From the box office to the streaming world...


To the shock of maybe one or two folks out there, My Little Pony: The Movie debuted super-soft with $8 million. Lionsgate never really had a sparkling track record with animated features to begin with, so I kind of doubted that My Little Pony would be something of a small hit. At best, it'll be profitable, as I assume the budget on this thing wasn't unreasonably high. (Rumors say $65 million, but I kind of doubt that.) It has ponied up $12 million worldwide so far, as the release is a bit staggered. Small markets mostly got this one for the weekend.

Anyways, it's an adaptation of a TV show that the general public sees as "little girls' stuff," despite its appeal to a sizable adult fanbase. I can imagine some 20-25 year old male fans feeling funny about seeing it in a theater. I mean, I had a customer one time - back in April-ish - vent to my co-worker at the box office that any adult who sees a movie like Smurfs: The Lost Village alone is insane, after he had found out that Smurfs was going to be shown at 10:30pm that night. Good thing he doesn't live in Europe, then. Actually, I took my mother to a few movies this year, one of them had the trailer for My Little Pony before it. It was the teaser, no less. A few seconds in, her reaction was "You've got to be kidding me." (My sister and I had a My Little Pony VHS back in the early 90s, I can imagine it was spun a lot.)


Point is, the general public mostly sees MLP as undesirable. If anything, $8 million isn't too awful. It's higher than most Lionsgate animated openings, though that isn't saying much. I'm sure toy sales are gonna save this pony anyways.

Down 39% The Lego Ninjago Movie went, the film is falling behind Storks. The previous Warner Animation Group fall release was at $49 million by its third weekend, this is at $44 million. Again, somewhere in the low-to-mid 60s will be the final total for this one. Worldwide, the film sits at a meager $79 million. Within days, France, Italy, and the UK are getting it. It's out just about everywhere else, so we'll see if this even makes it to $150 million around the globe. That's barely double the $70 million budget, so who knows what will happen in the end. WAG ought to take it on the chin, and basically make better decisions for the standalone line of Lego films. Better decisions, as in, not making films based on toy-lines meant for a small demographic. (And I'm saying this as someone who actually quite enjoyed Lego Ninjago Movie.)

Despicable Me 3 is quietly fading, but not quickly. It has passed Zootopia's worldwide gross, the final tally here looks to be below $265 million domestically.

The Emoji Movie continues to hang on, dropping a tiny 12%. $85 million here, $200 million everywhere. Quadrupled the budget. I'm beginning to think the theatrical sequel is guaranteed... Then again, Open Season - their first film - played out similarly and ended up getting DTV sequels instead. To me, an Emoji Movie sequel should be DTV or a streaming thing.

Leap! saw its biggest drop yet. Down 56%, the final total shall be below $30 million. $105 million worldwide. No one's fretting, though with what happened last night... The Weinstein Company might not be putting out scissored up foreign animated movies anymore.

Loving Vincent saw an expansion. Now unraveling in 28 theaters across the country, it has grossed $167k this weekend. Up to $287k so far, I hope it at least crosses the $1 million mark. Anything's good at this point for a feature like that, and it's still not playing in my area.

Cars 3 oddly rose a bit. Up 104%, up to $152 million here, and $374 million worldwide. Running on fumes, it may reach $380 million worldwide.

Captain Underpants is up to $113 million worldwide. Close to 3x the budget, I wonder if DreamWorks/Universal are considering a sequel...

The Nut Job 2 was pulled from theaters on the 28th. $28 million total, $43 million worldwide. A sequel no one really clamored for, I wonder what ToonBox will do now. Nut Job did well enough, but Spark was barely even released, this sequel didn't go over too well. It's been a bad year for them. What's the solution? Hey, here's a crazy idea... Why not make an animated movie that's not a kids' movie? Try it sometime. Though that's not always a guarantee, either... In a better system, Loving Vincent would be smoking all these movies.


At long last, the trailer for the Pacific Rim sequel has debuted, right in time for New York Comic-Con. I figured I'd talk about this one because Pacific Rim, though a live-action movie with lots of vfx trickery, is a case of a niche property actually winning.

Pacific Rim: Uprising...

So, I have some reservations about the trailer, but at the same time, I consider it a privilege that this is even being made. At one time, it seemed like Pacific Rim's sequel was going to be one of those "what-could've-beens." Universal shut down development of a sequel a few years ago, but later revived it without Guillermo del Toro at the helm. Daredevil and Spartacus' Steven S. DeKnight stepped in to take over, and the film was re-launched.


Pacific Rim 2 is pretty much a thing because of how well the first film did in China. Pacific Rim opened with meager results in North America (due to marketing that somehow made the super-fun film look so dull and been-there-done-that), but it did leg it up to $100 million and garnered a much-deserved cult following. Flaws be damned, and there are plenty, I loved Pacific Rim. Anyways, Universal wasn't too keen on making a sequel to this film. The first film was made when Legendary was still signed with Warner Bros., and it seemed like Universal had little-to-interest upon joining forces with the studio. Legendary was then bought by the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group... So, put two-and-two together, Pacific Rim: Uprising was born. This movie wasn't made for us, and if a Warcraft sequel ever gets off the ground, it also won't be for us. China has also been pushing a sequel to Disney's quiet Touchstone video game adaptation Need for Speed, something Disney could care less about at this point.

So yes, in a way, we're lucky to even have the film, let alone have it get a general release here from Universal Pictures. The action on display here is undoubtedly cool, but the whole tone feels a bit off. Pacific Rim felt huge, it was shot so well and the staging really made you feel you were part of the battles. All of that work - and del Toro's onscreen passion - saves the film from the pretty basic script. What they're showing here? It doesn't seem as immersive, and it looks more like a run-of-the-mill blockbuster. Others have, troublingly, remarked that it looks like Transformers. But a trailer is a trailer, it's very possible that Pacific Rim: Uprising will stack up in other ways, and the film is still in post-production. The effects often end up looking far better in the final product, but I'm more concerned about the staging, directing, and overall look of the thing.

Here's hoping it's a worthy follow-up.

Speaking of follow-ups...


In time for Halloween month, Sony Pictures Animation has released a first look at Hotel Transylvania 3, which will be a slight departure for the series... A summer release, as opposed to a late September release. The film is set to open July 13, 2018.

A new image is here, showing the new film's summery tone, as the movie will be about - as you can see in the pic - a family cruise.


The plot synopsis is pretty much the same as the previously-released one: They go on a cruise, Dracula falls in love with the captain, and the captain turns out to be the daughter of Van Helsing. One thing that has me somewhat interested is the fact that the script will be written by director Genndy Tartakovsky, alongside Austin Powers/Boss Baby scribe Michael McCullers. Hopefully it'll be an improvement over the first two films, and be a solid comedy for adults and kids alike.


As we get closer and closer to 2018, we begin to learn more about Disney's upcoming streaming service. In an interview posted by Heroic Hollywood, The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger confirmed that original movies will be produced for this very platform. Not only that, but about five of those a year...

We’ll make original films for the platform, probably about five a year. Those will be made specifically for the platform.

This, I think, raises some questions...

Will anything animated be a part of this plan?


Right now, Disney's been fiddling with a live-action movie called Magic Camp. A tiny-scale fantasy picture that honestly sounds more like a Disney Channel original movie, it was once intended for a 4/6/2018 release. Then out of nowhere, not too long ago, it was pulled out of that slot and pushed into the black hole... To Be Determined. Some have speculated that this will be released as an exclusive to the streaming service, similar to how some shorts were Disney Movies Anywhere exclusives.

Now, is it possible that small-scale, smaller-budget animated content could be produced for this streaming service? I can see Disneytoon doing some stuff, and possibly porting the Cars spin-offs over, if the spacecraft spin-off doesn't light the box office on fire. (And I don't see it doing so.) If anything, this would be a good place to launch a new traditionally-animated feature. Not necessarily a Walt Disney Animation Studios production, but something! Go small and work from there, I say... Then again, I seem to specialize in suggesting crazy concepts.

Anyways, it's a little too early to determine what will come from this, but I do think it's worth keeping an eye on.

Spies, detectives, giants...


Some of the cast for Blue Sky's 2019 animated release has been revealed, and the film has gotten a new title.

Formerly known as Pigeon: Impossible, an adaptation of the 2009 short of the same, the film is now called Spies in Disguise.

That's a pretty boring title.

This wouldn't be the first time a Blue Sky film had a cool-enough working title, only to get a bland and boring one in the end. That very film was Epic. The original working title was Leaf Men. It was an adaptation of William Joyce's The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs.

Animated movies tend to settle for boring titles these days, Spies in Disguise is yet another one.

But a title is a title... If it's anything like the fun short, it's in good hands. Tom Holland and Will Smith are attached to the project, the latter is playing a top spy named Lance Sterling. Holland will voice his gadget designer. Their designs have been revealed...



A sort of odd couple-type buddy comedy, the press release is quite quiet on the pigeon aspect... The hint is in the image of Walter above... Look at the hologram.

Anyways, the official synopsis:

Spies in Disguise is a buddy comedy set in the high octane globe-trotting world of international espionage. Will Smith (Men in Black) voices Lance Sterling, the world’s most awesome spy. Cool, charming and super-skilled, saving the world is his occupation. And nobody does it better. Almost the exact opposite of Lance is Walter, voiced by Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Homecoming). Walter is a great mind but perhaps not a great socializer. What he lacks in social skills though, he makes up for in smarts and invention: Walter is the scientific genius who invents the gadgets Lance uses on his missions. But when events take an unexpected turn, Walter and Lance suddenly have to rely on each other in a whole new way. And if this odd couple can’t learn to work as a team, the whole world is in peril.

Maybe Blue Sky and their team (this is a co-production with Chernin Entertainment) will make a spy movie like no other out of this concept, even though silly spy stuff has been done quite a lot in animation and family films (movies like Cats and Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore come to mind) lately.

Spies in Disguise should take advantage of animation's limitlessness and do something that Mission: Impossible, James Bond movies, et al., can't even dream of doing. Not just waste it on goofy slapstick and gross-out humor. I'd say the bar is Kingsman, both of those movies are - in terms of spy movies - the closest thing we've got to live-action "cartoons." Imagine an animated spy movie that makes the insanity of Kingsman look like a walk in the park?

It's a little early to overthink this, but I'm hoping for something special. Still, why that title?


Sometimes, when you vote with your wallet, the people listen...


The recent Warner Archive Blu-ray release of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm has ensured the completion and release of a Batman: The Animated Series Blu-ray collection.... About damn time!

Often hailed as the best ever adaptation of the Caped Crusader, Batman: The Animated Series was released on DVD from 2004 to 2008, these sets went out of print. The Blu-ray set, arriving sometime next year, has needed to happen for years. The series is also part of television animation's little Golden Age of the early 90s, a time when some rule-breaking and high quality cartoons hit the airwaves: This, other WB cartoons, The Simpsons, Liquid Television, Ren & Stimpy, and a few others. It's good to see some of that make it to Blu-ray, especially from a company who was seemingly moving away from collector-oriented sets.

Warner Archive has also recently released a five-disc chronological Porky Pig collection. Historian Jerry Beck noted on Stu's Show that its sales could possibly spark a new line of WB cartoon collections. Maybe not Blu-ray collections, but something! While the Porky Pig set has gotten a considerable amount of backlash over the amount of effort put into it, I think it's a necessary evil. It was either that, or nothing. WB was going to pull out of this altogether back in 2013, when Warner Home Video caught fire for the Tom & Jerry Golden Collection Volume 2 set. (Which still hasn't been released, cut or uncut.) The third Looney Tunes Platinum set was likely to be the last release of its kind, but that may be changing.

Perhaps the sales of Batman: The Animated Series on Blu-ray could bring other WB shows of the era to the format, and maybe some DC animated shows. Ya know, there's also another well-liked 90s WB cartoon based on an iconic DC hero...


You have read that right...

Nathan Greno and Meg LeFauve's Gigantic is no longer an in-development project at Walt Disney Animation Studios. The picture, previously slated for November 25, 2020 release, has been replaced by a mystery title.


The confirmation comes from WDAS and Pixar president Ed Catmull...

It's impossible to know when we begin a project how the creative process will unfold, and sometimes, no matter how much we love an idea or how much heart goes into it, we find that it just isn’t working... With Gigantic, we've come to that point, and although it's a difficult decision, we are ending active development for now. We are focusing our energies on another project that has been in the works, which we'll be sharing more about soon, now set for Thanksgiving 2020.

Now, The Hollywood Reporter states that sources close to the studio are saying that this replacement project is indeed an original film, not a sequel. That's great to know! Catmull's words lead me to believe that the film will one day be taken off the shelf and re-evaluated sometime in the future.

This move comes as a departure for Lasseter-Catmull's Disney Animation.

Up until now, projects brewing under their watch got "cancelled" in rather weird, low-key ways. King of the Elves was on and off the slate (and is currently not in development, per reports) for a little while, but it was never really stated that the movie was outright stopped. It just sort of... Faded away. You got the idea that it was no longer a thing. We heard little about it, it was off the slate, and so on.

There's also the legendary Cosmic 3000, a sci-fi film about teenaged aliens participating in races. A Dean Wellins project, Disney never officially announced it, but we knew of it because of blogs like Blue Sky Disney. Despite being in some form of development for about three years, it was axed. Blue Sky Disney's writer, Honor Hunter, put it best...

But when projects die at Walt Disney Animation Studios, it's more like a slow, cold, isolated death. There is usually no person to come in and tell you it's over and you're let go. The words: "You're Fired!" rarely come out of the suit that's been avoiding you. Instead, it's the loneliness of working on something that will never be seen. It's the calls that aren't returned. Or maybe the meetings that can never be set up. The silence of walking down the hallway after working all night trying to get the kinks out of the story you've been working on for months, or years on some projects. Such is the case of projects that just aren't working out, or of a creative falling out with the ones above you.

Gigantic? Disney, mainly Catmull, are outright saying it has been put on the shelf.

What could that original 2020 movie be? Dean Wellins, to my understanding, started work on something else after Cosmic 3000 got sent into a black hole. Stephen Anderson, director of Meet The Robinsons, has been working on something as well. I'm sure other up-and-comers have projects that have surged ahead in development.

Why did Gigantic fall apart? Well, that project has been in the works for what seems to be an eternity!

Disney had been planning a Jack and the Beanstalk retelling for over a decade. The project was first cancelled in 2010 after the underperforming of The Princess and the Frog. Back then, Walt Disney Pictures had a pitifully-inexperienced chairman steering the ship. A man who barked death to all fairy tale movies because of how The Princess and the Frog did at the box office. However, his move to axe all of them was premature... Tangled, a film waist-deep in production that couldn't be cancelled, came out in fall 2010 and was a box office hit. Oops! That person in question, Rich Ross, had the shortest tenure of any Disney chairman. About two years tops.

After Tangled's success, the Beanstalk picture was back in development. Over time, Tangled director Nathan Greno got his hands on the project and developed it from there. In 2013, leaks confirmed that it was going to be called Giants, and that it was going to be this very involved and rather complicated story about the world of giants above us. There was also a love triangle, among other things. Fall 2014 brought rumors and rumblings, reports that indicated that the film had run into a wall.


In August 2015, the project was officially announced and titled Gigantic at the 4th D23 Expo. Instead of the jumbled story that was reported in mid-2013, we were given a rather streamlined synopsis: Jack discovers a world of giants, and must help a lost little girl giant find her home. Robert and Kristen-Anderson Lopez were set to pen the songs for a film that was set in 15th century Spain.

Then last year, we heard that Inside Out writer Meg LeFauve was going to direct the film with Greno. Then it was pushed back from November 21, 2018 to Thanksgiving 2020. The rumblings I've heard from the inside indicated that all was fine with the picture, Disney just simply wanted to release Frozen 2 (slated for November 27, 2019) first...

It all makes sense now. Gigantic has been a gigantic mess for years... So now it's on the shelf, and a breakthrough project has surged ahead.

While I'm upset to see all that development work go out the window, I am in the minority... Gigantic was going to be yet another fairy tale adaptation with Broadway-style songs. Having that open right after the Frozen sequel was an idea that didn't set well with me. I hope it happens eventually, but maybe give some breathing room to fresher ideas, considering that the schedule was shuffled not too long ago, leaving a 2-year-gap between Moana and Ralph Breaks the Internet. I also didn't want a repeat of the 90s. Space out these kinds of films, you know?

Greno and LeFauve can now tackle other projects, too.

In short... I hope the Beanstalk project will eventually be done right, but I'm okay with waiting, as we will get new and hopefully different stuff in its place.

I'm going to go through with this recap first because all of the news here is brand new. The previous recap, which has yet to be finished, will be posted after this because the stories are arguably a little more minor. I was really, really sick last night and couldn't even muster up a sentence, so... Yeah...

These stories come first.


Fox Animation and Locksmith, the new British animation company founded by the Arthur Christmas director Sarah Smith and Aardman alumnus Julie Lockhart, have announced and slated their first animated feature: Ron's Gone Wrong. It's set to open on November 6, 2020.

It appears to be tinged with sci-fi, for it's a story set in a world where all kids have "digitally-connected" robot friends. Our main protagonist, an 11-year-old boy, has a robot who doesn't really work. From a story by Sarah Smith and Peter Baynham (who wrote Borat, Arthur Christmas, and Hotel Transylvania), it's being directed by Alessandro Carloni (co-director of Kung Fu Panda 3, also set to direct Luck for Skydance's new animation venture) and Pixar story man J.P. Vine. It sounds like it has some potential. It isn't the only kid-and-a-robot story coming from a big mainstream animation studio, as Sony Animation and director Michael Rianda are also working on such a story, but there's is a road trip story set during a robot uprising.

Curiously, Fox has staked out Christmas 2019 for another animated feature...


This other new picture isn't going to be a pure animated film from what I understand, but rather a Jungle Book-esque movie that's 95% photoreal CG, of course. What's interesting about this Jack London adaptation is that Chris Sanders... Yes, that Chris Sanders... Is directing. Logan and Blade Runner 2049 scribe Michael Green is handling the script. This confirms that he won't return to direct DreamWorks'Croods sequel, set for fall 2020.


