markers used in motion capture. Besson directed their performances. In terms of lip sync with actors' dialog, the French animators could not cope with the English phonemes. For Madonna and David Bowie, a camera was used to record their lips to help the animators. The animation was done with proprietary software. Soundtrack Reception Box office The film was budgeted at $86 million. In its first two weeks in cinemas in France Arthur earned over US$20 million. Critical response Arthur and the Invisibles received negative reviews from film critics. In the United States, the film has an approval rating of 22% via Rotten Tomatoes, based on reviews from 92 critics, with an average rating of 4.4/10. The site's census reads: "Arthur wastes its big-name voice talent on a predictable script and substandard CG animation". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 39 out of 100, based on reviews from 22 critics. Los Angeles Times reviewer Alex Chun wrote: "Director Luc Besson admits he knew nothing about animation before he started this project, and it shows". Variety'''s Robert Koehler called it "alienating and dislikable", and specifically noted that "…having African-American thesps Snoop Dogg and Anthony Anderson voice creatures that are basically humanoid monkeys shows poor taste". Many found it derivative of sources ranging from King Arthur and the Sword-in-the-Stone to The Dark Crystal and The Ant Bully films. Frank Lovece of Film Journal International said that "it all simply looks as if [conceptual artist Patrice] Garcia and Besson couldn't decide on any one thing to copy, …so they copied them all". Lovece also noted that "the whole thing gets seriously creepy when [the animated versions of] the grown-up, pinup-beauty princess and the 10-year-old boy fall for each other. Mary Kay Letourneau comes uncomfortably to mind". Common Sense Media disliked the film, giving it 2 stars out of 5. Josh Tyler of Cinema Blend greatly disliked the film, giving it 1.5 stars out of 5: "Sure it has sometimes-loved French director Luc Besson's name on it, but the character designs look like they were stolen from those wispy haired troll dolls that were popular for about five minutes fifteen years ago, and the plot sounded like it was written by a ten-year-old kid underneath a heavy bedspread, with a big chief tablet and a pencil the size of a horse's leg". Besson, in a May 2007 interview, blamed American distributor The Weinstein