5 Hard Lessons from ‘Animal Farm’s’ Box Office Debacle

Andy Serkis’ “Animal Farm” did the impossible. The “new” take on the George Orwell classic alienated just about everyone, and it somehow united audiences in the process. The film proved too heady for kids but not meaty enough for their parents. Few rallied to its side, even with its overt culture war implications. Conservatives raged against it for discarding the source material’s attack on communism for an anti-capitalist bent. Liberal film critics weren’t pleased with it in general, giving the film a terrible 24 percent “rotten” rating. The only people who liked it? Tucker Carlson and Riley Gaines, apparently. My husband and I got an early access screening to Animal Farm, an animated adaptation of George Orwell’s novel made by Angel Studios. Incredibly well done. They do a perfect job