Box Office Mojo wisely lists it as an animated film, something they didn't do for similar features like... The Jungle Book, Gravity, and Life of Pi. (Though BOM still calls animation a genre, though I get the sense that they use that to easily file certain movies.) It's another film that shows how blurred the lines are between live-action and animation, leaving one to wonder... What do we call the animated films we're used to? Someone once suggested that photorealistic VFX/animated films should be called "photoreal films" and everything else should be called "stylized films." I like that, because cartoon doesn't apply to more serious, more based-in-reality animated works. To me, cartoon means funny, goofy, slapstick, etc.

Anyways, I'm not sure if this falls under the Fox Animation tree. Fox Animation's heads have said that they want to do lots of hybrid movies, too... But that could mean hybrids that are more like The Smurfs than The Jungle Book. Who knows.

So yes, Christmas Day 2015. Good timing.

Spidey and studios...


According to writer Christopher Miller, of the dynamic Lord-and-Miller duo, Sony Animation's Spider-Man film, which will be about Miles Morales, will visually be unlike anything we've seen before... Animated or live-action!

Gotta say the visuals in the animated Miles Morales Spider-Man movie are totally groundbreaking. Gonna be unlike anything on screen before

— Chris Miller (@chrizmillr) October 11, 2017

As we all know, Spider-Man: The Animated Movie is being directed by Peter Ramsey (Rise of the Guardians) and Bob Perischetti (The Little Prince). Over the months, we've been teased about its apparently groundbreaking visuals.

Of course, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Sony Pictures Animation doesn't really have a house style, and sometimes their films go for some pretty cool styles. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs took cartoony CGI in a bold direction, and it still looks fresh today amongst the crop. Hotel Transylvania pushed for even cartoonier movements and action, though its art style wasn't as out-there as Cloudy's in my opinion. Other than those two franchises, you can't really say all Sony animated movies look the same. Emoji Movie is certainly no Star, and both of them certainly aren't Open Season or Surf's Up.


Spider-Man: The Animated Movie is obviously going to be a CG film, but I can only imagine what kind of CG film it'll be. The reports make me think it'll be much more in line with films like The Book of Life, The Peanuts Movie, and Captain Underpants.

... and you know what? That's awesome. There are a few animated superhero movies out there, so why not stand out from the rest? The Incredibles has its 60s retro-futuristic aesthetic, Big Hero 6 is photoreal Disney with slight hints of anime, Captain Underpants is the source material's illustrations in cartoony CG. Plus, in a world of photoreal CG stuff and what I now like to call "live-action cartoons," it is a much-needed departure. I can only imagine what Spider-Man: The Animated Movie will look like. Imagine that, a comic book animated superhero movie breaking new ground in the mainstream features industry. I'm more than ready for the first look...


Director Peter Lepeniotis' newest animated feature, Gnome Alone, has been delayed, but he's already got big plans.

Lepeniotis is mostly known for The Nut Job. The first film was a modest little success, and it was based on his own short film, 2005's Surly Squirrel. (A much better piece in my opinion, Surly was a short for adults, as opposed to the movie.) Now that he's done with the gnome movie, he's set to direct three animated pictures for a Canadian animation studio called Tangent. Tangent is best known for a picture that came out last year called Ozzy, a Spanish co-production about a canine companion who is sent to some kind of high security dog prison. They're also at work on other projects, one of which is about a camel, and is appropriately named Hump. Another feature in the works is called Baozou.

Lepeniotis says...

I'm pumped about this opportunity to work so closely with Tangent. Their current feature in production is looking outstanding. Jeff Bell, Phyllis Laing and Ken Zorniak have strong industry backgrounds that really support strong story and high-level animation. They all just want to make good movies. I want to bring everything I can to the table and utilize Tangent's incredible team.

Probably buzzwords, as I haven't seen too many good reviews of the dog movie, though some of them point out that the film is confused and doesn't know whether it's a kiddie flick, a family film, or an adult film. I don't know, but it sounds interesting. Coming into a studio and landing three features is quite significant, so I'm a little curious to see what comes of this studio. Will they somehow crack into the mainstream market? Who knows!


Skydance has been firing up an animation slate recently, and are partnered with the Spanish studio Ilion, who are also making Paramount Animation's Amusement Park. Two productions - spearheaded by former DreamWorks talent - are already in development, Luck and Split. Now, they have gotten a new head, formerly a DreamWorks head... Bill Damaschke.


Damaschke was, for a long while, the Chief Creative Officer of DreamWorks Animation. He oversaw some projects that were made during what I thought were their peak years (2008-2012), but he was ousted after a lot of films went belly-up at the box office in 2013 and 2014. From stories I've heard over the years, Damaschke's DreamWorks was a mess of problems on the executive level. No one made concrete, fast decisions, and problems lingered and lingered. So many pictures were delayed during that time, and a lot of them ended up getting cancelled after the studio decided to go in a new direction in reaction to all the box office losses: Rise of the Guardians, Turbo, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and Penguins of Madagascar.

Heading up Skydance Animation, Damaschke is a good choice in my opinion, and I don't think those DreamWorks troubles were necessarily his fault entirely. The slate of films promises to be "bold" and "original," and will also include hybrid films. (Boo!) Damaschke had come into DreamWorks after films like Turbo were put into active development, so he had acquired some... Well... Problems. The studio's slate under his watch seemed very promising, but a lot of the films on there went the way of the quagga after his ouster. Films like Bollywood Superstar Monkey, B.O.O., and several others.

So here's hoping Skydance offers up some worthwhile animated features. With former DreamWorks people heading up various projects and Damaschke leading, it almost sounds like a revival of the older DreamWorks, because Comcast and Universal are seemingly taking the 23-year-old studio in a totally different direction. We shall see...

Does this qualify as a hot take? Maybe...

I'm okay with Gigantic being put on hold.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, up until this past week, intended on releasing Gigantic as their 59th feature-length film on November 25, 2020. It was going to be an all-new, epic-in-scope retelling of the iconic fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk. A film set in 15th century Spain, it would take Jack up into a whole world of giants living in the sky.

The film is not in active development anymore, per WDAS' president Ed Catmull.

This current version of WDAS has been set in stone since roughly mid-2006, not too long ago after former CEO Michael Eisner's ouster and the subsequent removal of all the executives that were poisoning the Burbank building. Despite John Lasseter and Catmull's leadership, Disney Animation is still run much differently than cousin studio Pixar is. Pixar has a more ruthless working environment. Their Brain Trust is reportedly very harsh, savage even. Directors have been routinely removed from projects, and many times, projects are retooled (Brave) or completely re-imagined. (The Good Dinosaur) Disney Animation doesn't seem to have this... Specific issue... Per se.

Early on, yes, some directors were booted off of their movies and then the movies were completely re-imagined. Chris Sanders was fired from American Dog, under Lasseter and director Chris Williams and Byron Howard, it became Bolt, a film that shared some similarities with the Sanders film. (Deluded dog TV star winds up away from home with two animal companions.) Sam Levine's Joe Jump was cancelled, and re-imagined as Wreck-It Ralph, which Rich Moore directed. Glen Keane had to step down from Tangled (then Rapunzel, before dunderheaded marketing "concerns" came up) due to health-related issues, and then left the studio in early 2012. Dean Wellins - the other director - exited the film as well, and began work on a new project, the Rapunzel project changed considerably under Byron Howard and Nathan Greno.

From that point onward, not too many director removals have occurred at the studio. At worst, a second director is added to a picture that may be running into trouble. Frozen was originally Chris Buck's show, but Wreck-It Ralph co-writer Jennifer Lee directed alongside him and also penned the final script. Big Hero 6 was a Don Hall venture, but Chris Williams was added later in production. Zootopia was going to be just Byron Howard's film, Rich Moore was whisked off of Wreck-It Ralph's sequel and named the other director. Gigantic, before the plug was pulled, was only Nathan Greno's film for a while... Till Inside Out writer Meg LeFauve was attached as director and writer...


The "story trust" there operates much differently from Pixar's Brain Trust. Not as strict, looks at alternatives, doesn't seem to ruffle feathers. Sanders, for example, seemed to take his exit rather well in the press. Contrast that with Brave's original director Brenda Chapman, who spoke ill of her experiences at Pixar, singled out Lasseter, even fought to get her name on the finished film, and to get on stage to claim the Oscar alongside finishing director Mark Andrews. (Though we can't assume her original vision for Brave was any better or worse than what we ended up getting, unless you actually saw a rough cut of it.)

For them... The rather lax Walt Disney Animation Studios story trust, to halt Gigantic, yes... There must've been major problems. But I suspect something else is at play as well...

Look at Walt Disney Animation Studios' slate... No feature comes out this year, the next film isn't out till fall 2018. What is it? A sequel to Wreck-It Ralph. Following that is Frozen 2 in fall 2019. Until now, Gigantic would followed Frozen 2 and would've been a fall 2020 release. It was and is unknown what would've come next.

See, that's two sequels and two fairy tale/90s musicals in a row. Two musicals from Robert and Kristen-Anderson Lopez no less! Monotony. And that all would've followed Moana, a 90s-style musical adventure.


I have a feeling that Walt Disney Animation Studios' brass are trying to avoid the hole that the studio was pushed into over two decades ago. The early 90s... The Little Mermaid's success leads to Beauty and the Beast, a musical fairy tale adaptation in a similar vein featuring songs by the same musicians: Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. Huge hit, record breaker, critical darling, gets (Disney's second ever, mind you) Best Picture nomination. Aladdin comes next, a musical with the same story structure as the last two films, Menken did the music (most of Ashman's material was cut by Jeffrey Katzenberg), it deviates just a little bit. The songs are a bit different (some hints of Vegas, more conventional and less grandiose-Broadway style), the tone of the picture is much more irreverent and goofy. Huge hit!

The Lion King is all of that rolled into one sometimes-uneven ball, it's the biggest animated film for a long while. Then you know what happened after that... Eisner and his executives kept Disney Animation on that same track, every new movie had to be some sort of variation of the Beast-Aladdin-Lion King trinity. First it was quasi-prestige pictures, then it was back to loose comedy-styled ones, then it was action-tinged movies. It all ended with Tarzan, then Disney's executives further drove the studio into the ground until Eisner's ouster.

Repeating oneself is not desirable, and I think Disney Animation's current group of executives are aware of this. They don't want to repeat the 90s and do two films of the same ilk back-to-back. Scheduling issues also come into play here, as Gigantic continued to fall far from completion.

Gigantic has been brewing in some form at Disney Animation since roughly 2009. Whatever it was back then, no one knows, but it's known that the plug was pulled on it in early 2010. When relaunched after Tangled's success, we knew it would be a Nathan Greno project, which made sense considering that he was one of Tangled's two directors. His film was at one point (mid-2013) called Giants, it involved the world of giants, but also involved a love triangle and class played a big role in the story. No mention of the age of exploration, Columbus, or the Spain setting. Disney was also hoping, internally, to get it out in fall 2016. Three years after Frozen.


Then months passed, it seemed like it wouldn't be a fall 2016 release. Moana was announced as the fall 2016 release in fall 2014, so it was assumed that Giants would ultimately follow in 2018. During the 2015 D23, Disney finally officially announced the project: It was now Gigantic, it would have songs by the Lopez duo, it would have a simplified story, and would be set during Columbus' time. (Likely instrumental in its shelving.) Two months later, Disney inked the official release date: March 9, 2018.

Lo and behold, in summer 2016, Ralph Breaks the Internet is officially announced and takes that spot. Gigantic is now in the 11/21/2018 slot. Frozen 2 is later confirmed to be the 11/27/2019 release. Now both are back-to-back. Meg LeFauve is added as writer and director in fall 2016, but the project and the crew no-shows at this past D23, raising some questions...

Like I've said, it isn't cancelled. Catmull said it's no longer in active development... So it has been, shall we say, put on the back-burner.

What are some other projects that got stopped at WDAS in the past ten years?

King of the Elves was announced in April 2008 as a Christmas 2012 release, from Brother Bear directors Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker. Two years later, it was shelved, and we knew about it... Then it was brought back, quietly, in 2011. Chris Williams was set to take a stab at it, and at one time, it was in a race with Frozen to be the studio's fall 2013 release. Obviously not getting to the finish line first, Disney said little on the project shortly after that, so its halting wasn't officially announced that time... It just disappeared. No work has been done on it since mid-2013.

Cosmic 3000, a Dean Wellins-directed space race movie, was never officially announced. (See concept art here.) Blue Sky Disney, leaks, and various interviews got us the info on that one. Started some time after Wellins left Tangled, Blue Sky Disney reported that it was nearing death by fall 2013. It was confirmed dead later on by other sources (Rich Moore himself being one of them, on his twitter), Wellins has been - as of early 2015 - at work on a new project with Big Hero 6 story man Paul Briggs. So we know for sure that one's officially cancelled.

Gigantic seems to be in the middle... Not happening soon, but could be revived somewhere down the road. It doesn't seem to be a Newt situation, of course referring to the ill-fated Pixar film that was in development for a few years before it was officially abandoned.


So I get the sense that in 2020, Disney Animation wants to follow up the fairy tale musical with something new, something unexpected. If you think about it, there's a pattern. Since Tangled, every three years we've gotten a CG fairy tale and/or 90s-style musical: Frozen in 2013, Moana in 2016, Frozen 2 in 2019. So maybe we could expect Gigantic in 2022, or something else in that vein... Or maybe no pictures like that for a little while, which would be nice. This new era of WDAS is showing, full force, that Disney Animation isn't limited to just the kinds of movies they made during the 90s. Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia have done what Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and most of the early aughts films weren't allowed to do... And it's all paying off nicely at the box office!

In short... I want an era of Walt Disney Animation Studios that doesn't rely on people's nostalgia for the "perfect" 90s (which weren't anywhere near perfect to begin with in my humble opinion), I want an era of Walt Disney Animation Studios that tries new things while not forgetting characters and good storytelling. Respect for the audience. An era of new things, and less reheats. You know... "Keeping moving forward"?

Maybe Gigantic's halting had to do with that. Maybe you could put on a tinfoil hat and speculate that Gigantic was going to be a 2D/CG hybrid a la Paperman, and say that's why it was pulled. Or maybe it was just a matter of... It just wasn't working, and that no plan to make less of these films is even a thing.

In the end, give it time, and give other projects some time to shine.

Results, reboots, birds...

Leading the animated pack, in 8th place, was The Lego Ninjago Movie. Fell 38%, is up to $51 million here (Storks was at $59 million at this point, so it's falling behind), $96 million elsewhere. Looks to come up rather short, I'm afraid. Maybe it could catch on elsewhere.

My Little Pony must've been frontloaded, because it fell hard. It's down 53%, which is pretty bad for a family-friendly release that opened with so little. I mean, when you're now behind the previous family animated movie that's been out for nearly a month, that's pretty telling. It has now mustered up $15 million stateside and $19 million worldwide. Yeah, 2D and traditional animation are only good for TV show adaptations alright. The thing's not outgrossing Winnie the Pooh-2011 here, nor is it getting anywhere near The Princess and the Frog's gross, that's for sure. Again, I can only hope it didn't cost too much.


Loving Vincent cracked the Top 20, proving to be rather victorious for a small-release, experimental animated feature. Now rolling in 55 theaters (none near me!), it rose an 97% and took in $331k for the weekend. It has now reached $750k! Getting closer to $1 million!

Despicable Me 3 lingers. $263 million here, $1,027 million worldwide, just a few clicks away from Finding Dory's worldwide gross. Leap!'s fading, looking to finish with $25 million domestically, and less than $110 million worldwide. Cars 3 remains a $152 million-grossing film, and has made $376 million worldwide. Captain Underpants slowly nears $120 million, as it's rolling in French cinemas right now.


MGM still wants in on the animation game, despite everything they've gone through and where they're at now. To my understanding, MGM can't distribute films on their after filing for bankruptcy in 2010. Now they sort-of cooperate with a few big studios, like Sony and Warner Bros.

Currently, one animated feature of theirs is a definite, and it's going to be released by Paramount this coming spring: The belated Gnomeo & Juliet sequel, Sherlock Gnomes. MGM's co-producing and co-distributing, Starz and Rocket Pictures are the main production companies behind it, with Mikros doing - to my knowledge - most of the animation.


For a little while, they had been trying to get a feature from the house that made their 2008 release Igor off the ground, Bunyan & Babe. That one ended up being dropped and given to a team that did it on the cheap, and released it straight to VOD.

Try, try again as they always say... Now they're trying to launch an animated feature based on The Addams Family. Conrad Vernon, one of Sausage Party's directors and former DreamWorks director (he was a director on all three Madagascar films), is at the helm and will produce... despite the fact that Warner Animation recently named him director of an animated Jetsons feature that's seemingly a little less likely these days. This isn't the first time MGM tried to get an Addams Family animated movie going, and they actually picked up the project after Illumination - of all studios! - passed it up. Illumination's version was going to involve Tim Burton, and he possibly would've directed, too!

The same screenwriter of the 2013 iteration of this project - Monster House and Corpse Bride writer Pamela Pettler - has also penned the script for this one, though revisions will be done by Matt Lieberman, who is also attached to Warner Animation's Scooby. Coincidentally, the Addams Family appeared in animated form on The New Scooby-Doo Movies in the early 1970s. That episode and the re-runs of the early 90s animated series (also done by Hanna-Barbera, who did the 70s animated series as well) were my introduction to the characters, not so much the Barry Sonnenfeld-directed live-action movies that came out at the time.

I'd say it's been a long time coming. The Addams Family originally appeared in newspaper cartoons, so I think the subject matter is perfect for animation if it's done right, but not in the homogenized quasi-Pixar look we're so accustomed to. Since it's coming from MGM, I don't think they should even think of going such a route. Instead, they should take cues from films like The Book of Life and create a distinct look... Maybe something close to the original cartoon panels!


Anyways, I'm not sure if this will be going anywhere anytime soon. I reckon that MGM is going to wait and see how Sherlock Gnomes does before going through with these sorts of projects. MGM, after the Golden Age of Animation, has had a rather interesting history with feature animation. They released Chuck Jones' animated feature adaptation of The Phantom Tollbooth, infamously left Don Bluth's debut feature The Secret of NIMH to wither in the summer of 1982, and later distributed a couple more of his films. The 90s weren't quite fruitful for them, same for many other distributors looking to get in on Disney/Bluth's success. Out of all the distributors, they sagged in the early aughts. Some projects were proposed, they went nowhere. Igor somehow got made, it didn't make much of a mark.

