation Studios, before folding into Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2017.

Additional Voices

 * Bob Bergen
 * Michael J. Gough
 * Jeff Glen Bennett
 * Joe Alaskey
 * Tom Kenny
 * Eric Bauza
 * Cree Summer
 * Keith Ferguson
 * John DiMaggio
 * Chris Knights
 * Jeff Bergman
 * Roger Craig Smith
 * Carlos Alazaraqui

Production
Following the success of Kids From A Sequel, a third and fourth Kids from the Neighborhood movie, along with plans for a final, fifth film, were announced in January 2000 by Bob Iger: "Kids 3 and Kids 4 are going to reveal other unanswered questions and, finally, in the last chapter, we will understand how the gang came to be in that city when we meet him in the first movie as well as new and fresh adventures.”

Disney hired Peter Seaman and Jeffrey Price to write the film and Jon Zack, who wrote The Perfect Score, came on board as a consultant. Unlike the first two films, the film was not directed by Brenda Chapman although was still involved as an executive producer, and was giving advice approximately every four months on the state of the film. Kids The Third was instead directed by Phil Lord, a story artist on the first film and a head of story on the second, and co-directed by Chris Miller, a supervising animator on the first two films.

The film was developed under the title of Kids from a Neighborhood 3. By March 2002, it had been retitled to Kids The Third. According to Miller, they "didn't want to just sort of title it like it was just a sequel." They wanted "something to make it stand on its own, give it its own personality and really try to treat it as a chapter in the gangs life." Hui remarked: "It's about the gang finding out their place in time before it's too late." The film also features the same actors from the past 2 films excluding Brandon Hammond, which he declined to return while later retiring from acting and was replaced by rapper Shad "Bow Wow" Moss. Due to his voice changing, he re-recorded his lines in late 2003.

The film was originally going to be released in November 2004; however, in December 2002, the date was changed to May 2005; "The sheer magnitude of the New GoAnimate franchise has led us to conclude that a May release date, with a DVD release around the holiday season, will enable us to best maximize performance and increase profitability, thereby generating enhanced asset value and better returns for our shareholders." Iger said. The film was later pushed back once again due to production cut-backs and pushed to June 2007 for a guaranteed complete film.

Critical reception
Kids The Third was met with generally positive reviews Review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 78% approval rating and an average rating of 7.2/10 based on 236 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Boasting beautiful animation, a charming voice cast, laugh-a-minute gags, and a surprisingly thoughtful story, Kids The Third is colorful fun for all ages." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 83 (indicating "universal acclaim") based on 43 reviews. According to CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, the average grade moviegoers gave Kids The Third was A on an A+ to F scale. Filmmaker Edgar Wright, and TIME Magazine film critic Richard Corliss, each named New GoAnimate the Third as one of their favorite films of 2007.

Box Office
Kids The Third opened in 4,122 North American theaters on June 22, 2007, grossing $58 million on its first day, the biggest opening day for an animated film at the time beating Shrek the Third's record which was set 3 months ago, for a total of $143.6 million in its first weekend, the best opening weekend ever for an animated film, and the highest opening for a 2007 film in the United States and Canada and more than the entire lifetime gross of Kids of the Neighborhood($152.9 million). Outside of North America the film opened up in 49 markets, with a total opening weekend gross of $148.6 million totaling a $316.2 million worldwide opening weekend gross surpassing the entire lifetime worldwide gross of $315.9 million that the original made. It held the highest grossing domestic, overseas, and worldwide animated opening weekend records for eleven years until the release of Incredibles 2 with it's domestic opening weekend gross of $182.6 million and Kids 4our: The Super Toonz with its overseas opening weekend gross of $165.4 million although it still has the record of the highest grossing worldwide opening weekend for an animated film. At the time, its opening weekend was the third-highest of all time in these regions. During it's second weekend at box office the film outgrossed the entire lifeline domestic gross of Kids From A Sequel which grossed $202.1 million in total. The film dropped to No 2. in its second weekend while grossing $46.4 million behind newcomer Ratatouille but ahead of Fox's ''Live Free or Die Hard. In its third weekend the film suffered a heavy drop grossing $22.5 million and dropping to No. 3 behind newcomer Transformers and Ratatouille ''in its second weekend. Later in its fourth weekend it declined 34% and dropped to No.4 while grossing $14.9 million. It remained in the top 10 in its fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth weekends grossing $11.6 million, $9.3 million, $8.6 million, $6.9 million, $4.5 million, and $4.1 million. Later on December 14, 2007, during its 25th week of playing, the film returned to a total of 285 theaters in an effort to cross $400 million domestically. It ended up failing to reach $400 million pushing the gross only to $398,102,920 domestically. However, Disney still considers this a success and wasn't focused on getting the film pass $400 million. The film broke Shrek 2's record of having the longest $1 million per day streak at 58 days and barely fell below $1 million on August 20, 2007 while grossing $998,102.

Kids The Third grossed $398.1 million in the United States, and $474 million overseas, bringing its cumulative total to $872.1 million. The film was the third-highest-grossing film worldwide of 2007, and the second-highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada that year. In addition, it was the highest-grossing animated film of 2007, and the second-highest-grossing animated film ever. The film sold an estimated 58,109,000 tickets in North America.

The film was released in the United Kingdom on June 29, 2007, and topped the country's box office for the next two weekends, before being dethroned by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Home Media
The film was released on both DVD and HD DVD on November 13, 2007 with an extremely rare and limited VHS release on November 20, 2007 to members of Disney's home video clubs. The DVD was released in separate pan and scan and widescreen formats (being the first Xtranormal Animation film to be reformatted from its original ratio of 1.85:1 to 1.78:1). The HD DVD and DVD special features include several deleted scenes, features, trailers, commentary, music videos, and exclusively on the HD DVD version, some web-enabled and HDi Interactive Formatfeatures such as a special trivia track, a film guide, and an interactive coloring book which can be downloaded as of street date.

The film and special features on the HD DVD version were presented in 1.78:1 widescreen high-definition 1080p and feature a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio soundtrack. In addition, this film was released on Blu-ray Disc on September 30, 2008. It was re-released on Blu-ray on August 30, 2011 and on Blu-ray 3D on November 1, 2011 as a Best Buy exclusive.

As of August 30, 2014, DVD sales gathered revenue of $176,661,204 from about 11,863,374 units sold.