Box office In its first six days at the Leicester Square Theatre, it grossed $31,884. The film would later earn over $65 million in the United States and Canada, returning $32 million in box office rentals. For 32 years,
The Muppet Movie was the
highest-grossing puppet film until the release of
The Muppets in 2011. The film's successful theatrical release encouraged
Lew Grade into furthering his own film distribution company, which later backfired with the massive box office failures of ''
Can't Stop the Music (from EMI) and Raise the Titanic'' (from
ITC), both released by
Associated Film Distribution just a year later.
Critical reception The Muppet Movie currently holds an 89% approval rating on
Rotten Tomatoes, based on 102 reviews. The site's consensus says "
The Muppet Movie, the big-screen debut of Jim Henson's plush creations, is smart, lighthearted, and fun for all ages." On
Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100 based on 7 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The film received highly positive reviews in the United States.
Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars. In his favorable review, he was fascinated that "
The Muppet Movie not only stars the Muppets but, for the first time, shows us their feet."
Vincent Canby of
The New York Times offered equal praise, stating that the film "demonstrates once again that there's always room in movies for unbridled amiability when it is governed by intelligence and wit."
Gene Siskel of the
Chicago Tribune gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "surely one of the summer's most entertaining films," which "does a fairly nice job of trying to be all things to all people. Which is not an easy job."
Dale Pollock of
Variety wrote, "'The Muppet Movie' is a winner... Script by Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns incorporates the zingy one-liners and bad puns that have become the teleseries' trade mark, but also develops the Muppets themselves as thinking, feeling characters." Kathleen Carroll of the
New York Daily News wrote that "with the exception of Brooks' wacky scene and Steve Martin's funny bit as a snooty waiter, the cameo appearances by such stars as Bob Hope and Richard Pryor tend to slow the action down just as the bland musical numbers by Paul Williams and Kenny Asher interrupt the flow of the movie. Still
The Muppet Movie should entrance both young and old as the Muppets further endear themselves with their crazy antics, their playful puns and their very human characteristics."
Rex Reed, in the same newspaper, reacted more enthusiastically to the film, remarking that "if there's any doubt,
The Muppet Movie will make believers and fans out of the worst pessimists. These lovable characters are so real and so endearing that I was never aware of the human hands making them work from mysterious hiding places. The Muppets made a wide-eyed, child out of me, and I hope they continue to do so until I'm in my wheelchair."
Charles Champlin of the
Los Angeles Times wrote, "as you might well expect, it is hip, funny, technically ingenious, fast-moving, melodious, richly produced, contemporary and equally and utterly beguiling to grown-ups and small persons." Katrine Ames of
Newsweek stated, "'The Muppet Movie' is a delectable grab bag of influences — stories by
L. Frank Baum and
Lewis Carroll, Westerns, the
Crosby-Hope and
Garland-
Rooney movies — as well as its own inventive devices. The result is a kind of '
That's Entertainment!' with a plot attached. Its charm — and success — lie primarily in its loving pokes at Hollywood conventions and in the lovable characters who do the poking." John Skow of
Time magazine offered a more mixed response, saying that "the transition from the yank-'em-off-if-they-bomb lunacy of the TV show to the coherent narration of the film is not a complete success. Muppet magic remains a bewildering succession of wonderful bits, and perhaps the movie's best occurs when Rowlf the Dog, who is a barroom pianist, commiserates with Kermit, who has just been deserted by Miss Piggy. The two sing a nice, rueful song about women—the can't-live-with-them, can't-live-without-them kind of thing." Michael Hanton of the
Toronto Star wrote that "I was looking forward to a combination of ''
Singin' in the Rain, Citizen Kane, and Intolerance. What I got was more like Gidget, The Great Race and Love Boat''"; he also remarked that Fozzie Bear stole the show from his favorite character, Miss Piggy. In the United Kingdom, it received mixed to positive reviews. Tim Radford of
The Guardian called it "another film spun slightly longer than it should have been", adding that "the humour remains decently dry and self-deprecating throughout; on the other hand there isn't nearly enough of it, and a good 40 or 50 minute idea is padded to the obligatory hour and a half with songs, travelogue, flashbacks and a certain amount of mooning about." Patrick Gibbs of
The Daily Telegraph remarked that "after
the Wombles moved, as they did recently, from
the small screen to
the big, so the Muppets inevitably follow, rather more successfully, I think, for James Frawley’s
The Muppet Movie is a clever construction." He also said that "the style is cunningly varied at intervals by the appearance in virtually two-line parts of such people as Milton Berle, James Coburn, Dom DeLuise or Elliott Gould, not to mention Orson Welles, each in his own comic persona. Songs also help to add variety to a very hazardous undertaking; not at all to my taste, it comes off, I would say, as well as possible."
Alexander Walker of the
London Evening Standard supplied the film with its most positive review in the country, calling it "the most original little show in town", and adding that it offered: ==Accolades==