I think it's kind of a shame actually. The MGM cartoon studio was one of the premier animation forces of the 1940s, producing not only the Tom & Jerry series and Tex Avery's wild, innovative, and uproarious cartoons, but also a very worthy series of one-shot cartoons. They never really transitioned into fully-animated features well, then, the post-Golden Age years, or even during the supposed Renaissance. If any studio in the 1940s could do features, it was MGM... They didn't. They instead did a couple live-action films featuring Tom and Jerry, most notably Anchors Aweigh.

Despite not being the company they once were, perhaps MGM can finally get a piece of the cake in the coming years. Who knows, but hopefully The Addams Family gets some kind of traction.


But who is Condorito, you might ask?

Condorito is a Chilean comic strip character that was created in 1949 by Rene "Pepo" Rios, in response to a segment from Walt Disney's 1942 package feature Saludos Amigos. He wasn't pleased with the Chile-themed 'Pedro' segment, feeling that the little skit with the anthropomorphic mail plane was an insult. Condorito's feature-length CG film was a long-time coming, and it has opened already in Latin America. Fox distributed it there.


Despite Fox's desire to launch more and more animated features, they will not be handling this film's US release. I mean, the reasons are obvious... What average American knows who Condorito is?
Lionsgate has picked up the American distribution rights, and will release it here on January 12, 2018. That spot was once occupied by Sherlock Gnomes, after it moved, Paddington 2 settled in - as the first Paddington was a mid-January release in the US in 2015. Not that Lionsgate is expecting a big blockbuster out of it anyways, but I find it interesting nonetheless.

I'm hearing that a US trailer is unraveling before screenings of My Little Pony (haven't been able to catch that stuff at work these past few weeks, sorry fellas), but Box Office Mojo curiously lists it with its Spanish-language title: Condorito: La Pelicula. Basically, Spanish for "The Movie." The site also lists it as a "foreign language" film...

Is Lionsgate going the Un Gallo can Muchos Huevos route with this film?


In the late summer of 2015, Pantelion Films - a venture backed by Lionsgate to distribute Latin American films - released the Mexican animated feature Un Gallo can Muchos Huevos in little more than 600 theaters across the country. No dubbing, no nothing, it was the original version of the movie with subtitles... And the movie received a PG-13 rating! (I mean, it's in the damn title!) Opening with $3 million in less than 400 theaters, it actually impressed in some ways! Finishing up with $9 million domestic, it showed that there is an audience for these films. I actually had no idea what the Huevos franchise even was until this movie rolled in! I only found out about Condorito a few years ago when reading about Saludos Amigos.

So yes, it's very possible that this will be a Pantelion release come January 2018. Now if I can track down a US trailer that indicates this, yeah... That would be useful. It's cool to see that Muchos Huevos' tiny success in the states possibly lead to this. Much better than having it Americanized and stripped of what made it a little different...

News on two 2020 features, and something small...


With last week's news, we knew that Chris Sanders definitely wouldn't be returning to directthe sequel to DreamWorks' The Croods. He is currently set to direct the photoreal hybrid Fox adaptation of Jack London's The Call of the Wild, which is slated for Christmas Day 2019. The Croods' other director, Kirk DeMicco, is directing Sony Animation's Lin-Manuel Miranda monkey musical Vivo, due out in the holiday season of 2020.

So, it seemed obvious... Someone else is filling the shoes, and we have learned recently that it'll be a first-time feature director. Joel Crawford, who has just finished directing the upcoming Trolls holiday special, is at the helm. He was head of story on Trolls, and a story artist on several DreamWorks films dating back to 2007! It's cool to see someone else take on the series, though I'm sure many will be upset that Sanders won't be back.


Honestly, I'm not really phased because I didn't really think The Croods was anything more than a passable, noisy romp that could've been a lot better. With or without Sanders. Some may blame DeMicco for the film's flaws (on the grounds that he directed Space Chimps), but I doubt it's all on him. That's just the easy way out. Executives could've been restraining Sanders and DeMicco, or maybe Sanders - big shock - could also be to blame. I know the animation community gushes over him because of Lilo & Stitch (a great movie) and the first How To Train Your Dragon (a good movie), but I don't think he's the demigod some make him out to be, and totally capable of making questionable choices. I mean, all great directors have at some point in their lives. Give another director the leeway Sanders got on Lilo & Stitch, and I think they'd turn out great and/or interesting things as well.

Anyways, there's room for improvement with a Croods sequel. If the sequel can pounce on that, that would be great. The world of the Croods is still fresh in my mind, it's pretty and colorful and took advantage of the medium. To say nothing of all the creative creatures that inhabited it! If they can take what was working so well with the first half hour (or at least, up until the quake) and make that the whole movie, then the sequel will be a winner.


Mark Swift will produce, as he had produced Captain Underpants and the Madagascar follow-ups. DreamWorks' chief Chris DeFaria had this to say...

Joel has done masterful work in his career and has proven himself to be an artist with a keen eye for character and story... His wonderful work at the helm of the DreamWorks Trolls Holiday as the director demonstrates his ability to expand his talents, and we think he’s the perfect choice to bring the Croods family back to life for audiences across the globe. We have a compelling story with fantastic new characters, and we are thrilled that Mark is going to be at the wheel for this film. He’s a talented producer and a great collaborator who is extremely well respected across the entire studio.

Welp, here's hoping it's what the first film, in my view, should've been. If you're a fan of the first one, that's cool too!


Walt Disney Animation Studios recently unveiled a very short short that was made by their interns... It took them about two months to make, and features 2D elements... It is called Ventana.


Pretty simple, to the point, has lots of fun and even shows potential for a full short project, if not a feature. Sometimes, the intern work suggests more cool stuff than the mainline work. It immediately reminded me of the training short Chalk, which was made around 2009 or 2010. Anyways, it's an impressive 2 minutes, the stuff with the dragon is great, especially when it flies around the room and illuminates it. That's the kind of meshing I'd love to see in a modern CG Disney animated feature, something beyond Maui's tattoos and some of Moana's trippier song sequences.

Now, we might have another big piece o' Walt Disney Animation Studios news on our hands... Maybe...


So a week ago, we learned that Walt Disney Animation Studios put their fairy tale adaptation Gigantic on hold. We also learned that another project that was brewing for quite a while is going to be taking its place: Thanksgiving week of 2020.

What is that project? We may learn soon, but we might know who is directing it!

On Twitter, someone had asked Paul Briggs - the head of story on Frozen and Big Hero 6 - if he is directing the feature that WDAS is going to launch in Thanksgiving 2020...

… I am https://t.co/9wFkjaGxAT

— Paul Briggs (@_paul_briggs_) October 19, 2017

While the fellow deleted his/her tweet, Briggs did say "I am."

Back in March 2015, Briggs stated on an Iron Giant-centric blog post that he was working on a feature with Dean Wellins, who was a storyboard artist and supervising animator on that Brad Bird masterpiece. Wellins, as many of you may know, was set to direct a sci-fi film called Cosmic 3000 for Disney Animation, a film that was never officially announced by Disney. The project pretty much died at the end of 2013, per the reports from the reputable sources. I got the sense that Briggs was going to be a story man on whatever Wellins was pursuing after the space movie got sucked into the black hole.


It appears, if we are to believe the tweet, that Briggs is directing this very feature. Is Wellins directing, too? Wellins' directorial debut has been a long time coming. He was supposed to direct Rapunzel with Glen Keane, Keane had stepped down from the project in 2008 due to health issues. Wellins stepped down with him, Byron Howard and Nathan Greno eventually took over and the project was of course released as Tangled. Wellins later directed a short film called Tick Tock Tale, which was completed in 2010 but never attached to Tangled in theaters. It was first given a general public release on the Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Film Collection Blu-ray that came out two years ago.

Then flash-forward to the space movie that didn't happen, yeah... Wellins needs to do a feature! He's got the chops, I reckon, given his experience, and I quite liked his Tick Tock Tale.

We shall see. We're supposed to hear about this mystery 2020 feature soon. Maybe we'll get an announcement as early as Christmas Day, maybe sometime in spring 2018, who knows! But if it's Briggs and Wellins' directorial debuts, then I'm ready!

The Renaissance Age of Animation... The legendary 90s...

Apparently the greatest time in the history of the medium...

Not to this guy.

It is true that the late 1980s and early 1990s brought a lot of good to animation as a whole, from memorable features to great TV show to media on other platforms. At the same time, it brought lots of problems that would morph into issues that exist within the industry today. Some high quality works were made during this time, but high quality works had existed in animation long before this period and continue to be made to this day.

As suggested by a reader, I will dive into what I - and others - feel are misconceptions about the "Animation Renaissance"... Or, the Second Golden Age of Animation...

And feel free to disagree on any view I may have on certain films or works. I am not the God of All Things Animation, you know! Just an aspiring New Englander with strong opinions and little fear to express them! What's going to follow are my beliefs and what I gather from all the animation history I've read over the years, though a lot of facts will be present throughout as well.

So how in the world did the "Renaissance" even start?

Well, to those who think it all started with a certain redhead, I think otherwise...


#1: The Little Mermaid did not start the Second Golden Age of animation...

It did not.

We can pinpoint the beginnings of animation's Second Golden Age at 1986.

The early-to-mid 1980s were a rather tough time for animation. Animation as a whole wasn't particularly dead or nearing extinction, but it was seriously in the doldrums. In 1982, there was an animators' strike and MGM/United Artists dumped Don Bluth's promising The Secret of NIMH. Disney's ambitious live-action picture TRON - which made groundbreaking use of CGI - lost money at the box office. At Walt Disney Feature Animation, development on The Black Cauldron and Basil of Baker Street were underway while creative disputes were happening left and right. Just about everything else flopped or had trouble even getting some kind of suitable theatrical release.

It seemed like only new Disney features and re-releases of the classics were guaranteed box office successes, but nothing had really been a blockbuster since the 1960s. Feature animation was in desperate need of one, not a family feature that simply counter programmed the heavies. The Black Cauldron was costly and didn't resonate with the public when released in summer 1985. The Great Mouse Detective's "success" only refers to the fact that it made its money back, the gross on that thing was only a millimeter higher than that of "big flop"The Black Cauldron's gross.

Steven Spielberg noticed Don Bluth sometime after The Secret of NIMH's release, and soon Bluth landed a gig with him. This translated into a lavish feature called An American Tail, released in fall 1986, a few months after Disney released The Great Mouse Detective. An American Tail became the highest-grossing animated feature (we're of course talking initial release numbers, in terms of re-release totals, Snow White was still undisputed queen of the mountain), spawned lots of merchandise and even a Grammy-winning hit single! Spielberg and Universal helped make Bluth's production a smash hit, and really rocketed Bluth himself to the top. Fievel Fever was caught, and lasted well into early 1987. This prompted new Disney executives Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg to rethink their plans to scrap feature animation for good. It gave Roy E. Disney all the ammunition he needed, for sure.


Let's not give all the credit to Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg, though. Disney themselves had also made a big decision around this time as well... Releasing the animated classics on home video. Now by contrast, Roy E. Disney was what was holding the company back from releasing most of those films on video. He was very protective of his Uncle Walt's greatest treasures. Roy wasn't around when previous CEO Ron Miller enacted a long-term plan to release the animated films on video. Disney's executives at the time initially hesitated to release the films on black-shelled cassettes, the "What Would Walt Do?" people who assumed what a dead man had wanted, they assumed he would've approach home video the same way he approached TV.

Walt didn't show his animated classics - sans Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland - on television, he preferred having them be theatrically re-released every few years. Package features were carved up and shown either in theaters or on TV. More money, and also covering the losses of past flops like Pinocchio and Bambi. The Vault, but in the 1950s and 1960s, basically. The executives that assumed power after his death didn't know how to embrace home video, and to be fair, the early 1980s was when the format was in its infancy. Only Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland, alongside some package features, were released on video during this time. 1984 was when Miller, prior to his ousting, laid down a plan to release the rest of the films on video. By the time he was out, the first title was released to test the waters... Robin Hood. Not one of Disney's bigger films, for sure.



The video release of Robin Hood in late 1984 was successful enough, Michael Eisner and the new executives suggested having Pinocchio be released next, as the latest re-release didn't quite pull in amazing numbers. Eisner reportedly stated that the film was making nothing by just sitting in the vault, waiting for a re-release some 5-7 years down the line. Roy conceded, on the grounds that Pinocchio was never really that big of a box office draw over the years - despite being a perennial favorite - compared to films like Cinderella and Snow White. Those were the ones he didn't want on video.

Pinocchio moved half a million units before going on moratorium in spring 1986, Sleeping Beauty was released in the fall, coming off of a successful spring re-release. Sleeping Beauty moved over a million units and was the highest-selling video release of all time back then. Soon, the treasures Roy held near-and-dear were being released on video, one-by-one: Lady and the Tramp (1987, moved 3 million units), Cinderella (1988, moved 7 million units), Bambi (1989, moved 10 million units). Disney dominated every holiday season, Americans made sure to buy these films, knowing they'd be locked away in a Fort Knox-like vault if they didn't act fast. When they missed their chances, people took advantage of that and scalped these VHS tapes, reselling them for insane prices: Up to $300 in some instances!

So by early 1988, there's an upward swing: Bluth scores a hit, wakes Disney right up, Spielberg - one of the biggest filmmakers on the scene - is involved in animation, classic Disney films rake in big bucks on home video. Animation merchandise sees something a resurgence, too, items based on classic characters pop up more and more. Then comes Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a collaboration between Walt Disney Pictures, Spielberg's Amblin, Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis, and animation savior Richard Williams. A rare cooperation between such heavy forces, the result is an incredible, beloved film that takes the world by storm and grosses over $300 million worldwide. Animation is back in full force!

Disney, Don Bluth, Steven Spielberg, Richard Williams, Robert Zemeckis, several others... All at the forefront.


Further solidifying this was the fall 1988 successes of Don Bluth/Steven Spielberg's The Land Before Time and Disney's Oliver & Company. Then came The Little Mermaid in fall 1989, sleeper hit, wins Oscars, is a smash on video, it ignites Disney's own second coming. Then Beauty and the Beast would become the first all-animated feature to gross over $100 million domestically and even get nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Something that only happened two times to animated features afterwards...

So the revival was well in place before 1989. TV also played a big part in animation's Second Golden Age, particularly in the late 80s and early 90s... The Simpsons, MTV, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, new WB cartoon shows (Batman, Animaniacs, Freakazoid!), Disney's TV animation... That made up for the shoddy work coming from the other distributors, which leads us to the next misconception about the Renaissance...

It was a great time for all animation... Not really.

Don Bluth's A Troll in Central Park (1994)

#2. The Second Golden Age Wasn't a Good Time for Other Feature Animation Studios...

Other distributors were looking at the numbers Disney and Don Bluth's movies pulled in from 1986 to 1989, and they wanted in. The problem was, they misunderstood the successes of those movies. Audiences liked An American Tail, The Land Before Time, Oliver & Company, and The Little Mermaid. Not for the types of movies they were, but because of what was in the movies themselves. The writing, the characters, the this, the that.

The assumption was that if they could create movies like those, audiences would come, a problem we see today and have seen for years...


By the early 90s, you started seeing the imitators slowly trickle out. Warner Bros. was all about getting an animation slate going, yet their LA head of animation had no clue how the animation process even worked. The Nutcracker Prince was barely marketed and disappeared in fall 1990, Rover Dangerfield - originally conceived as an R-rated animated comedy by creator/comedian Rodney Dangerfield - turned out to be a turkey and was given a limited release in mid-1991, all because WB wanted it to be a generic musical kids' movie and not what Dangerfield wanted.

Then Warner Bros. backed away from Richard Williams'The Thief and the Cobbler, perhaps signing with WB was what partially doomed that outlier project to begin with. Williams' intended magnum opus was taken from him by a completion bond company, they turned what was meant to be something new and different and revolutionary into an Aladdin wannabe with cut-rate songs and inferior animation filling in the gaps. Miramax - under the rule of a certain someone who is thankfully being ousted from the Hollywood system as we speak - further destroyed it, the film in its butchered state ended up getting a limited release and died very quickly.

Another WB muck-up was Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. A PG-rated feature based on the animated series, it was bumped up from direct-to-video title to theatrical release... It sadly went unnoticed due to poor marketing, which would be an ongoing issue for WB. Despite being a Christmas 1993 release, it was no hit. Perhaps a higher-budget, aggressively-marketed PG-rated Batman animated movie could've helped WB and non-Disney animation during this period. Surreal to think that we had to wait another 24 years to see an animated Batman movie be a blockbuster, even if it was of the brick variety.


Don Bluth would face a multitude of problems, and they didn't start with All Dogs Go to Heaven, which is a pretty common belief... Bluth was facing issues as far back as An American Tail. Steven Spielberg reportedly had Bluth cut stuff from An American Tail, because the material was supposedly too scary for young children... It's bizarre, Spielberg ruled the family film with some of his live-action pictures like E.T., which had bite. Why did he dilute Bluth's films? This problem worsened during post-production of The Land Before Time. The executives at Universal Pictures were horrified at Bluth's vision for his dinosaur film, an often-dark story with stretches that would scare kids. You know, like a Walt Disney film!

Universal, with Spielberg taking their orders, had Bluth cut over 10 minutes of completed, "psychologically-scarring" animation from his movie (I saw the storyboards for the supposedly traumatizing extended T-rex chase, it's nothing compared to Pleasure Island), leaving it a rather short endeavor. Bluth left Spielberg and Universal due to these creative differences, but he didn't see sunny fields on the other side... Bluth returned to MGM/United Artists to do All Dogs Go to Heaven. The executives had him cut a lot of stuff that would've gotten the film a PG rating. (Kids, having that rating was a big deal back in the late 80s!) So as early as 1986 or so, animation absolutely "had" to be for kids. The 1960s mindset still prevailed in many ways.

Bluth couldn't escape that. All Dogs Go to Heaven had to be a kids' film, and that was that. All Dogs Go to Heaven got mixed reviews and did so-so business at the box office in fall 1989, it didn't quite resonate with audiences who were getting their fill from the Disney musical about the underwater redhead that was playing in the theater next door. If it had been a Spielberg/Universal co-production, maybe it would've performed better?


