The clumsy son of a washed-up Santa and his curmudgeonly grandfather embark on an audacious mission to deliver a Christmas present to a little girl in Cornwall, England.
Also embarking on a daring mission are the new studio partners behind the unconventional Santa tale, Arthur Christmas, which marks the first collaboration between Sony Pictures Animation and British animation house Aardman Animations. Both companies have a lot riding on the success of the 3-D CG animated movie.
For Aardman - best known as producers of the popular duo Wallace and Gromit - Arthur Christmas represents an opportunity to stage a Hollywood comeback after the failure of its previous computer-animated release, Flushed Away. The 2006 comedy about sewer rats, which flopped at the box office, caused Aardman's former partner, DreamWorks Animation, to take a $109 million write-off on the movie.
DreamWorks severed ties with Aardman, ending a five-picture deal after three movies: Chicken Run, the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Flushed Away. Creative clashes also led to the dissolution of the partnership.
For Sony, which signed a deal to finance and distribute Aardman's movies in 2007, Arthur is the first of several projects the studio hopes will give its animation unit a more reliable flow of movies with broad international appeal.
Bob Osher, who oversees Sony Pictures Animation, believes the partnership with Aardman will strengthen his studio's hand.
"There's this creative brains-trust there," he said. Sony's latest family movie, The Smurfs, was a rare breakout hit for the studio's own animation division, pulling in nearly $US560 million in worldwide ticket sales.
Since its launch nearly a decade ago, Sony Pictures Animation has had a mixed track record at the box office.
Its first movie, Open Season, was only moderately profitable, and its second release, Surf's Up, fared poorly despite strong reviews.
The 2009 movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs performed much better.
Osher has high hopes for Arthur, which stars James McAvoy in the title role, Hugh Laurie and Bill Nighy (as the crusty Grandsanta) and was written by Peter Baynham, the co-writer of Borat, and his friend and BBC alumnus Sarah Smith.
"Lovable idiots are our heroes," said Smith, who also directed. The film, which cost about $100 million to produce, combines big-effects action scenes with the idiosyncratic designs and offbeat humour that is the trademark of Aardman's stop-motion films.
Unlike computer-animated movies, the stop-motion process involves a painstaking technique in which each frame is animated by hand with Plasticine puppets on a miniature set. In his dealings with Aardman, Osher's strategy has been to give a wide berth to company founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton.
During the making of Arthur, for example, the storyboarding and design of the characters was done at their studio in Bristol.
When animation began, a core Aardman crew of about 20 people moved to Sony's studio lot and set up a shingle dubbed Aardman West.
"The idea from the inception was to let Aardman be Aardman," said Osher.
"The goal was total creative freedom."
Sony has also approved a stop-motion film for Aardman's next release, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, a Monty Pythonesque comedy starring Hugh Grant.
The movie, which is close to wrapping production, is based on the book by Gideon Defoe and is scheduled for release in March.
