Weekend Box Office Report: Easter Dips

Not quite a fruitful weekend for animation, considering the holiday and all...

Second place. The Boss Baby. Dropped 41%. Home did way better that weekend, so it looks like The Boss Baby will end up somewhere in the low-to-mid 160s, which is still pretty good. Worldwide it sits at $238 million, it is out everywhere now except in Kuwait and Poland. I guess it'll be another $300 million+ worldwide grosser for the studio. I wonder if they'll view it as a pass or a flop.

The little blue guys got hit even harder. Smurfs: The Lost Village fell 50%, an unusually big drop for an animated film on its second weekend. So much for taking advantage of that Easter timeframe, eh Sony? Domestically it's at $24 million and worldwide it's at $95 million. The last three markets are China, India, and South Korea. Could it triple its $60 million budget? Who knows, but I reckon the juice has run out and Sony might move onto other things.

All the way down in 24th place is ToonBox's Spark: A Space Tail. A movie that was completed in early 2016, screened to an audience at a film festival just about a year ago... Open Road Films sat on it, didn't ink a release date for a long, long while. Then they did, but didn't promote it. A trailer came out just a matter of weeks ago, and then it turned out that they had no use for it. It was dumped in a little over 350 theaters this weekend, not screened for critics, and the few reviews that seeped onto Rotten Tomatoes are pretty... Well... Unkind.

Makes me wonder how they'll handle Blazing Samurai and Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad, both of which are set to open next year and also don't carry any concrete release dates at the moment.

It opened with $112k. What was the point of even releasing it theatrically? Quite something, how an inoffensive, arguably DTV-grade picture like that can get a release this size while truly great works of animated art have to settle for tiny amounts of theaters. I was very curious about this picture for a long time, then the trailer showed up and while I didn't dislike what I saw, I did see that it was just another pic aimed at the roughly 6-10 set.

Sing and Moana still roll in some venues. The former: $270m DOM / $621m WW. The latter: $248m DOM / $637m WW.

GKIDS gave My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea an expectedly tiny release. $15k from 3 theaters.

No update on Your Name. yet.

Elusive Monkey: 'Spark' Only Opening in 350 Theaters Nationwide

It all makes sense now...

The arrival of the trailer less than two months before release, the relatively quiet marketing, the long wait...

ToonBox's second animated feature, Spark: A Space Tail, is opening in (according to Box Office Mojo) around 350 theaters this coming Friday. Talk about little-to-no confidence.

Open Road's first animated release, ToonBox's own The Nut Job, was a pretty wide release. It is actually Open Road's highest grossing film at the domestic box office. The sequel - opening in August - will also be a wide release. It always seemed like they had little use for Spark. The movie was completed back in early 2016, and was shown at the Toronto Animation Arts Festival International in April of that year. For a long while, it didn't have a concrete theatrical release date or a distributor.

Perhaps Open Road got cold feet after the performance of a similar spacey animated release, Ratchet & Clank. Unlike Ratchet & Clank, Spark is not based on any pre-existing source material. The trailer did give me Ratchet & Clank vibes, but it also reminded me of other platformer games that came out in the late 90s/early 00s, such as Jak & Daxter. When talking about upcoming movies with my manager today, this came up, and he described it as "Ape Escape on steroids" or something. To me, it almost looks like a pilot for a mid-2000s Cartoon Network CG TV series, honestly. Something they would've shown on their old Miguzi block, a.k.a. the wannabe-successor to Toonami.

But Open Road still has enough to confidence to book it in 350 theaters. I honestly didn't think it looked that bad from the trailer, but it didn't look like anything special either. Certainly better-looking than The Nut Job, and more interesting-looking than Nut Job 2. Well, I guess the distributor doesn't expect a small success out of this one.

What say you?

Baby Beats Blue: 'Boss Baby' Tops Weekend, 'Smurfs' Opens Softly

Probably inconceivable back in October, DreamWorks' The Boss Baby may just secure the top spot on its second weekend.

Facing a pretty good-sized dip, the DreamWorks comedy is expected to take in around $25 million off of a $6 million Friday haul. Now that's a roughly 47% dip, but it would have it narrowly beating out Beauty and the Beast, which has entered the fourth weekend of its run.

That puts the picture on par with Home at the moment. That opened with $52 million and sank 48% on its second weekend, it too was a late March release. If The Boss Baby follows its trajectory, it should finish up with around $170 million domestically. Either way, it's going to be a domestic hit for DreamWorks. Now we shall see how the overseas grosses add up.

Smurfs: The Lost Village, Sony's all-animated restart of the Smurfs movie series, was no match for the baby. Opening soft with $4 million yesterday, projections have it at $13-14 million. A little lower than what The Smurfs 2 took in on opening weekend back in summer 2013. Given slightly better critical reception than its hybrid predecessors, Sony probably isn't worrying - the film is one of their cheapest to date. I'm hearing nothing but mixed things, but the consensus is basically "It's better than the hybrid movies." Some are saying it's pleasant and fun, others are saying it's mediocre and run-of-the-mill.

The film cost $60 million, and looks quite amazing on a budget that size. Shows that not every computer animated movie has to be this gargantuan $100-million production. Sony Animation has shown that time and time again, as has Illumination and other houses. The previous hybrids cost around $100-110 million to make, each... The second film's $347 million worldwide gross against that was what lead to this reboot.