After that, Bluth's hit streak was over. His next feature, Rock-a-Doodle, was also focus-grouped into kiddie blandness, losing its rougher elements so that it could get a G rating, but really... That feature needed much more time to stew, for it was much weaker than anything he had put out beforehand. Bluth had that thing belted out in about a year or so, and it shows. External issues held up the American release, which didn't occur until spring 1992, nearly two years after the film was completed! Rock-a-Doodle, released by The Samuel Goldwyn Co with little fanfare, was a critical and commercial dud. Future Bluth features were also meddled with, and they flopped as well: Thumbelina, A Troll in Central Park (both released by WB), and The Pebble and the Penguin (released by MGM). Bluth even Alan Smithee'd on The Pebble and the Penguin, a lot of which ended up being outsourced.

It did not go well for Bluth at all, it did not go well for Warner Bros. Everyone else?

Fox? Once Upon a Forest? FernGully: The Last Rainforest? The Pagemaster? Quite the dent they made with those features.


Universal struggled after losing Bluth in the late 1980s. Steven Spielberg had set up Amblimation, but they too tripped out the door. An American Tail: Fievel Goes West - which Bluth was not involved with - didn't add up, audiences didn't return to see the little mouse they liked in 1986. In the theater next door was Beauty and the Beast, making matters much worse. Perhaps if Bluth did An American Tail 2, and had it released earlier, maybe it would've done better. Maybe not. We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story also had its tough stuff censored out, and it limped into and out of theaters. Big flop. Balto, despite its strengths, also flopped. They couldn't crack it, Spielberg hadn't scored an animated hit after the runaway success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The features didn't resonate with audiences, they lacked the adult appeal that Disney's films had. (More proof that "children dragging their parents to theaters" aren't what make animated movies big.)

MGM/UA coasted after All Dogs Go To Heaven, okaying a Bluth-less sequel that went belly-up alongside a Bluth film (The Pebble and the Penguin) that also went belly-up.

New Line's Disney carbon copy The Swan Princess also didn't do a thing, Disney also re-released The Lion King the same weekend it opened to knock it down a peg. Turner would later start an animation studio and make Cats Don't Dance, WB dumped it when acquiring Turner. A victim of a transition.

Hemdale botched a then 3-years-old Japanese animated Windsor McCay adaptation Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (and had about 10 minutes cut from it), and also dumped a then 2-year-old Hungarian feature called The Princess and the Goblin.


20th Century Fox reloaded its animation plan, started a studio, and got Don Bluth into the fold, but their first feature together was just another Disney-like film, Anastasia. It just did okay at the box office, Fox then haphazardly drove Fox Animation into a wall with Titan A.E. in mid-2000. WB scored a big hit with Space Jam, a live-action/animation hybrid featuring the Looney Tunes that has time capsule written all over it. Until now, you never really heard anything positive about this movie, but since 90s nostalgia is in full swing... Yeah, Space Jam is currently iconic and a cinematic treasure. (Blah!) Big when it was released, certainly, most moviegoers who weren't kids back then didn't return to it.

Prior to 1998, the animation scene outside of Disney was mostly shambles... DreamWorks came in and changed things up a bit, Pixar was flying high with the release of their second feature. WB still ate dirt, releasing the pitiful Quest for Camelot. In 1999, they completely mishandled The Iron Giant (perhaps the best animated film of the 90s as a whole) and also released the terrible The King and I.

If you think about it, Warner Bros. were the ones who really messed up the most... The Iron Giant and Batman: Mask of the Phantasm not given the backing they needed, ruining opportunities with Bluth, The Thief and the Cobbler's unfortunate fate... Yeah, they really, really bungled things.

1999 was also Pixar's year. Pixar made everyone bow down when they released Toy Story 2, a great and successful animated movie sequel. Pokemon the First Movie benefitted from the American Pokemon craze of the late 90s. I was there, were you? Most Americans I know (aka non-fans, "normies," people who aren't in on this stuff) have no idea that Pokemon continues to be a successful franchise, and were utterly confused when Pokemon Go! came about last year. None of the movie sequels made anywhere near as much on American soil.

On the bright side, the underground anime movement gained more traction because of home video. We started seeing more releases of Japanese animated features, even if they were limited. More anime came to television, chiefly on Cartoon Network's Toonami block.

So what about Disney... Did they rule the 90s all the way through? Were they unstoppable?

Well...

For the uninitiated, from left to right: Peter Schneider, Roy E. Disney, and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

#3. Disney Weren't Even At Their Best During This Era...

Disney had problems, too...

It may seem hard to swallow, but even the acclaimed Disney Renaissance films fall short in my opinion. I'm sure somebody is sharpening a pitchfork right now...

I'd actually argue that problems were already in place by the time Beauty and the Beast was deep in production: Around mid-1990. Even beforehand. Then-Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg infamously saw little value in animation, as he and Michael Eisner at one point intended to scrap feature animation altogether after the flopping of The Black Cauldron. The Great Mouse Detective saw budget cuts and a stupid re-titling. Katzenberg made it clear in interviews that Disney animation was and should only be for children, or at least should be for children first and foremost... Spitting in the face of Walt Disney, negating everything the man fought for. But Katzenberg was a boomer, and like most boomers he probably was conditioned to "outgrow" cartoons when he was a preteen in the early 1960s, so it's no surprise that he saw so little in the medium.

The Little Mermaid's production is infamous. Katzenberg wanted to cut 'Part of Your World' from the film, because all the 8-year-olds at a test screening got bored and walked around the auditorium. Master animator Glen Keane fought Katzenberg, he thankfully won. Katzenberg even warned the studio that The Little Mermaid could've underperformed, because it was about a female character and was "girly." Funny how that attitude came back some 20 years later...

So what happened next?

Katzenberg had left the next feature, The Rescuers Down Under, to die. The Rescuers Down Under was an action-adventure sequel to the studio's 1977 hit The Rescuers. It had no songs, no sweeping romance (sure, Bernard throughout the movie attempts to propose to Bianca, but it's not like Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast), it was a fun breezy adventure. Why did Katzenberg kill it? The opening weekend numbers weren't the greatest. He cut the legs right off of it, pulling all the marketing, the film ultimately underperformed and ensured that no features like it would ever be made again at Disney Animation.

Enter Beauty and the Beast...


With Beauty and the Beast, Disney Feature Animation planned on making what was essentially a new version of the 1946 Jean Cocteau Beauty and the Beast film. It wasn't going to be like The Little Mermaid, but then-chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg - in typical fashion - razored right into the story treatment and didn't hesitate to say how much he disliked it. Katzenberg had Beauty and the Beast retooled into a Little Mermaid-esque musical comedy. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken came back to do the songs, the storyline and structure were very similar to the 1989 film... So with that and the abandoning of The Rescuers Down Under, the makings of "the Disney formula" were already planted.

Beauty and the Beast was acclaimed, and truthfully, it was a very strong movie that was relentlessly entertaining. Warts and all, from its rushed animation to its script hiccups, Beauty and the Beast is just a knock-out feel-good picture. It didn't matter that it was essentially The Little Mermaid in 18th century France with some minor differences, people dug it fierce, and still do. Disney aggressively pushed for a Best Picture nomination, by running a work-in-progress version of the movie at the New York Film Festival prior to its release. They really had faith in it! Perhaps a little too much faith...


But really... A lot of those adult audiences who raved about it, all those critics... They were people who knew nothing about animation nor had much respect for early Disney animated features. They were cheering on a feature that was good, certainly better than most of the films made after Walt's passing, but it was not the high mark of excellence. You would've thought that it was the first "great" animated feature, and the Oscar nomination solidified that.

The Little Mermaid, to me, is certainly much better and much more consistent. Beauty and the Beast, good as it is, is a country mile from Walt's early films, which were supposedly simplistic and childish compared to it. Beauty and the Beast was the "prestige picture," Disney Feature Animation was finally making high art as opposed to the baby movies they had made beforehand. Disney executives and pundits encouraged this wrongheaded attitude, an attitude that persists today: "Disney Animation was making simplistic children's movies up until the Renaissance."

Beauty and the Beast is a very good film, but its success inadvertently caused long-term problems.


Jeffrey Katzenberg (who left the company in fall 1994) and the Disney brass swore by the formula. Each new feature had to be a variation on Beauty and the Beast/The Little Mermaid. You can definitely see this in Aladdin and The Lion King, but both of those films are good despite their formulaic elements. The big songs (the love ballad, the showstopper song, the villain/climactic moment song), the comic relief, the love stories... Both of those films have great characters and overall solid storytelling, the former suffering from uneven pacing and jokes that would become dated in a few years, the latter having script issues and tonal problems. When this formula was applied to American history (Pocahontas) and genuinely dark novels (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), that's when the holes burst in the dam.

What could've been? What if Katzenberg didn't carelessly torpedo The Rescuers Down Under? What if pictures like those - that didn't follow the Little Mermaid formula - were made and gave the slate some much-needed storytelling variety? Instead of Pocahontas following The Lion King, imagine Chris Sanders taking the weird alien he sketched in 1985 and made it into a mid-1990s Lilo & Stitch! Imagine if THAT had followed up The Lion King! Or something similar! What if Katzenberg and Eisner didn't get so high on the "prestige picture" fumes following the success of Beauty and the Beast? Ron Clements had griped one time to Tad Stones about the executives pushing Disney Feature Animation into "Miramax" territory...

What Ron said was that the whole line of features that they were talking about like Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Aida (the opera that eventually premiered as a Broadway show instead) were about things that he and John didn’t want to work on. We are not the Miramax of animation. We kind of do what mainstream America would like to see so let’s put that kind of entertainment on the screen. Disney’s done quite well with that. It really did shock Jeffrey into realizing that he was pushing animation to an Art House formula. He started asking, ‘Who is the audience for this?’

Katzenberg, Eisner, and most of the executives saw animation as nothing more than a kids' thing, yet they wanted to ride the wave brought on by Beauty and the Beast. We got films that didn't know whether they wanted to be more adult dramas or films made to sell Happy Meals. Then after that, the focus on kids remained. Even after getting adult audiences into the theaters with movies like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin (not to mention Who Framed Roger Rabbit), these executives still made sure these movies had to be for kids first and foremost. You know, never mind that Walt Disney fought to get animation to higher places, even putting his financial situation on the line to get things accomplished, never mind that Walt insisted he wasn't making "children's films." That integrity completely died with him in 1966. This meant that shoehorned comic relief, toilet humor, cutesy sidekicks, and the like absolutely had to be in these films. Gotta keep those bored 8-year-olds who got up and walked around during The Little Mermaid's 'Part of Your World' sequence during a test screening interested, ya know?


Pixar, on the other hand, kept Walt's ideals alive, the idea that animation didn't have to be a "kids first!" thing... and that's why they succeeded where Disney failed. It had nothing to do with snazzy computer-generated imagery. Toy Story and its sequel, along with A Bug's Life, made numbers the other studios craved. Their films appealed to both adults and kids without putting one over the other. Disney continued to push this "kids first!" mentality, while Pixar simply worked on making movies they - a studio full of adults - would want to see themselves. DreamWorks - which Katzenberg formed right after leaving Disney - went the other direction, attempting to appeal to adults by making "edgy" films that ultimately didn't quite make much of a stir. Antz and The Prince of Egypt did fine, but they were no Toy Story. The Road to El Dorado flopped, Aardman's Chicken Run - a picture much closer in spirit to Pixar's smart films than DreamWorks' tryhard, edgy films - was something of a hit.

I mean, rewatch the making of Toy Story specials (whether you're watching The Pixar Story or the Blu-ray special features of the first movie)... Notice how John Lasseter and all of them emphasize that they had a special list of don'ts when developing the film? They specifically didn't want a Renaissance Disney movie, and why do you think that is? Toy Story entered development in 1991, when Beauty and the Beast was nearing completion. They knew then. They knew the formula would wear thin, and it did in less than five years. They avoided that altogether and made something that seemed new in 1995: A buddy comedy with no song-and-dance musical numbers (Randy Newman's songs are sung offscreen, not dissimilar to the use of songs in Dumbo and Bambi) or silly annoying sidekicks or even big bad villains. Sid is a kid who mutates toys, he's unaware that they are sentient. It makes him an antagonist, sure, but not a "bad guy" villain in the vein of Scar or Jafar. Perhaps this is partially why some people have problems with the underrated A Bug's Life, the antagonist of that movie is a "bad guy." (Though they are much more nuanced if you ask me.) No Disney animated feature released after The Lion King made Toy Story numbers in North America. ($191 million.) Not until the release of Tangled in 2010! That's telling, no?

It wasn't "Disney wasn't capable," they were... That studio full of extremely talented people was being run by folks who didn't give two craps about animation. This problem persisted, and things got very ugly in the early aughts. A studio like Disney Animation should never turn out something as insulting as Home on the Range. Eisner had to be ousted by that point, no two ways about it. He was finally forced to step down in 2005.

Walt Disney Animation Studios is in a good state right now, some ten years after John Lasseter turned Meet The Robinsons around and made it into a good, if not flawed feature. Lasseter and his posse just want the studio to make movies, not "kiddie things." They leave that to the consumer products people and everyone else, they thankfully have little say in the making of these things. Not every movie is a repeat of Tangled, instead we get experiments like Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia. I bet Gigantic was halted because it would've been released right after Frozen 2, then you would've had two similar movies back-to-back. I think they're well aware of what the problem was in the late 90s/early aughts. The comfort food-like movies such as Frozen and Moana will come every once in a while, instead of being the studio's only kind of offering. Smart.

In fact, I'd argue they're doing better now than they ever did in a post-Walt world. While the Renaissance had some nice visual variety (not to mention, traditional animation) and some upsides the modern era lacks, I think the current crop of features - for the most part - respect the audience and just tell very good stories without having to bend over backwards. 90s Disney would've never touched something like Wreck-It Ralph or Zootopia, early aughts Disney would've made them into garbage. Lasseter's background is in animation. Say what you will about the man, but he at least "gets" animation. More so than Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Eisner, David Stainton, and just about everyone else who ran the show since 1967 ever did.

The problem with the studio in the post-Walt years is this... It's not the filmmakers, it's the people running the show. All of the directors, writers, and animators on the Renaissance films were and are insanely talented people. This is true of most studios. You can still see their magic in even the worst Renaissance-era features (Pocahontas), so that definitely does mean something. Animation needs to be backed by people who care, and I think the 90s sort of brought in an age of executive-run animation that relies on formula and kids. How much farther did we really get from the animation scene of the 1960s and 1970s?

90s Disney pushed for kids, other studios focused on kids, lots of studios nowadays are very kid-centric. Everything has to be a faaaaaaamily picktcha! Though animation has been pigeonholed as a kids' medium (or just an inferior form of filmmaking) since the 1960s, I'd say the 90s solidified the whole "Yeah, it can be for adults... But it's gotta be for kids as well" attitude. It's a problem we're still dealing with in the features industry, not so much elsewhere. American TV animation was perhaps all set once The Simpsons came out, but American feature animation has yet to see a genuinely adult work that puts an end to this conventional wisdom.

So a lot of good came from the 1990s, but also a lot of not-so-good... Carry on.

Some small happenings, some big happenings...

First off, the Addams Family...


MGM's long-gestating Addams Family animated feature is seemingly moving forward now, after it was announced that Madagascar and Sausage Party director Conrad Vernon was at helm. It turns out, good ol'Cinesite Animation will be the production company behind the feature.


So far, Cinesite has gotten three features into locomotion. We'll be seeing The Star in less than a month, which they did for Sony Pictures Animation. 3QU/Vanguard's Gnome Alone (recently pushed back to spring 2018) and Charming are the other two. They're also set to co-produce Sergio Pablos' revolutionary 2D/CG hybrid Klaus, a feature based on Riverdance, and a feature series based on the silent films of Harold Lloyd.

It's not surprise that they're getting more projects on their docket. It's also worth noting that Cinesite also recently merged with Nitrogen Studios, the production company behind Sausage Party and various Thomas the Tank Engine direct-to-video features. They're really starting to catch on, it seems... Now, hopefully a good distributor locks some of their titles. MGM hasn't self-distributed since bankruptcy, so I reckon they'll find a distributor like WB or Sony to team up with. Worst case scenario, Lionsgate.


On another end of small animation is the Belgian studio nWave, who are currently at work on a feature called The Queen's Corgi. nWave is most known for their recent Robinson Crusoe adaptation, released here last year as The Wild Life. They also did The House of Magic and A Turtle's Tale. This new picture of theirs, budgeted at $20 million, is set to come out some time in early 2019. Right now, it's in that stage that small independent pictures go through... When it's being trotted around to potential buyers. Currently, a French sales company called Charades has picked it up.


The premise, per AWN:

The movie follows the adventure of Rex, the British monarch’s most beloved dog, who loses track of his mistress and stumbles across a fight club with dogs of all kinds confronting each other. During his epic journey to find the queen again, Rex falls in love and discovers his true self.

A "fight club" of dogs? So... A family-friendly Fight Club with talking dogs? Probably not, but who knows how it'll turn out. Could be cute fun, or it could be like Robinson Crusoe. Interestingly, Robinson Crusoe/Wild Life was one of two animated pictures made by nWave to get a wide release here in the states, Fly Me to the Moon being the other.

Charades co-founder Pierre Mazars had also stated that the film is going to be "in the spirit of Disney’s heartwarming canine classics such as The Fox and the Hound and Lady and the Tramp." Is that so? Does that mean we can expect a textured romantic-drama that mixes in themes of class? A story about natural enemies that functions as a parable of real-life prejudice? I don't know. The same person spoke highly of the project's writers, John R. Smith and Rob Sprackling, calling them "experts" of making "pitch-perfect" family comedies.

Well, the two wrote Gnomeo & Juliet, which got mixed reviews at best... But that film had nine other writers, and who knows if producers or execs meddled with it. Maybe they do have something special here, maybe not. nWave did make The House of Magic, which seemed to get halfway-decent reception. I suppose this will get some kind of backing, because its subject matter isn't too out-of-the-way. People like dogs, people like corgis, so I expect a company like - say - Lionsgate to get behind this... Only to dump it.

I currently have few thoughts on it overall because I don't really expect much. I'm guessing it's just going to be cute animals doing wacky stuff, with some romance and plotty stuff sprinkled in. We shall see!


The lull is in full swing, but the blockbuster storm kicks off next weekend for obvious reasons...

All of the animation is out of the top 10. The Lego Ninjago Movie fell 42%, up to $56 million here and $114 million worldwide. My Little Pony: The Movie fell an okay 49%, now up to $20 million stateside and $37 million all around the world. Still no word on the picture's budget.

