science fiction" in lush new arrangements was a "true delight", and the seriousness with which screenwriter Kleiner and director Fleischer treated the story made it more believable and fun. Schickel made note of, but dismissed, other critics' allegations of "camp." , the film holds a 91% approval rating at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes from 33 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "The special effects may be a bit dated today, but Fantastic Voyage still holds up well as an imaginative journey into the human body." Box office According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $9,400,000 in rentals to break even and made $8,880,000, meaning it initially showed a slight loss, but television sales moved it into the black, and subsequent home video sales were almost entirely profit. Awards and honors The film won two Academy Awards and was nominated for three more: Academy Awards (1966) Won: Best Art Direction – Color (Jack Martin Smith, Dale Hennesy, Walter M. Scott, Stuart A. Reiss) Won: Best Special Effects (Art Cruickshank) Nominated: Best Cinematography (Ernest Laszlo) Nominated: Best Film Editing (William B. Murphy) Nominated: Best Sound Editing (Walter Rossi) Novelization After acquiring the film's paperback novelization rights, Bantam Books approached Isaac Asimov to write the novelization, offering him a flat sum of $5,000 with no royalties involved. In his autobiography In Joy Still Felt, Asimov writes, "I turned down the proposal out of hand. Hackwork, I said. Beneath my dignity." However, Bantam Books persisted, and at a meeting with Marc Jaffe and Marcia Nassiter on April 21, 1965, Asimov agreed to read the screenplay. In the novelization's introduction, Asimov states that he was reluctant to write the book because he believed that the miniaturization of matter was physically impossible, but he decided that it was still good fodder for story-telling and that it could still make for some intelligent reading. In addition, 20th Century Fox was known to want someone with some science-fiction clout to help promote the film. Aside from the initial "impossibility" of the shrinking machine, Asimov went to great lengths to portray with great accuracy what it would actually be like to be reduced to infinitesimal scale. He discussed the ability of the lights on the submarine to penetrate normal matter, issues of time distortion, and other side effects that the movie does not address. Asimov was also bothered by the way