Box office The film grossed $6 million on its opening weekend in the United States, and made $32,000,000 after 32 days. The film earned $49,823,037 Although the film's gross was quite successful, especially considering the much lower price of theater tickets at the time, the film was not the mega-blockbuster that Paramount and Disney had expected, and thus some wrote it off as a disappointment. Altman, once critically admired, was shunned in
Hollywood. His decade-long career decline included a move to
Paris, where he directed
low-budget film adaptations of stage plays.
Critical response Reviews at the time were generally negative, but the film has been more positively reappraised over time.
Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, writing that Duvall was "born to play" Olive Oyl, and with
Popeye, Altman had proved "it is possible to take the broad strokes of a comic strip and turn them into sophisticated entertainment."
Gene Siskel of the
Chicago Tribune awarded 3.5 out of 4, writing that the first 30 minutes were "tedious and totally without a point of view", but once
Swee'Pea was introduced the film "then becomes quite entertaining and, in a few scenes, very special". Richard Combs of
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "In its own idiosyncratic fashion, it works."
Vincent Canby of
The New York Times called it "a thoroughly charming, immensely appealing mess of a movie, often high-spirited and witty, occasionally pretentious and flat, sometimes robustly funny and frequently unintelligible. It is, in short, a very mixed bag." Other critics were unfavorable, such as
Leonard Maltin, who described the picture as a bomb: "E.C. Segar's beloved sailorman boards a sinking ship in this astonishingly boring movie. A game cast does its best with an unfunny script, cluttered staging, and some alleged songs. Tune in a couple hours' worth of
Max Fleischer cartoons instead; you'll be much better off."
Variety wrote that all involved "fail to bring the characters to life at the sacrifice of a large initial chunk of the film. It's only when they allow the characters to fall back on their cartoon craziness that the picture works at all." Gary Arnold of
The Washington Post wrote, "While there
are things to like in this elaborately stylized, exasperating musical slapstick fantasy ... they emerge haphazardly and flit in and out of a precarious setting."
Charles Champlin of the
Los Angeles Times described the film as "rarely uninteresting but seldom entirely satisfying", and thought that the adult tone of the dialogue left it "uncertain what the film's target audience is intended to be."
TV Guide says, "This film from director Robert Altman and scenarist Jules Feiffer adapts 'Popeye' to feature length – a good idea gone down the drain under Altman's spotty direction. Only in the last 50 minutes does
Popeye create some excitement."
Accolades The film won Worst Picture at the
Stinkers Bad Movie Awards in
its original ballot, and again in its expanded ballot in 2006. The film also received a
Saturn Award nomination for
Best Fantasy Film.
Legacy Several authors have contrasted
Popeye with subsequent
comic book movies. One article calls it a "road not taken" in comic book adaptations. The author praised
Popeye,
Dick Tracy (1990), and
Hulk (2003) for using comic techniques, such as "
masking,
paneling, and
page layout" in ways that the
DC Extended Universe and
Marvel Cinematic Universe do not. An article for
WBUR agreed that
Popeye and
Hulk were more "artistic" than modern comic movies, and said that
Popeye has been "mistakenly" overlooked. Director
Phil Lord is also a fan of the film and has cited it as an inspiration: "It comes from trying not to be vain about what you're making on the surface. Like, who cares if [
The Lego Movie is] based on a popular toy brand? It's still an opportunity to make something really interesting. I think we've always approached these things as a way to express ourselves personally, which no one does! Maybe it comes from watching Robert Altman's
Popeye a lot." == Soundtrack ==