Loving Vincent expanded a little more. Up 9%, now unraveling in 161 locations, up to $2.1 million domestically. Making tiny amounts of coin overseas, the film cost $5.5 million to make. Imagine it doubling that... Not sure if it has a chance, but I'm just happy to see the film well past $2 million. This beats the highest-grossing domestic GKIDS animated release, From Up on Poppy Hill.

Despicable Me 3 is at the end of the line. $263 million domestic, $1,030 million everywhere. Emoji Movie looks to finish up with $86 million here, worldwide it's at $211 million. Cars 3 looks to finish with $153 million here, and around $385 million worldwide. 2.1x the budget. I guess that's a pass for them, or just a minor nick in the armor... Err, chrome. Paintjob. Whatever. Captain Underpants is right near $74 million, and has passed $121 million worldwide. Budget tripled. I'm hearing a sequel of sorts is currently being planned, but it looks to be an international direct-to-video endeavor... More on this later.

The real news... Coco is out in Mexico!


Of course, it's obvious why Mexico got it so early. The actual Day of the Dead holiday, which the movie is about in case you've been living under a rock for a year, is right around the corner. I still think that Pixar should've released it here in mid-October, regardless of how many Americans actually recognize Day of the Dead. I always felt that Thanksgiving week was an unusual time to release it, it'd be like releasing a Christmas movie in late January. That's just me, though.

Anyways... Opening with $9 million, it should do fine over there. The biggest opening weekend record in Mexico belongs to Disney's own Marvel smash Captain America: Civil War, which took in $20 million. The $9.29 million haul places Coco's gross a few clicks below Finding Dory's Mexican opening gross, plus it's the biggest original animated opening in that country. That's very good! But I'm still concerned about its domestic prospects, but we shall see. The marketing seems to be getting a little better for the feature, maybe some last-minute hype will come to the rescue?

Also, fun fact... The Book of Life made $10 million in its entire run in Mexico. Before anyone assumes anything, I'm not trying to use one film to bash the other, I'm just pointing out something. I really like The Book of Life, have been anticipating Coco ever since the day it was announced, and I'll sure as hell be there for The Book of Life 2. A good chunk of the animation community instead decided to condemn Coco, and use The Book of Life to back up their disapproval. All for various unfounded reasons. (It's a rip-off! It's cultural appropriation! American directors have no right to make movies about Mexico!) They kept acting this way and got dramatic (*cough*the Brew*cough*), even after Book of Life director Jorge Gutierrez himself expressed enthusiasm for Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina's film. I truly don't get them.

So with November right around the corner, let's sit back and watch the box office storm...

A third round with the God of Thunder, and this time... It's the best round.

 MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD. Obviously...

Marvel Studios' Asgardian piece of their massive shared universe puzzle has been a rather rocky one. Thor, released in the spring of 2011, was the fourth overall movie in the MCU. It was met with mostly positive reception, but it seems as if it's not quite a favorite anymore. I always dug the first Thor movie, as I felt it was a fine origin story of the character. Instead of just being a generic mythical fantasy story, the idea that this world was going to one day collide with Iron Man and Hulk's lives was actually really exciting back then. It made the more SHIELD/Avengers set-up stuff more bearable than it was in the preceding Iron Man 2. Thor of course came with some of the scrappiness that characterized Phase One, but I felt it was a good start.

Thor: The Dark World is contested for mostly all the right reasons, though I do enjoy that sequel as well. My biggest problems with Thor: The Dark World concern the structure and the fact that the movie really doesn't go all out, on top of having a pretty bland villain. You can feel the penny-pinching, and you can see how restrained Marvel Studios were back when they were being overseen by a "creative committee" operating from at Marvel Entertainment. With the origin story and the Earth/Avengers connections out of the way, The Dark World should've explored. It really didn't, plus the first half of the movie sleepwalks, and overall feels like an editing mess. The fact that it was a production nightmare is no secret.


Those who aren't in tune with the comics have remarked that this new entry, Thor: Ragnarok, looked like "Thor meets Guardians of the Galaxy," not knowing that a good run of the Thor comics were very spacey and weirdo. Thor and Thor: The Dark World mostly downplayed that side of the character and his world, while Ragnarok - easily the best film in the standalone trilogy - exploits that. Thor: Ragnarok fully realizes Thor's world and makes it a real cosmic treat. Asgard, other planets, monsters, aliens, supernatural stuff... It's what Thor: The Dark World should've been, and probably was going to be at one point. Recently, it was revealed that villainess Hela was - in early development - set to be the antagonist of movie numero due. I wonder if that was the plan when Patty Jenkins was attached to direct it?

Director/writer Taika Waititi's take on Marvel's spacier side differentiates everything from Guardians of the Galaxy. Those two films are James Gunn's grand weirdo space adventure films through-and-through, Thor: Ragnarok is Waititi's own weirdo space epic. While the movies with the raccoon and the tree have a 70s/80s soundtrack, it's actually Thor: Ragnarok that feels the most like an 80s movie in Marvel's juggernaut series. From the set design to the mood to Mark Mothersbaugh's memorable, cool score... It's Marvel's 80s fantasy film. Would fit in quite snugly in the early 1980s, I think. I mean, look at the film's logo!


Waititi meshes his sensibilities with a high stakes story that also deals - in typical Marvel fashion - in good comedy and great action. Loki's ruling of Asgard and Thor's absence after the events of Age of Ultron have opened Asgard up to destruction. The diabolical Hela, first-born child of Odin, returns and takes complete advantage. Thor and Loki attempt to stop her from reaching Asgard, but they're knocked out of the bifrost and are stranded on the planet Sakaar. Loki plays his cards right, but Thor is made into a gladitorial piece for Sakaar's eccentric leader, The Grandmaster. After fighting with the Hulk, it's up to him to take back Asgard, bring back Bruce Banner, and stop Hela.

Similar to Guardians, Thor: Ragnarok has some heavy stuff and is quite violent for a PG-13 blockbuster, yet it's also funny and accessible. Not all of it works, though... I felt the first third of the movie was a little uneven, and Odin's death was surprisingly unceremonious. What the writers do nail are the new characters, particularly Tessa Thompson's former Valkyrie warrior 142 along with Thor and Hulk's post-battle relationship. Hela is a pretty good villain, too! Much better than the cardboard Malekith, for sure. In fact, I think Marvel's unleashed some of their best onscreen villains this year. Hela, Vulture, Ego, all great! This is coming from someone who actually liked most of the MCU villains up until this point.


Humor is peppered in at the right moments as well, dispelling any worries that a movie about Asgard's doomsday would be overly comedic. Its epic and intense third act makes plenty of good decisions and packs some nice twists, I particularly liked how Asgard itself fell apart, but all the Asgardians lived. Not a place, but a people... Thor and Loki get some great moments together, too, plus we see Loki's whole arc kind of conclude. References and meet-ups with other characters in the series feel organic, such as a run-in with Doctor Strange early on in the film. We've come a long way from the SHIELD stuff in the Phase One films, or the much-contested Falcon sequence in Ant-Man. (Another thing I, surprise, liked that everyone else didn't seem to like.)

While I didn't think Thor: Ragnarok was the high bar of the MCU that some made it out to be, it's significantly better than the first two Thor films and is a rock-solid galactic adventure in its own right. Phase Three continues going strong...

Fox, Foxy, Film Festivals...

It appears that more happenings at Fox Animation are underway.


20th Century Fox Animation, the umbrella that studios like Blue Sky and other associated partners (like the recently-started UK-based studio Locksmith) fall under, is now part of a new division... Fox Family.

Emphasis on faaaaamily picktchas!

This new organization, now headed up by veteran executive and Fox Animation head Vanessa Morrison, will oversee development of animated and live-action family pictures. 20th Century Fox have been announcing big plans for animation and family entertainment nonstop throughout the year, probably because their deal with DreamWorks Animation was cut short and ended this past summer. Not willing to rely on just Blue Sky for animated and family-oriented films, they're beefing up a big slate. Morrison will also have a say in projects like the Bob's Burgers movie, an animated feature based on an adult-oriented TV show.

Fox Animation will now be overseen by Andrea Miloro and Robert Baird, the latter of the two will mostly be involved with Blue Sky in my home state. Miloro is a former Sony Pictures Animation executive, who was active there during their early days. Think Open Season, Surf's Up, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the latter two being their best features and actually-good animated films. (Yes, Sony Animation has made them before, and they can make them again.)

Baird worked on plenty of Disney Animation and Pixar films. At Pixar, he did script work for Monsters, Inc. and Cars, and was a main writer on Monsters University. At Disney Animation, he co-wrote Big Hero 6 and contributed to Meet The Robinsons and Chicken Little. Animation World Network also claims that he has worked on Blue Sky's new feature Ferdinand, but I don't see his name attached to that one anywhere else. Yet.

I'd say that's a satisfying duo right there, even if the ensuing output will be the usual. Family-friendly films... But there's still the Bob's Burgers movie, so that's a little something...


The title is Foxy Trotter. An adult animated film set in the 70s, it's about a rock n' roll photographer who is in search of the "perfect rock photo."According to Variety, "Portman will voice Foxy’s best friend, Ronnie, who is seduced by her archrival Gunter and offered as a sacrifice in Gunter’s evil plan to destroy the universe."


Chris Prynoski, who has directed and produced several episodes of various Titmouse shows (notably Metalocalypse, Turbo F.A.S.T., and MotorCity), will be at the helm. He described the film as a cross between Barbarella, Sausage Party, and Easy Rider. The script will be penned by Jess Rotter (as in voice actress Jessica Rotter?), Michael Reich, Jessica Hundley and Mike Pinkney.

Producer Michel Litvak stated...

We are thrilled to launch this inventive, sexy, psychedelic, hilarious, female-oriented animated film with such a glowingly talented star and producer like Natalie Portman.

I'm sold. 70s, rock n' roll, psychedelia (3 favorite things right here), female leads, it's for adults... Yeah, I want this to be a thing!

After Nerdland got some form of release, this comes as no surprise, but yes... I'm keeping a close eye on Titmouse now, they have seemingly gotten the opportunity to make several features. This sounds like it could be really, really good, and a much-needed antidote to Minions and stuff. While the whole Sausage Party comparison pretty much confirms it'll be yet another raunchfest (not dissimilar to some [adult swim] shows Titmouse is known for), it has the potential to be a smart film that has something to say, while also having the potential to sport cool 70s aesthetics. Doesn't hurt to have another rock-oriented animated movie in the world... Heavy Metal's a guilty pleasure of mine.

Hopefully this one not only gets made, but also locks a good-sized distributor. Nerdland was picked by The Samuel Goldwyn Company (still a thing after all these years) and given a very limited run, something like this deserves better.

Little by little, we're seeing small-scale adult animated movies bubble up to the surface. Hopefully Sausage Party's success somehow leads to more of these lower-budget films being picked up and given wide releases. They presumably aren't hyper-expensive movies, so why not? Release a good-looking $10 million adult animated feature into theaters, it makes about maybe $25 million worldwide. That's not half-bad! But again... Small steps, small steps.


The Breadwinner now has a US release date... November 17th...

A new trailer for Cartoon Saloon's latest, sure-to-be-amazing film is out. The Irish studio once again proves that you can bring visual beauty with a $10 million budget, because of a team of very talented individuals. Such small films that have much more in their left pinky than films the size of Despicable Me and The Boss Baby have...


The film already had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and weeks after its London premiere, it's getting raves left and right. It is also Cartoon Saloon's first PG-13 feature. They've always had the opportunity to tell more adult stories like this, not being a "big" studio and by extension, a brand. Director Nora Twomey stated after the film's success during the newly-established Animation Is Film festival...

Seeing animation being encouraged like this is incredible... There is a market for this; people are hungry for films that tell different stories.

She is right.

She went on to say...

I’ve probably gone through my whole life trying to fight against animation as genre... And I’ve had people tell me they forget that The Breadwinner is animation, as though it’s an insult to call it animation. I remember being in the back of a taxicab telling the driver about The Breadwinner and he said, ‘Why don’t you make it a real film?’

Nail. On. The. Head.

Even the actress who plays Parvana knows...

There is an assumption that it’s supposed to be a live-action film, which is what I am often asked when I tell people what The Breadwinner is about. But animation isn’t supposed to be anything; you can take it in whatever direction you want. When people finally watch The Breadwinner, then they often understand why it is an animated film. It’s fantastic that we have such an incredible movie, based on an incredible book, in a festival that celebrates the choice to use animation.

Now everyone else has to get with it.

Lastly, GKIDS' founder Eric Beckman topped it off by stating what the Animation Is Film festival is all about... "To challenge audiences to take their blinders off and think a lot more broadly about what animation can be."

Do you need any more reasons to love GKIDS and Cartoon Saloon? This new Animation Is Film festival sounds like something we really need. A platform to give other forms of animation outside the gibbering tictac movies some more spotlight, if the Academy Awards won't. Given how weak the mainstream crop has been this year, they might just end up nominating The Breadwinner and maybe something else outside of the mainstream sphere... But those new "rules" they put into place earlier this year still have me very concerned...

Anyways, here's to GKIDS, Cartoon Saloon, and the Animation Is Film festival. What a perfect title... Animation Is Film... How many times does it need to be said?

Sheep, Simpsons alumnus, sleepy box office...

That's right! Lionsgate has already locked the American distribution rights for Aardman's Shaun the Sheep Movie sequel... That is quite something, I think.

Shaun the Sheep Movie was the first Aardman film to be released in the US by Lionsgate. For anyone who is not in the know... Aardman feature films were originally released by DreamWorks, in fact at least two of them were co-productions. Former DreamWorks CEO/founder Jeffrey Katzenberg had some say in the making of Chicken Run (the rats being part of the climax was said to be his idea, for starters), the two studios parted ways because of DreamWorks executives forcing changes to Flushed Away that compromised the film. Aardman later turned to Sony Pictures Animation, together they put out Arthur Christmas and The Pirates! If you live in the UK, the subtitle for The Pirates! is taken from one of the books in the series it's based on: In an Adventure with Scientists! In America, because we're all uncultured swines, the subtitle was Band of Misfits. No shock, Aardman ended up breaking away from Sony... They had a five picture with them, only made it to two films! I suspect it had a lot to do with The Pirates! being censored for its American release.

Lionsgate did little to promote Shaun the Sheep Movie, which is based on Aardman's own hit TV series. Barely televised here, Lionsgate just dumped it. It had a poor opening, but had excellent legs. It also was one of the few family films that was out at the time. Shaun the Sheep Movie debuted in the UK and most of continental Europe in February 2015, Lionsgate didn't pick up the movie until afterwards and released it here following August.


Aardman's newest film, Early Man, isn't out yet. The film is set to open in late January in Europe. By contrast, Lionsgate picked it up months ago! And they inked a February 2018 American release date. That possibly indicates that Lionsgate was a little more interested in Early Man.

So now, they already have the US distribution rights for the Shaun the Sheep Movie sequel. The picture probably isn't even in production yet, or is in its earliest stages at the very least... And yet here we are. Lionsgate is already planning its American release, whenever that may be. (2020? 2021?)

Even if they do dump it, at least someone is giving Aardman's newest films wide releases in the states. I had no idea what would happen with Shaun the Sheep Movie and future pictures after Aardman broke off from Sony Pictures Animation. (Probably because The Pirates! was censored for its US release.) The fact that it didn't have a distributor after its overseas release was rather troubling. I actually, back then, wondered if that film would go straight to streaming or something.

Hopefully one day, Lionsgate gets it right, promotes the living daylights out of a good-quality animated film, and scores a little success out of it. (We still don't know My Little Pony's budget it seems, but I'm going to assume it wasn't too high.) Still, Lionsgate does have it in them to make an animated feature into a big blockbuster. This is, after all, the same company who released the Hunger Games films, Now You See Me, and The Expendables.


Simpsons alumnus and Monsters, Inc. co-director David Silverman is at the helm of a new animated feature that's being made in China. Titled Extinct, it comes from China Lion Entertainment Production. Other Simpsons folk, such as Joel Cohen, John Frink and Rob LaZebnick, are attached to write.


Per Variety, the story "involves an adorable species of fluffy animals, called flummels. When two flummels are transported into the present day, they learn that their genus has become extinct, and travel back in time to try to save their race." Sounds like it has potential, the idea of a soon-to-be-wiped-out species time-traveling is a pretty a neat one. The company's goal is to get this picture out by early 2020.

With a Simpsons team behind it, I can only hope that the picture - which will most likely be a family film - will boast strong writing and be an overall solid work. China Lion's CEO, in a statement, pretty much echoed contemporary American animation executives' thinking processes, calling animation... You guessed it... A genre! See, even folks from overseas don't get it. But again, here's hoping this project works out and stands out amongst the crowd.

A co-production, we currently don't know what animation studio will be providing the meat. Soon enough, we shall, but I like the premise. I wonder what it'll mean for a similarly-titled animated feature set for a 2019 release... William Joyce/Cirrina's The Extincts... Title change, maybe? Both films are dissimilar, story-wise.


Outside of the thunderous success of Thor: Ragnarok, box office was overall quiet...

The Lego Ninjago Movie lingers in the Top 20, dropping a light 37% and making $57 million here and $119 million everywhere. Despite losing nearly 900 theaters, My Little Pony dipped a light 41% and has made $20 million here, $47 million everywhere. It's coming up on the 3x multiplier here.


Loving Vincent continues to be the success story, rising 27% this weekend and is up to $3 million domestically. With a $2.6 million overseas total, it has passed the $5.5 million budget... But will it double that? Who knows. It is now rolling in 205 theaters... If I'm lucky, I'll be seeing it next week!

Somehow, some way, Despicable Me 3 jumped 25%, $263 million domestically and $1,031 million worldwide. Emoji Movie fell 11% (fun fact, at the theater I work at, we have about a million Emoji Movie-themed popcorn snack boxes left... So we're still selling them, trying to drain our inventory!), it will cross $86 million here and has made $214 million worldwide. Leap! managed to make a leap, too, going up 247%... Just as The Weinstein Company is possibly in the process of - thankfully - losing Paddington 2... Leap! is up to $24 million here and $105 million worldwide. Cars 3 was finally pulled, the day before Ragnarok's opening and a week before its Blu-ray debut... $152 million domestically, though it could make a few more steps overseas, but I don't see it making more than $385 million in the end.

Coco jumped in its second weekend in Mexico, doing some real killer business over there. In just days, it has made $27 million, excellent numbers for an animated feature there. Hopefully us yanks prop it up in a couple weeks from now...

