What is Panettiere's best-performing movie? That would be the 1998 Pixar classic, A Bug's Life, only the second feature from the venerable animation house, and one of Pixar's most underrated movies. Dave Foley led an all-star cast as Flik, an industrious ant who falls in with a bunch of circus fleas in his quest to secure a better food supply for his colony. Panettiere, only nine years old at the time of the film's release, appeared in a fairly major role as Dot, the daughter of princess and heir to the ant throne Atta, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Aside from Panettiere and her young co-star Ashley Tisdale, the status of "Hollywood legend" was a seeming prerequisite for joining the supporting cast of A Bug's Life. The movie featured appearances by the likes of Phyllis Diller, Roddy McDowell, Edie McClurg, Jonathan Harris, and Alex Rocco, not to mention a raft of popular stars of the day like Frasier's David Hyde Pierce, Mad About You's Richard Kind, and motor-mouthed comedian Denis Leary.
A Bug's Life didn't quite reach the artistic high's of Pixar's first effort Toy Story — but then, few animated films do, and it was a delightful flick in its own right. The Numbers reports that it was also a roaring financial success, collecting $363 million worldwide and helping to solidify Pixar's burgeoning reputation as a purveyor of reliably high-quality, high-concept animated features — and to date, it's still Hayden Panettiere's all-time best box office performer.