We'll see some action soon...

Lots of new trailers are out, probably because the big Pixar event is right around the corner... Also, what some smaller venues are up to...


First up... The next film that's being released under the Paramount Animation banner now has a trailer... The belated Gnomeo & Juliet sequel, Sherlock Gnomes...


I did not like this trailer.

Right off the bat, not even 30 seconds in, we get an extended fart joke. Is it 2017? Or 2002? Then we get kid-friendly swearing ("adult" jokes) that's as lame as it was on paper. Then we're told that this film stars A-list celebrities and features music by Elton John and his long-time songwriting partner Bernie Taupin! (Either it's their 70s/80s material, or the two did get back together again to do new stuff.) It's got to be good, right? Then there's nude gnome twerking. MASTERPIECE in the making right here, fellas!

Why do we waste millions of dollars on animation like this?

I mean... Paramount Animation... Bringer of Monster Trucks and now this. Quite telling when the sequel to the movie based on the ages-old Nickelodeon show is your best offering. I also love how the trailer begins with "Gnomeo and Juliet are back..." I can imagine a lot of audiences thinking, "Who? There was a Gnomeo & Juliet 1?" Also... A pug chasing Juliet and Sherlock Gnomes in the squirrel disguise at the end. Does that look familiar?

This looks like a through-and-through kids movie that's got that extra "spice." That very "spice" that apparently gets adults interested in these things. You know, the backwards way of making a family-friendly animated feature! Hey, maybe the finished product could be halfway decent. The first film seemed to get middling reception at best. Nothing awful or anything, but this just doesn't look good to me. A real shame, because anthropomorphic gnomes is a fun idea and would make for a very funny feature. I mean, Sherlock Holmes as a gnome... Why the heck not? That should be funny! This doesn't look funny. Or entertaining. Why are the likes of Emily Blunt and Chiwetel Ejiofor in this?

Also... What's interesting is that the first film, released through Disney's Touchstone label, got a rare G rating. The sequel is most likely locking a PG... If it makes less than the original (which surprisingly legged its way up to $99 million off of a $25 million opening gross), then I'll remind them and you... Because, you know, that "conventional wisdom" needs a poke...

I don't plan on watching the newest trailer for Coco because I think I know a little too much about that movie now and would prefer to actually see the film itself, but after this... I might rethink that...

Not much better is a new international trailer for Blue Sky's Ferdinand...


I like Blue Sky and I think they're capable of making great movies (and they have made them), but the trailers for this one just aren't doing it for me. I liked the teaser a lot, but these trailers? Nada. While this Ferdinand trailer does display some good slapstick and fun-looking action, the rest looks lame: Potty humor, overacting funny animals, forced heart ("be yourself!"), this, that... I can only hope those are just some lame sets of seconds, and that the rest is all good and that the bull's home life scenes are actually heartfelt. It could be decent. Some trailers for some animated movies out there made me dread them (Tangled, Madagascar 3), I ended up really liking those films. Hopefully Ferdinand's the same deal.

Now, after those trailers, you can have a breather... Here's the first domestic trailer for Aardman's Early Man...


Surprisingly, this trailer ain't half-bad, and it even gives us a little glimpse at something the - as far as I know - international trailers didn't... Who the cavemen tribe were before the bronze age folks came in: Rabbit hunters. It promotes it as a wacky adventure-comedy, typical, but hopefully they put some more oomph into it and make it look like something worth seeing to us yanks. I mean I know I'll be there, but damn does Aardman need another domestic hit. Chicken Run and the moderately-successful Wallace & Gromit feature aren't enough. I will say, I think this trailer worked better than a lot of trailers for recent Lionsgate animated releases.

But audiences... What do they think? Who knows, but hopefully this actually does okay.

Next up, smaller houses...


A new studio is on the map. It was founded and is run by former Walt Disney Animation Studios artists. It's called... TAIKO.

They already have a short film in the works, one that will build upon what we saw in the recent Disney Animation shorts Paperman, Feast, and Inner Workings.

The founder was animator Shaofu Zhang, who had worked on Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and Moana. Also in the league are Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas. Together, they are directing this house's debut short film: One Small Step.


With units based in LA and in China, the enterprise plans to get the short - which is about a young girl named Luna, who dreams to be an astronaut (if the poster didn't give that away!) - out sometime next year.


Though I'm not sure where TAIKO will end up in a few years from now, I'm looking forward to seeing what they have to offer in the future. I think it's time to go down a different route with CG in general, because a lot of CG animation - to me - is now just "live-action 2.0." Projects like these, those Disney shorts, Book of Life, etc. That's where it's at in my opinion. The sort of UPA for the modern times, going against the conventional styles at the big houses.

It's also always cool to see former Disney folk get the opportunity to form studios...


Hey, do you guys remember Metegol? That Argentinian animated feature that got hacked up by he-who-shall-not-be-named and turned into Underdogs? Well, the director of the original, superior film is at work on another feature called Escape to India.


Based on a children's book, Escape to India is about a cow who flees the farm after learning that she's going to the slaughterhouse, and embarks on an adventure to India, where her kind is considered sacred. Right now, the filmmakers are shopping the script around, hoping to get producing partners on their side.

The above image could very well be concept artwork, but wouldn't it be great if the finished film ended up looking like that? As for the content... I'm iffy on stories about animals escaping dinner plate fates, though there was Chicken Run! That film, however, felt more like a fun riff on The Great Escape than a 90-minute animated film that was seemingly ghost-produced by PETA. Escape to India could very well be that, or not... Who knows! The India element is interesting, I wonder if it'll - by any chance - take some cues from Bollywood films. Going by that image, it seems like a lot is going on in what appears to be such a simple story.

Either way, it's on my radar because, like Metegol, it could get picked up by someone. This time, however, we don't have to worry about a certain company getting it.


Buried in a very Star Wars-centric announcement was a little tidbit concerning Pixar's fourth animated feature...

We all know that Disney is launching a streaming service sometime in 2019. We also know that original shows and movies are being produced for this platform... Well, now we know that a live-action Star Wars show is hitting the platform, and a Monsters, Inc. TV series. Nothing beyond that, though...


A Monsters, Inc. TV series... This is kind of a big deal.

The first and - currently - only Pixar film to have a television series spin-off is Toy Story. In the early aughts, there was the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command cartoon. Supposedly John Lasseter disowned that whole project, and that seems right, considering that no Pixar film got a series like that afterwards. Cars short films were made in-house at Pixar, along with the Toy Story toons and TV specials.

So this raises questions... Is the Monsters, Inc. series going to be Pixar-made? Or is Disney TV Animation handling it? I suppose the latter will be the case. After all, they've done fine work on the Tangled series, which is the first TV show based on a feature-length Disney Animation film in years. Now we have the Big Hero 6 series coming. It makes sense, especially in a post-Eisner Disney setting. I wonder how many young'uns back in the early aughts wanted TV shows based on then-new Pixar films like Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Pixar-based TV cartoons have been a long-time coming.

This also leads me to ask... Are other shows based on Pixar hits in some kind of development? Monsters, Inc., I think, is a perfect choice for two reasons. Monsters, Inc. was Pixar's fourth feature, and a major blockbuster when it was first released, it's still loved to this day. Think about it... After Toy Story came A Bug's Life, which grossed less than Toy Story domestically. Then after that was a sequel, Toy Story 2... Then came a great new original, Monsters, Inc.! Monsters, Inc. was the very picture that made me a full-fledged Pixar fan.

Second... The world of monsters needs more lore! Monsters University only took us to the titular campus, we didn't get to see more of the Monster World outside of Monstropolis! What's in the wildernesses? What are other towns/civilizations like? There's so much to explore, and maybe a series is the perfect venue for that.

If Monsters, Inc.: The Series does explore the Monster World, I'll be game for it...

Every November... You know the drill...

Though, things might be different this coming Oscar season.

I'm sure a lot of you may know by now... The Academy Awards have made some rather sizable changes to the Best Animated Feature category. New rules have been put into place regarding animated features. Up until now, members of the Animation and Short Films branches picked the animated nominees. The Animation branch is actually made up of animators and people who are at least waist-deep in the industry. You know, people who know a damn thing or two about the medium.

In the recent years, their decision-making has attracted controversy from inside and outside the Academy. It was in early 2015... When the branches were nominating five 2014-release animated features for the grand prize, a particular movie was left out. A popular, critically-acclaimed movie no less... The Lego Movie. That year, the nominees were Big Hero 6, How To Train Your Dragon 2, The Boxtrolls, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, and Song of the Sea. Two films were CGI, one was stop-motion, two were traditionally animated. Where was The Lego Movie?

I remember that morning very well. The Lego Movie itself was a much bigger trending topic than the Oscars or the nominees. Its snub shook the industry, shook the general public even. How could such an awesome movie not get the nomination? I always felt it had to do with tight competition and the fact that The Lego Movie, great as it was, was ultimately a 90-minute movie about a decades-old, best-selling construction toy. And you know the Oscars, all hoity-toity and not into movies like that... Except they are.

I think the animation branch could've easily swapped Big Hero 6 for Lego, but that obviously didn't happen because Big Hero 6 is a Disney animated film that got strong reviews and did very well at the box office. (And I think that movie is very good, too... But Lego Movie and Dragon 2 were better.) Perhaps it could've swapped spots with How To Train Your Dragon 2, but it seems like DreamWorks secures nominations almost every year. 2012 was a rare exception, because the competition that year was particularly heavy... However, Dragon 2 was a great film and it was pretty successful as well. There was no way LAIKA's film would make way for Lego Movie, either. I actually felt that The Boxtrolls - despite being done in lovely stop-motion animation - was the weakest of those five nominees, and wouldn't have minded Lego Movie taking its place... But oh well...

It's only a gold statue after all, just an excuse to put a sexy "winner of 5 Oscars" blurb on a DVD jacket.

In response to The Lego Movie's snub, the Academy created a new mandate in an attempt to make sure that popular, acclaimed hits like The Lego Movie won't get left out of future animation races. Now, every single member of the Academy can have a say in the nominating process... Not just the people in the animation and shorts branches... We also know that a chunk of the Academy doesn't even care about movies, most of them don't even watch the films, and a lot of them certainly couldn't give two rats' asses about animation. The Best Animated Feature award, despite its upsides, is really just a token award and always has been. The sort of "yeah yeah, here ya go, shut up" award for inferior sideshow kiddie movies. The Oscars enterprise continues to look down on the medium.

Insider reports indicate this: Academy board members feel that the animation/shorts branch has a "bias" towards "old school" forms of animation. A.k.a. traditional animation and stop-motion animation.

You can't make this stuff up!

All because of The Lego Movie not getting the nomination in a year where two big-budget CG films were in the running... And one of those CG films won. When was the last time a stop-motion film won a BAF Oscar? 2005. When is the last time a traditionally animated film won a BAF Oscar? 2002. Every year, at least two nominees are CG films. Give me a f*cking break about this "bias," excuse my language.

Ever since these rules were put into place, I've been concerned...

The one good thing about the Best Animated Feature category is that it actually gives some much-needed, albeit brief spotlight to great independent and foreign films that would otherwise go unnoticed. Would the general public have ever heard of, say, Song of the Sea if there was no Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars?

These new rules could very well squeeze those "old school" movies out for good. Or, to quote an Academy member, "obscure freakin' Chinese f*ckin' things that no one freakin' saw."

Don't be surprised if, on January 23rd, you find out that the five movies in the running for the Oscar are The Lego Batman Movie, The Boss Baby, Despicable Me 3, Coco, and Ferdinand. Strong indies like The Breadwinner and The Girl Without Hands don't show up.

Anyways, every year I make some predictions... I list all the eligible films, and say what kind of chances they have at getting a nomination, so... Here it goes! All 26 of 'em!


The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales - The new picture from the folks behind the 2013 nominee Ernest & Celestine. 50% chance.

Birdboy: The Forgotten Children - This Spanish entry made a splash at the recent Animation Is Film Festival, and GKIDS does have it, but I feel that GKIDS is ultimately putting all the oomph into The Breadwinner. 30% chance.

The Boss Baby - Given that new rule, its successful box office, and perhaps one of the few films that the Academy members actually saw (I'll vote for the one my kids dragged me to!), yeah... This one I think has a strong chance. DreamWorks has the whole For Your Consideration campaign rolling, too. 50% chance.

The Breadwinner - GKIDS' release of the new Cartoon Saloon feature, which is getting acclaim left and right, and is quite timely. In any other year, I'd say it has a 100% chance, but again... Those new rules... 90% chance.

Captain Underpants - DreamWorks' other feature of 2017. While this one got much better reception than The Boss Baby, it wasn't anywhere near as big. Though because of its quality, I suppose it has something of a chance. 40% chance.

Cars 3 - Kind of hard to say. This film got better reception than Cars 2, but I suppose that isn't enough to get it into the final five. Finding Dory did't make it last year, that got great reception. Monsters University didn't get nominated in its year, either, and that had good reception. However, because of the new rules, Cars 3 could very well squeeze itself in. 50% chance.

Cinderella the Cat - An adult-oriented Italian animated feature, probably doesn't have much of a chance, though it's cool to see something from Italy in the early running for once. 10% chance.



Coco - Pixar. Critically acclaimed. Timely. Has musical elements. Most likely the winner. 100% chance.

Despicable Me 3 - Well, Despicable Me 2 was nominated in 2013 (I would've swapped it for Monsters University), so the third one has a strong chance at getting in. While reception was middling, that doesn't really matter - the film was a huge hit. 90% chance.

The Emoji Movie- Despite being a mainstreamer, this wasn't all that big at the box office, got terrible reviews all across the board, and it's also based on some kind of product. 0% chance.

Ethel & Ernest - Oh look, another Ernest movie in the running! GKIDS apparently doesn't have this one, so I don't see it lasting long. 20% chance.

Ferdinand - A little up in the air, as it's not out yet. Even with middling critical reception, it could still score because of the new rules. 40% chance.



The Girl Without Hands - From GKIDS. Might have a chance, though again, The Breadwinner will likely be their ticket. If they miraculously get two slots, then this might have a big chance. For now... 30% chance.

In This Corner of the World - A FUNimation anime feature release, though probably not the biggest anime candidate because I think the one that's going to get it - if it ever does - is Mary and the Witch's Flower. 20% chance.

The Lego Batman Movie - The Lego Movie's snub was what got this new ball rolling, so yeah. 100% chance.

The Lego Ninjago Movie - Middling reception, meh box office, Lego Batman being out the same year. Yeah... 10% chance.

Loving Vincent - A grand experiment for sure, it's doing well for an indie, it actually does have a chance I'd say. 70% chance.



Mary and the Witch's Flower - The anime feature that I think has the biggest chances. 60% chance.

Moomins and the Winter Wonderland - Looks to be like one of those films that's in a series. 10% chance.

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea - Acclaimed GKIDS release, but again... The Breadwinner. 40% chance.

Napping Princess - An anime release, also from GKIDS, but the reception for this one seemed kind of middling. 10% chance.

A Silent Voice- Another anime feature, this one got some acclaim. 20% chance.

Smurfs: The Lost Village - Wasn't all that loved, just did so-so business, has little going for it. 5% chance.

The Star - Doubt it. 5% chance.

Sword Art Online: The Movie - Not much of a chance there. 5% chance.

Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming - Another timely work, but I have a feeling this one will come in behind the GKIDS contenders and such. 20% chance.

So there you have it... If the Academy members really don't pitch in on the animation nomination process, I think we'll be looking at...


In scenario 2, where most of the Academy pitches in... Then, I think it'll be nothing but mainstreamers, and Breadwinner possibly, luckily getting in. That has some strong backing, plus Angelina Jolie's involvement.

Predict away!

Video game movies and the moon boy... A biiiiig recap is here.


Apparently, Universal Pictures is super-close to locking a deal... A deal that will make an animated Super Mario Bros. movie happen. The project is already in development, and this comes just two years after Nintendo joined forces with Universal to make theme park attractions...

The animated Super Mario Bros. film, should this deal work out, will be made by Universal's flagship animation house, Illumination Entertainiment.


This is a lot to take in. A lot.

First of all, I am all for more animated movies based on video games. I know we suffered a setback with Rainmaker's panned Ratchet & Clank movie, but I'd love to see animated features that are adaptations of console games. I'm not talking little mobile games like Angry Birds, I'm talking things like Mario, Sonic (which is getting a live-action/animation hybrid movie sometime soon), Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Halo, Mass Effect, you get the idea!

Super Mario Bros., as we all know, got a live-action movie adaptation in the early 1990s. It wasn't good, despite having some rather... Erm... Interesting elements in it. There's also a 1986 animated Mario movie that, to my understanding, was only released in Japan. Home video copies - only released in Japan as well - are said to be extremely rare (it was reportedly a rental-only release), but I recall seeing the whole thing floating around on YouTube once. I guess Super Mario Bros. 1993 turning out so bad lead Nintendo to completely - Pokemon aside - shut out movie adaptations...

The game, pun intended, has changed. In 1993, Mario was certainly huge... He's arguably bigger now, and the newest game in the series - Super Mario Odyssey - is a huge hit. I'm sure there's a good-sized market for an animated Mario feature.

If Nintendo ends up getting in bed with Universal, this will be something of an event: Nintendo trying again after 24 years, teaming up with a big distributor to bring its beloved plumber to the big screen. If it's a success, imagine what it might lead to... Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, Nintendo franchises that could make for good movie adaptations.

Animation suits Mario, not live-action and VFX trickery. The Mushroom Kingdom... Look at it any Mario game, classic 2D sidescrolling or 3D. The character designs. Its unique fantasy elements... That's all meant for animation in my firm opinion.

Now... Illumination Entertainment.


This is a studio I have... Issues with. I quite liked their first movie, Despicable Me. I even own the Blu-ray. The last time I watched it, I was struck by how well put-together it was. Just a sweet, fun animated comedy with very likable characters and solid cartoony action. But then they started coasting on the Minions/cute factor, and by last year, it just seemed like they were making products. As if they and parent company Comcast have some sort of way of tracking the audience, they just know what to hit them with, when to hit them, and how. The Secret Life of Pets for example. Simple! Cute pets and what they do when you're not home, safe animation style, the usual gags. As if it were a funny YouTube animal of pets, in movie form. The teaser alone probably guaranteed that $104 million opening weekend gross.

They don't spend more than $80 million on each of their features, but they play it safe and play to audiences that don't want animation to be anything more than just cute characters that can be meme'd into the next dimension. In a way, they are what DreamWorks was in the early-to-mid aughts. (Coincidentally, as I was writing this, my Internet went down for no apparent reason... They're tracking me! Illumination is awesome, so sorry about that!)

Anyways, long story short... Illumination making the Mario movie kinda worries me.

That is, if they have most of the creative control over it. Maybe Nintendo could call all the shots, while Illumination/Mac Guff does the rest. That would be the ideal situation, and I think Illumination can faithfully recreate the world of Mario for a feature on a reasonable budget.

This deal may not pan out, but the fact that it's a possibility... I feel it's worth talking about... So... An animated Mario movie? Great! Made by Illumination? Ehhhh. Again, I hope Nintendo is in control. I also wonder... Will this thing be released in 2025 to celebrate Super Mario Bros.' 40th anniversary?

Speaking of animated movies based on video games...


That's right, Overwatch might join the ranks as well.


I know little to nothing about Overwatch. A sci-fi first-person shooter, the game has spawned numerous computer animated short films that flesh out the characters' stories. They've been met with acclaim as well, and according to publisher Activision's consumer products head Tim Kilpin, there's interest in making a feature-length animated adaptation. He said...

“We would like that very much... These franchises exist across multiple platforms, so it’s not just the game as a driver, but it’s linear content [movies and TV] as a way to expand the audience.”

As we know, a bigger and much older Blizzard franchise got the movie treatment last year: World of Warcraft. The film, simply titled Warcraft, did terribly on American soil but was a huge hit abroad, particularly in China. If Warcraft 2 gets off the ground, it'll be because of China, the movie will pretty much be made for Chinese audiences. But here? It was just another video game-based movie...

Right now, Activision is more focused on a Call of Duty film. Kilpin added that the company is thinking about how to bring the game outside of its audience and appeal to others. That most likely translates to "How can we take this M-rated game and make it a PG-13 blockbuster tentpole?"

About that. Overwatch is a T-rated game, so it's not quite family-friendly. I'd like to see it get the animated movie treatment because of this, among other things. (Futuristic sci-fi and worldbuilding, anyone?) The American feature animation industry is and has been very light on fare not meant for family audiences, so I think an Overwatch movie is a good place to start, or any movie based on a video game that's not appropriate for younger audiences. So right now, it's in the "talks" phase. Do I think it should happen? Hell yes... Will it? Who knows...


Downsizing again? Hardly. DreamWorks apparently wants to get in on animated shorts!

In their 24-year existence, DreamWorks Animation have made very few theatrical animated short films. Most of their shorts are based on their movies, and end up on the home video editions of said films. In 2005, the Madagascar penguins got a fun Christmas short that was attached to Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which was a bit unusual because that film was an early October release and was likely out of first-run theaters by mid-November. Nonetheless, it made for a great double-bill! Over the Hedge was accompanied by a short about a bird called First Flight...

Coincidentally, the new short that will launch this DreamWorks shorts program will also be about birds. The film will be called Bird Karma, its director is long-time animator William Salazar. He had the idea for years. While it will get a festival run here in the United States, the picture will be attached to The Boss Baby in Japan. That's right, Japan doesn't get The Boss Baby until this coming March!

One of the goals of the shorts program is to not only push tech, but also explore ideas for future features. Over 25 stories were pitched, and the heads want 2-3 films made from now until 2020. DreamWorks chief Chris DeFaria had this to say...

“The pitch process was incredible. DreamWorks is truly an artists’ enclave and we were all blown away by the immense talent at the studio. There were personal stories, comic sketches, gorgeous concept art and simple pencil tests — some were 2D, most were 3D — and even one stop-motion pitch; but taken together the collection demonstrated a level of inventiveness, story-sense and innovation that surprised and delighted all of us. The criteria for selection was primarily artistry and entertainment, but we were also on the lookout for ideas that could challenge our technology and explore innovative methods of story-telling.”

From that blurb, it sounds like DeFaria wants to unlock DreamWorks' potential. Or, you could be cynical and say "Oh that's just PR talk, buzzwords. They ain't gonna do anything special!" That may very well be, but I think this program shows promise. Two other shorts are in the works... Marooned, and something untitled. Andy Erekson will handle the former, the latter is being directed by Pierre Perifel, Liron Topaz, and JP Sans.

Anyways... The theatrical short cartoon is kept alive at Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar. Once in a while, another studio might make a short or add one to one of their movies. This year, Sony Animation put a Hotel Transylvania short in front of The Emoji Movie. Warner Animation Group's Storks was preceded by a short/teaser for The Lego Ninjago Movie. In 2012, a Simpsons short called The Longest Daycare was attached to Blue Sky's Ice Age: Continental Drift, that upstaged the movie. DreamWorks hasn't done one since First Flight, so not only is it cool to see them trying again, but also being a non-Disney/Pixar studio that will commit to having short films ready for attachment.

My guess is that Bird Karma will ultimately get clamped onto How To Train Your Dragon 3 in spring 2019. That's not unusual, because several Pixar shorts have debuted a year before their respective general releases. Geri's Game is a fine example, the little chess short that showed up before A Bug's Life in theaters back in 1998. The short actually came out in 1997. The same goes for For The Birds, debuted at the Annecy in mid-2000, and was attached to Monsters, Inc. in fall 2001. So yes, I think Bird Karma could show up in front of the new Berk adventure.

Speaking of Berk... The voice actor for How To Train Your Dragon 3's villain, appropriately named Grimmel, has been revealed. It's none other than F. Murray Abraham, best known for his roles in Amadeus, Scarface, All the President's Men, and the TV series Homeland. He'll be doing a voice for Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs as well, which opens in March. Prior to Isle of Dogs, Abraham hadn't done voice acting, so it's cool to see a long-timer finally try it out. DeFaria, in an interview, explained that the film's villain will have a "gentlemanly calm" to go with his sinisterness.

Lastly... DreamWorks has a new logo...


No SKG, the moon is inside a circle (perhaps in the films, the Universal globe will turn into a full moon, revealing the DreamWorks logo?), no "animation" even... Does this hint that DreamWorks' feature future won't be entirely animated? After all, there were some rumors flying around that Edgar Wright's dormant Shadows was going to be a live-action/animation hybrid. Universal also doesn't really make live-action family films, and I know that Illumination has/had a couple live-action movies in development...

If true, why not? After all, Walt Disney grew his company by branching out. Animated films were still very much a priority throughout the 1950s, at a time when none of his competitors (i.e. Warner Bros., MGM) were making any. That said, Walt built up a bigger bottom line with the live-action films, and later... TV and a little theme park somewhere on the West Coast. You get the idea.

Prior to leaving the company, co-founder/former CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg tried to make DreamWorks into something bigger. He knew his studio couldn't get by on $100 million-costing animated films, so he looked into other venues: The Chinese studio, live-action films, consumer products, theme parks, Netflix, this, that... If DreamWorks does end up making live-action movies, it's no surprise, though that would cause some confusion... What would that mean for DreamWorks Pictures? The films being made by DreamWorks Animation certainly aren't like The Girl on the Train and Thank You For Your Service... Maybe a new name is in store for DreamWorks Pictures? Maybe Amblin/DreamWorks? Or just Amblin from here on out?

This is most likely moot until the new logo is fully explained... Maybe that's just a print logo meant for other things, and that the studio will still be "DreamWorks Animation." Who knows!

Two-dee and trailers. Now how 'bout that?

It looks like Klaus is getting an official release...

But it won't be theatrical... Netflix has acquired the distribution rights.

The revolutionary 2D/CG hybrid, from Despicable Me originator Sergio Pablos, also has a cast locked: Jason Schwartzman, Rashida Jones, J.K. Simmons, and Joan Cusack. The studio folk are planning to have this film ready before Christmas 2019, for obvious reasons. It's the story of a postman who, by accident, starts the whole story of Santa Claus. Production is underway at Pablo's Madrid-based studio.


My guess is that Netflix could give the film a very limited big-screen release, like they did with The Little Prince. I could be upset about it not getting a big theatrical distributor and a wide big-screen release, but it not getting such things is really no shock, I was kind of expecting this... and this is probably the next best thing: People will be able to see it, it'll be very accessible. Cartoon Brew pointed out that this is a rare moment of the decade: A big American company investing in a film that makes heavy use of traditional animation. I think Netflix really is showing potential right now in animation, what with the success of BoJack Horseman (an actually "adult" adult cartoon) and the development of the R-rated animated film America: The Motion Picture.

Look to them, perhaps they may pave a different, interesting future for feature animation...

Either way, Klaus - a feature-length meshing of the beauty of traditional animation and the great techniques that CGI has to offer - is being made, it's getting released, we're going to be able to see it rather than having to find the nearest arthouse theater. Does it suck that it won't be getting a wide release theatrical release? You bet, but I'm glad the film is even happening to begin with. This chould be a game-changer, for it is the Paperman-esque movie that Disney Animation hasn't made...

Next up, a round of trailers!


Of course, the big event dropped today... The teaser for Pixar's Incredibles 2. With Coco right around the corner, it was obvious that it was going to drop soon.

That's right, not The Incredibles 2. Just Incredibles 2. Insert Social Network/Facebook joke here...


It's the typical "funny" Pixar teaser, and it does its job quite well. Of course, I'm excited! It was very cool to see Jack-Jack show some more of his powers, and it was of course neat to see some of the new models and what a difference 13 1/2 years makes. It's also always a joy to hear some of Michael Giacchino's score, for The Incredibles' score is just one of my all-time favorites. In fact, the movie itself is one of my all-time favorites. I mean, I think a lot of Pixar films are equally awesome, but The Incredibles is the one that blew me away the most. I saw it five times in theaters back in the day, I even managed to get the film on DVD before it even hit stores.

The Incredibles holds a special place in my heart, and it's just great to see that these characters and the world they inhabit are coming back next summer. Normally, my attitude towards sequels is "I don't want one, unless the creator wants to do it." An Incredibles sequel, oddly enough, was something I never asked for all these years. Until it was a confirmed thing, I just kept saying, "I only want an Incredibles 2 if Brad Bird wants to make it." Well, it's a thing, so... BRING IT ON!

What more there is to say, really? It's Incredibles 2! It's coming next summer!

A new poster is here as well. Minimalist, to the point, it simply tells you that it's coming. No different from the teaser poster for Toy Story 3. I've always liked the sequel's logo (first unveiled at the 2015 D23), very clever implementing of the Roman numeral "2" in the "i."


Next up is the teaser for Sony Animation's third Hotel Transylvania movie...


This new sequel really wants you to know... This won't be a Halloween movie! A subtitle was added to the title, now it's Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation! There's a cruise, a swimming pool, volleyball, old vampires in speedos, summer fun! Now all the trailer needed was an early 1960s Beach Boys song! Writer/director Genndy Tartakovsky's cartoony aesthetic is delightful to look at once more, and from this teaser, the film doesn't seem half-bad. Not a single cringey joke here, even the barf one at the end.

While I'm not all that big on this series, I do have some hopes for the new entry. Tartakovsky is writing this time, alongside Austin Powers scribe Michael McCullers, who recently wrote The Boss Baby for DreamWorks. (That, understandably, can be seen as a negative.) That's it, none of the crew that wrote the previous two films. Hopefully it's a winner!

I also want to talk about a trailer for a live-action film that has lots of VFX in it... Rampage.


Rampage, for anyone who may not know, is based on the video game series of the same name. The first game - made by Bally/Midway - in the series debuted in arcades in 1986, allowing you to be the bad guy for once. In the game, you control a giant monster (George the gorilla if you're player one, Lizzie the lizard monster for two, Ralph Wolf for three) and you wreak havoc on cities. The sequel, Rampage World Tour, dialed this up to eleven. I played Rampage World Tour over a friend's house back in the day (he had the Nintendo 64 port of the game), years later I bought the Midway arcade collections - they had both games. Played them NONSTOP. I just love 80s arcade games in general, and Rampage is no exception. (And I'd argue a lot of Wreck-It Ralph's Fix-It Felix, Jr. game is partially based on this game. Ralph climbing the building, wrecking it, grabbing people in the windows...)

I had my doubts about a live-action movie adaptation, and this trailer kind of confirmed those doubts. From the director of San Andreas, a very blah and forgettable disaster movie that was barely fun or exciting, Rampage looks like a generic disaster film. No surprise. There's no pop or flair to the look of it, and the monsters are just typical CGI monsters. I think Rampage would've worked better as an all-animated feature, the concept and designs of the monsters would be perfect in the medium. But no, generic, homogenous live-action movie it is.


The action looks decent and there's kind of a 90s vibe throughout, but the one thing that's bothering me is this. In the original game, the monsters were mutated humans. Why couldn't they make the movie about The Rock's character stopping the evil science organization that's turning people into animal kaiju? The kaiju being actual animals is an interesting change, but I fear it'll make the movie too serious and schmaltzy to be a Rampage movie. When you play Rampage, you bask in the craziness and you gleefully wreck cities. Here, it's "oh no, what do we do? Our beloved animal will be put down if we don't reverse this!" Fine for another kaiju movie, just not for Rampage in my opinion.

Ah well... Another Hollywood video game movie adaptation, it seems.

A lot has happened in the past nine hours or so...

I am heartbroken. I should not be.

I never knew John Lasseter personally. I never met him, spoke with him, anything. Why be upset after finding out that a guy I barely know is not what he seems? Especially in a time where everyone is being exposed for inappropriate behavior or heinous acts?

All these years, I've loved his work and the so-called "passion" he put into all of it. All these years, I've felt he was one of animation's shining examples.

I could call this a "Santa isn't real" moment for myself.

Honestly, after Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey's true selves were revealed, I began wondering if anyone in animation would eventually be exposed. A certain someone who I won't name here had randomly favorited a tweet I had made to a friend about John Lasseter being one of those people. Someone who used to work for him... I got even more worried, and then later came to accept that Lasseter could very well be a terrible person. It turns out that he has indeed harassed women and made them feel uncomfortable for over a decade. Inside and outside of Pixar. He had admitted to it earlier today. One of the women was supposedly Toy Story 4 co-writer Rashida Jones. She left the project, alongside Will McCormack, a while ago because of "unwanted advances." Later, Jones said in an email that they didn't leave because of that... They left because there women and people of color don't get much of say. This of course is obvious when you look at who has directed the majority of their films over the past 22 years.

Why did I like Lasseter so much up until now? Why did I excuse some of Pixar's glaring issues over the years?

Well, like many, I saw him as a modern-day Walt-type who seemed to deeply care about the animated medium and storytelling. He may very well be just that, but I would've never imagined that he'd treat women so terribly and did it for so long. I've defended a lot of Lasseter's artistic choices over the years, I was a big fan of the films he himself directed. He was often called Pixar's weakest director, but I defended A Bug's Life, I defended Cars, I even found a lot to like in the maligned Cars 2, which he took over at the last minute. I assumed he had a big influence on all of the pictures he did not direct at Pixar, and at Walt Disney Animation Studios. We had heard that Pixar was "John's show."

Speaking of which, I truly regret ever insinuating that Brenda Chapman, who was the director who was ousted from the studio's 2012 fantasy adventure Brave, was just bitter about not getting to make the film she had wanted to make. Maybe that was part of it, but now I suspect that Lasseter tried to do something to her, was incredibly dismissive of her efforts, or she had caught wind of the things Lasseter did and attempted to stop him. To protect herself and keep her career, she probably could only say something like "It was his way or the highway when it came to the writing process, he was difficult to work with."

I had written it off because Lasseter and Pixar's Brain Trust have removed other directors from their films, all males: Jan Pinkava, Brad Lewis, and Bob Peterson. The first person of color to direct a Pixar film was Pete Sohn, that was only two years ago. I just assumed, "Well, Chapman's story had issues and they tried to fix it." Like I said, I now suspect it's something deeper than that.

It seems like the films he directed were based on his genuine life experiences. So I had assumed, well... His heart was in many of those films. Cars especially, a film that I - unlike a majority of fans out there - actually love. Now these films might seem hollow, so I'm pushing myself to just look at the stories in Pixar's films as stories that could've been written/conceived by any talented human. Just in case anyone else there turns out to be just as heinous as Lasseter is. That's what I did earlier tonight when I had seen Coco. I had purchased my tickets a week in advance for the Tuesday preshow, I was hyped because it was the newest Pixar film and an original story set in Mexico at that. I am not proud of the decision I made, I was actually considering cancelling my order and getting refunds for all three tickets. (I took my parents to see it.) I probably should've done that.

But then you might argue, but what about everybody else who worked on the movie? It's just one guy, and that the artists should not suffer.

Lasseter ran Pixar up until this point. Lasseter was one of Pixar's founding fathers in a sense, in that was instrumental in making Pixar into what it was by the time Toy Story entered production... He's not just one man. Also... How do you even know that it's ONLY him? Is it possible that other equally awful people work at Pixar and have kept its toxic culture going for over 15-20 years? From some reports, it seems as if most Pixar employees excused Lasseter all these years. "Oh that's our John," was what they apparently said. Maybe they just said that because they have jobs to keep? I don't know...

What if Brain Trust directors/members Lee Unkrich, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, what if the lot of them are just as bad? What if they personally enabled all of this? What if they're all pigs? I don't know if it's true or not, neither do you until someone says something... Which is why I was ready to refund my tickets earlier today, before deciding against it. What if they're all actually bad too and - oops - I just supported them by buying my tickets?

Some argue that Coco should be successful despite Lasseter's actions and whatever else could be going on at Pixar, but I fear that supporting it could just keep the toxic culture brewing. Lasseter may have temporarily stepped down, but that may not stop every other bad thing overnight. It's a tough situation, and again... I'm still conflicted on the decision I made. I probably did something terrible by going ahead and seeing this film. Unless a lot changes over at the Emeryville building, I'm not even sure if I'll pay to see future Pixar films in theaters. That includes Incredibles 2. I'm actually not sure if I'm going to buy Coco on Blu-ray, and that's a shame, I loved the film. It was magnificent and I wish I could recommend the daylights out of it, but...

This is just really bad on so many levels... If Lasseter truly is one of the big sources of the heart of Pixar's films, and Walt Disney Animation Studios' current, great movies... Like it is often said... Then all that "heart" comes from a man who has repeatedly done bad things to women, and on top of that is not allowing of women or people of color into the high ranks. Disney Animation managed to get Jennifer Lee into their high ranks, and I think that says quite a bit. She could get in there, but no woman at Pixar... So much for "strict rules," it truly is the "boys' club" that Chapman said it was. Unkrich is a skilled director, but why couldn't Adrian Molina direct Coco? Why was he just "co-director"?

This is what needs to happen in my personal opinion.

No sabbatical leave. John Lasseter simply needs to go. No therapy, no help, he's not fit for this, and having him return only enables this behavior.

I can only hope that control of Pixar goes to somebody who has at least an ounce of human decency. I know that's a lot to ask for in the mainstream film world, a world full of Weinsteins and Spaceys and Brett Ratners and such. I mean, I'm not naive, there's bad everywhere - all the corporations, the music industry, many of our politicians and leaders... To quote Chief Bogo from Zootopia... "The world has always been broken." I am well aware of this, I never assumed animationland was candy-and-rainbows. I've been aware of Walt Disney's faults for over a decade, I'm aware of what other people in animation have done. Does anyone remember Ed Catmull being exposed a few years back for actively engaging in a wage-fixing conspiracy? List goes on.

Of course, the question is... Who? Anyone in the upper ranks of Pixar who has self-control or just isn't some misogynist? Rumors suggest that one Pete Doctor, director of the studio's acclaimed Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out, might be circling the position. That would be nice if we knew for sure what kind of person he is, but if he's clean, I'd say it's a good start... I'd be a little more unrealistic and request that Darla K. Anderson run things. She's produced several great Pixar films and has been there for ages, I think she's more than qualified to run. But it's certain... Change must happen at Pixar Animation Studios.

Walt Disney Animation Studios will need a new head, too. Could a director be upped? Or president Andrew Millstein? We'll need people who are decent and who are understanding of the animated medium. Last thing we want is a Chris Meledandri-type running the show... But right now, we should be concerned about the safety of female employees at these studios. This inappropriate behavior needs to be called out. With people left and right being outed this year, I believe we can make some positive change by being vocal.

I also feel we can still enjoy those old Pixar classics, even the ones directed by Lasseter, but it's understandably not easy to separate art from the artist. From this point onward, I will only praise the films that Lasseter had a hand in, and all the accomplishments, but not Lasseter himself.

While this revelation left me drained and saddened, I am grateful that it's finally been said... We now know there's a problem, we know who is causing it, we know that nowadays we can hear about these things more and more. I dedicated my ticket to the actually-great people at Pixar who did all the hard work, who made Coco and all their previous films happen. While it may be foolish to do so, I want to hope for a better and certainly more inclusive future for the industry of this great medium.

Before we get to this weekend's box office...

Coco is now the highest grossing film in Mexico.

In fact, I hear that some theaters in Mexico pulled the 22-minute Olaf featurette after complaints. While Disney bean counters may need it for the American release, it clearly didn't mean a thing in Mexico. For obvious reasons! Pixar made a big movie for Mexico, and they all went. The previous crown-holder at the Mexican box office was The Avengers. Disney beating Disney, the usual!

Next week, we shall see how it all goes stateside...

The newest animated feature on the block quietly debuted this weekend, Sony Animation's The Star, animated by Cinesite and co-produced by Sony's Christian film wing Affirm Films, The Jim Henson Company, and a few others.

The film only cost $19 million to make, so I think it's all set. It opened with a decent $9.8 million, no worldwide numbers are in just yet. The Star, being a retelling of the Nativity story, will have those holiday legs and will attract the Christian audiences. Believe me, they make these things leggy! Reviews say it's just kind of "eh," not terrible (I hear all the annoying stuff in the trailers is a tiny fraction of the picture) or good, through-and-through a Christian movie but not dogmatic. To be fair, we haven't seen a very religious-themed, mainstream animated film in a long, long while.


I think The Star is somewhat important right now in where mainstream animation is at.

Consider. Sony Pictures Animation so wants a hit that will get them a gross in the upper-regions. Think $700-800 million, because their highest-earning film is the first Smurfs hybrid movie. That made $563 million worldwide, many other animation studios have breezed past that. With films NOT based on IPs or recognizable properties. They want a big hit, yet they - the same year they released an emoji movie - made a tiny-budgeted Christian film. We know most of those films open tiny, have strong legs, but never make blockbuster totals.

They made a movie for a niche market, they likely weren't expecting The Star to be the size of Hotel Transylvania, let alone The Emoji Movie or even Surf's Up!

Hey, last year, Sony Pictures released an animated movie that was also low budget and wasn't positioned as the next big thing. That was Sausage Party, it did pretty well because it - coincidentally - had a $19 million budget!

Sony may have just quietly shown, in some ways, that you can aim theatrical animated features at smaller markets. It's not always about the four-quadrant "everybody" blockbuster crowd, nor is it always about "kids, kids, kids!"Sausage Party was a raunchy comedy, The Star was family-friendly Biblical stuff. Why can't other studios making lower budget animated films follow suit? Instead of trying to make a derivative family flick that feels like Diet Despicable Me or Diet Hotel Transylvania, just... Make something that'll hit a certain audience, something that will make them come anyways.

Ya know, like what happens in the world of live-action? Thrillers for the over-35 crowd, period dramas for adults, Faith-based films for Christians, horror films, Bollywood films for Indians, animation can totally hit all these audiences with lower-budget features... Are we seeing the start of this? Maybe. I'd still keep an eye open, though...

Loving Vincent is seeing drops now, but mild ones. Now at $4.6 million here, it's at $9 million worldwide. Not bad, I'm surprised it even got this far.

The Lego Ninjago Movie took its biggest tumble yet, falling 68%. It'll quietly crawl past $60 million at this point, little more than what The Lego Batman Movie made on opening weekend earlier this year. The $70 million-costing film is at $122 million worldwide, still below the double.

My Little Pony fell hard again, 74%. $21 million here, $50 million everywhere. Could've been worse, I suppose.

Despicable Me 3 still holds on, $264 million here, $1,031 million everywhere. No major change for Leap!, it just made some coin. The Emoji Movie is now at $86 million domestically and $215 million worldwide.

In its first domestic weekend, GKIDS' presentation of Cartoon Saloon's The Breadwinner took in $17k, from 3 theaters. Song of the Sea rolled in 2 theaters on its opening weekend here, took in $21k. Certainly a far cry from The Secret of Kells' $35k opening weekend take seven years ago. We shall see how this one plays out, for it is a GKIDS release.



Well look at that, the teaser and some promo materials for Warner Animation Group's next original film - Smallfoot - are here!


Yep, it's a teaser through-and-through. Like the Storks teaser, it just sets up the premise in a fun manner. I quite dig the designs of the yetis. Neat shapes, features, and whatnot. Some character posters give us a better look at these guys...





The variety here is great, and it's cool to see multi-colored yetis. Percy also looks like he stepped right out of Storks. As if... Storks is set in the same cartoony world as this upcoming film, not dissimilar to how Bugs Bunny sometimes would appear alongside Daffy Duck in a Looney Tunes cartoon. I'm reaching, I know. I'm mostly kidding anyways...

I like the premise a lot, too! A humorous spin on scary cryptozoology. Not dissimilar to films like Monsters, Inc., where what we fear happens to fear us. If Warner Animation Group has a cool new spin on this formula, I'm all for it. Of course, you can tell Sony ImageWorks did the animation. Like Storks, it's very cartoony-looking and not far removed from some of Sony Pictures Animation's other films. It's a bit of a clustercuss, for most of SPA's films are animated by Sony ImageWorks anyways...

Here's the full plot synopsis of the picture and additional details...


Notice how this, presumably from a press release, mentions Space Jam 2...

Anyways, we now know that veteran Karey Kirkpatrick is actually directing film. Previously, it was thought to have been Ryan O'Laughlin. It has quite the cast, too, and hopefully Warner Bros. puts more oomph into this than they did with Storks. I know a lot of people did not like that film, but I found it to be one of the better animated comedies released in the past 5 years or so. I preferred it over films like Hotel Transylvania and The Croods, for I felt its script was a lot tighter. The film was able to be frenetic without making me lose interest.

Hopefully Smallfoot's no different. Lastly, here's a fun-looking teaser poster...


Again, it looks it'll be a very fun comedy with some really cool character designs.

Curiously, the teaser for this is now out, but nothing for the Teen Titans Go! movie has been released. The film adaptation of the Cartoon Network show is slated to open two months before Smallfoot, yet there are no promo materials whatsoever. Then again, WAG probably doesn't expect it to be a big success anyways. Just a cheap little profit-maker. Makes me wonder when we will something for it...

The time has come...

The latest Pixar film is three days into its run, with the 2-day grosses already posted...

Coco is fortunately not playing out the way The Good Dinosaur did two Novembers ago. Whatever happened, it's opening pretty big...

With a $13 million Wednesday gross and a $9 million Thanksgiving gross, projections say the picture is on track to make over $70 million for the five-day. That means a roughly $48 million three-day, which isn't on the high end of Pixar opening weekend grosses, but it currently does not matter.

Comparable is Disney Animation's Moana, which made $82 million over the same frame a year ago. That put it right behind the current record-holder, Frozen, which made $93 million for the five-day. Toy Story 2 is in third place with $81 million, in 1999 dollars of course. Nowadays, it would probably be one of the biggest if not the biggest. Coco's Thanksgiving day gross, impressively, is just a small click behind Moana's. The CinemaScore rating is a super-rare A+, Coco is the sixth Pixar film to ever get this score. I expect the legs to be very strong because of this.


Coco's actual budget hasn't been revealed, the trades estimate it at least cost $175 million to make. Pixar films normally cost that amount or higher. Other trades, however, suggest the budget was closer to $225 million... Which would make it one of animation's most expensive pictures, and that it would have to gross near $600 million to be considered a success... Oof.

Well, audiences are speaking. Some may say it's the Olaf featurette that got people to come, but I think it's more the movie. I can't speak for others, but few customers I had this week knew a Frozen-themed special was attached to the film. I had one customer so far come out of his screening, he asked me point blank if he walked into the wrong movie!

From here on out, should it make around $75 million for the five-day, I expect the film to make at least $220 million domestically. Worldwide is a little iffy, perhaps Day of the Dead will translate across the Atlantic, maybe not. Like many holiday animated releases, its worldwide rollout is gradual. Once again, Japan's the last place to get the movie, they'll be received it in mid-March. The UK gets it in January (so sorry to remind you), many other European countries haven't gotten it. China got it today, I can only imagine how it'll do there.

We perhaps could be disappointed in a way, it'll score one of Pixar's lowest openings, but the way I see it... The filmmakers took a good-sized risk with Coco. A film like this unfortunately comes with baggage (i.e. appealing to certain groups in middle America), its subject matter isn't the most-accessible. Yes, perhaps the head honchos at Disney attached Olaf's Frozen Adventure to it to help it, but... Here we are. Above $70 million 5-day, above $48 million 3-day. Legs, I feel, are going to seriously help this one. Again... A+ CinemaScore and universal acclaim all across the board.

This is where we tread into spoiler territory...

I don't plan on doing a full review for this anytime soon, but Pixar's latest was great and packed many surprises. One reason why the storytelling of Pixar's films is routinely acclaimed is because it's not afraid to present some rather harsh realities to a family audience. The usual for them, as they never aim their films at one specific target audience, the tradition continues with Coco.

Being a film about Dia De Los Muertos, no punches are pulled. Remembering and honoring of ancestors and loved ones plays a huge part in the rather complicated story, which plays out more like a mystery adventure as its progresses. Some elements do feel very familiar, beats you've seen in previous Pixar films, but done well with - from what I can see - respect for the culture it's about. Miguel's ambitions are out of Ratatouille, his abuelita Elena's crushing of his guitar right out of Brave's first act argument, and the film's villain gets himself right into a trap in the same way Waternoose does at the end of Monsters, Inc. (Also used in Disney Animation's Zootopia.)

Yet these moments and pieces did not feel like tired rehashes, they all had a reason for being there. Coco treads some pretty dark waters in parts, has a rather shocking reveal, and has an overall pounding third act. All handled wonderfully, of course, the film is more in the Up and Inside Out wheelhouse than anything, with strong hints of director Lee Unkrich's Toy Story 3. The Land of the Dead - on top of its precise rules and world building - is also one of the prettiest and visually coolest environments I've seen in a recent CG film, and compliments the more abstract iteration we saw in The Book of Life.

By the way, both films are very, very different in both story structure and tone. The only similarities I could find were the setting, the Day of the Dead focus, and the musician angle. Other than that, The Book of Life is the apple to this orange. The Book of Life is sweet and fun, Coco is a bit on the... Intense side, like a sour citrus... It is much darker and quieter, with a pretty nasty villain and a character who is in the risk of disappearing forever. In the Land of the Dead, if you're forgotten in the land of the living, you no longer exist. You disappear into nothingness. Think Bing Bong in Inside Out. Pretty heavy, but par for the course for this studio...

Its musical elements are great, too. They were right in a sense, this isn't much of a typical "musical," more so a movie that writes music into its story. No breaking out into song, songs that emphasize the situation or the emotions the characters are feeling, like 90s Disney Renaissance films or some of the early Walt films. It's not characters randomly singing pop songs, either. Goes to show that more than one kind of animated musical can exist in a post-90s animation world!

Another home run.

As things unravel, it may be true... John Lasseter might be out of The Walt Disney Company for good. Not just Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon... But the company as a whole...

Per Roger Friedman's Showbiz 411, a source is saying that the CCO of both Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar has already "negotiated his exit." No sabbatical leave. What's the hold up? Friedman says that Disney is simply waiting till the end of the Oscar season, as they're hopeful that Pixar's latest film is the shoe-in for the little gold man. What else is new? From a long shot, we knew Coco was going to get it. They don't want these allegations to really taint the buzz, as the film is doing fine at the box office and has received universal praise.

It's also really good, too.

Anyways, *if* this is all true, this is certainly the end of an era...

Heavy emphasis on if.

John Lasseter leaving not only the company he fostered, but also the studio he helped revive, and The Walt Disney Company as a whole. It's tragic in a way. Lasseter lived his dream, as he had always wanted to get into animation ever since he was little, upon seeing the then-new Disney animated features in the 1960s. He made it all happen and helped change the scene, but... A spade is a spade, despite the good he has done for the animation industry, he abused his power, created an unsafe work environment for women, left little creative room for people of color, and was put on a pedestal that made him virtually invincible.

I have come to terms with the situation. John Lasseter's accomplishments certainly can't be denied, from his work at Pixar to his aiding of Walt Disney Animation Studios' major comeback over the last ten years. The man did know story, for sure. Of course, he isn't the only one to praise in this regard... Walt Disney Animation Studios didn't need just John Lasseter to get back on track. Pixar makes great movies because of so many other like-minded creatives there.

The question is... Who else is sharp at storytelling and knows how to run a whole studio?

Think of where Lasseter was all throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Worked a brief stint at Disney Feature Animation, wanted to experiment (i.e. Brave Little Toaster, 2D/CG Where the Wild Things Are test), got booted, went to Graphics Group, GG became Pixar, Lasseter directed their shorts and later their first few features... Eventually, he became a successful leader. Who else can transition like that, at both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios?

Rumors, as said before, point to Pete Docter becoming the new leader of Pixar. While Docter already has a new film in the works, he's a decent choice, if it turns out he wasn't actively enabling John. (Of course, if you didn't get the memo, that's my major concern right now. How many people beyond Lasseter are like this at Pixar?) Lasseter directed Pixar's first three features, Docter directed their fourth, which was Monsters, Inc. Then eight years later, he finished the acclaimed Best Picture-nominated Up, and then the equally-adored Inside Out. He's a strong choice, he too knows story, heart, and character work. His work is distinguishable from his Emeryville colleagues, I always felt he was the weirdo director at Pixar, while someone like Andrew Stanton was more the "epic" director and Brad Bird the "cutting edge" director. Leadership skills, though... I don't know if he has any. He might, having been there since the late 1980s.

Some others had a feeling that Andrew Stanton would get the position, but see, I doubt it'll be Stanton because Stanton has made it clear that he wants to do other things. While Stanton has directed two of Pixar's biggest smashes - both Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, in addition to WALL-E - he also finds animation to be way too time-consuming, hence his branching out into live-action. John Carter of Mars didn't work out due to Disney's bungling, but he found success directing a few episodes Stranger Things' second season. I doubt he'd want to run an animation studio.

Brad Bird? Probably not. He'd be ideal, as I personally feel he's much closer to Walt Disney than Lasseter ever was, not to mention his outspokenness. Again, he's got projects and wants to do a lot of things. I mean, I suppose someone could run just Pixar and direct features. Lasseter ran Pixar, WDAS, and Disneytoon up until this point, hence his inability to really direct anything post-Cars. Still, Bird might want to do projects elsewhere. After all, he has some adult animated feature ideas up his sleeve that don't fit with the family-friendly Pixar mission.

For me... My vote would go to...

Well, let's just say a hyper fish-killing girl was named after her...

Darla K. Anderson.

A producer of several Pixar mega-hits for nearly twenty years. A woman, no less. Imagine her being Lasseter's replacement...

Truly would be a big change indeed.

Perhaps it's all moot till March, but we shall see who takes over. Hopefully it's just one person for each studio. Darla or whoever runs Pixar, someone else runs WDAS. Perhaps running three animation studios helped solidify Lasseter's cult-of-personality and untouchable status.

For Walt Disney Animation Studios, I only have one immediate choice... That would be a duo, actually.

Ron Clements and John Musker.

Think about it. Been there since late 1970s, CalArts alumnus, aided Disney's first post-Walt rebirth and their second rebirth, the majority of their films are high quality. I think they have what it takes... I'd rather see the likes of Byron Howard, Nathan Greno, Rich Moore, and such just keep directing films.

Again... This could all be moot, because what we're learning could very well be a rumor. Lasseter is undeniably the most powerful man in mainstream animation, more powerful than even a hit-maker like, say, Chris Meledandri or some other head. Again, running three animation studios and 95% of the time turning out big box office hits. The Walt Disney Company may ultimately keep him because of that, regardless of how others are treated... "It's nothing personal, just business."

Maybe not... But... Just a warning, you know how corporations work.

That said, if he's indeed a goner... We could be seeing a pretty different future for both Disney Animation and Pixar. If anything, people within the ranks should step up and show if they can lead...