So what went wrong? Audiences probably got tired of the schtick when Smurfs 2 was coming out, and didn't think this looked much better. I certainly had my doubts, instead of a fun adventure that respects the actually decent Peyo comics, it looked like a typical "kids" movie with forced "adult" jokes (haha, a Smurf is kicked in the groin!) and noise and such. Maybe the movie isn't just that, I don't know yet, but marketing can make something - regardless of how good or bad it may be - look crumby. With a smaller opening, it could still be pretty leggy.

Worldwide, it just has to top $150 million (2.5x the $60 million budget), which I think it will do with ease given the blue creatures' origins.

Your Name., in its limited run, debuted with $627k. Looks like it'll have a solid opening for an anime film. Hopefully it gets some traction...

UPDATE (4/10/2017): Totals are in...

The Boss Baby tops all at $26 million, down 47% from last weekend. This is looking at a Home run, pun shamelessly intended.

Smurfs: The Lost Village might've landed at #3, but took in $13 million - as expected - over the weekend.

Your Name. took in a solid $1.6 million. A wee bit below the $1.8 million Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' took in back in 2015, but I'll take what I can get. It isn't playing near me, unfortunately.

Sing still sings worldwide, now at $620 million. Moana is a few steps ahead at $634 million.

The Late Don Rickles Hadn't Recorded Any 'Toy Story 4' Dialogue

The untimely passing of renowned insult comedian Don Rickles this past Thursday has undoubtedly raised concerns about Toy Story 4...

Rickles, as many of you know, was the voice of Mr. Potato Head. The character, based on the classic toy of the same name, is no minor face. He plays a good-sized role in each of the three films in the Toy Story series, and was a big part of the TV special Toy Story of Terror!

Toy Story 4 has been in development for a while, and unlike its predecessors, it's taking quite a while for the Pixarians to get this one in fine shape. Announced in the fall of 2014 and slated for release this coming summer, it is now set to open in June of 2019. A new writer was recently added to the project, and the Hollywood Reporter states that the picture did indeed see some rewrites. Rickles' representative told THR that he had not recorded any dialogue for the film...

This isn't the first time Pixar has gone through this with franchises.

Jim Varney, the voice of Slinky Dog in the first two Toy Story films, died a year after the release of Toy Story 2. When Toy Story 3 entered active development in 2006, Pixar found a replacement in Blake Clark, who sounded pretty close.

With Cars 2, they went the other direction for one character. Two voice actors in the first film died two years after Cars came out: George Carlin and Paul Newman. Carlin played Volkswagon hippie bus Fillmore, Pixar got Lloyd Sherr - who voiced the character in a video game spin-off - to replace him. As for Newman... John Lasseter and crew felt he was irreplaceable, and it's quickly implied in the sequel that Doc - a 1951 Hudson Hornet - died. Weirdly enough, in the latest Cars 3 trailer, there's a voice in it that sounds eerily similar to Newman's. Is it an archive recording? Something from another car-centric (since he was a race car driver) movie of his? Or a really good soundalike?

There is no solid plan for Toy Story 4 concerning Mr. Potato Head. I have no idea whether the story is the same or not, or if the recent rewrites have really changed things. To my understanding, Toy Story 4 was going to be about Woody and Buzz - no one else - setting off on a road trip to find Bo Peep. It's said to be its own beast, something not really connected to the trilogy's whole storyline. Like a feature-length equivalent of the TV specials.

Another big Disney-owned franchise is facing a similar problem. Recently, it was reported that leftover footage of Carrie Fisher might be used to create Leia's storyline in Episode IX. Director Colin Trevorrow recently confirmed that the first draft script for that film is done. It could be a Furious 7 situation. Something similar might be done for Toy Story 4, as it has been reported that pre-existing Rickles tracks will be used for the character.

I have no idea how Pixar will go about all of this... I have no theories, but I will say this. I don't think you can write a character like Mr. Potato Head out of Toy Story. Unless Toy Story 4 is set in the far future where a much older Bonnie has - for whatever reason - sold off all of her toys, I don't think it can be done. Recasting? Don't think it can really be done, either. Maybe it's time to introduce a new toy gang and have the ensuing franchise entries - because you know Disney is going to want those - be about them. Woody and co will still be around in the form of the trilogy, the TV specials, the merchandise, and theme park attractions...

I really don't know...

What do you think will happen?

Squashing the Little Guy?: New Academy Rules May Affect Non-CG Animation

Oh the Academy... At it again...

Up until now, animated features were nominated by two branches: The animation branch, the majority of the branch being animators and people who are waist-deep in that world. The other is the short films branch.

A new rule now says that everyone has a say. Everyone from every other branch of the Academy. Now the actual voters who pick the movies will have more of a say on what gets into the race in the first place.

That's... Troubling, to say the least...

The animation and shorts branches were responsible for getting some little indies into the limelight for a good few minutes. In their attempts to give more mediums a chance, they made at least one controversial decision. The Lego Movie, arguably 2014's greatest animated film, was completely snubbed. Why? Those same pickers wanted traditionally animated works and stop-motion filling some of those slots. The Lego Movie snafu was so big, it was a bigger trending topic than the Oscar nominees on the morning it all went down.

Now as frustrating as that hiccup was... Without these nominating folks, would the likes of Song of the Sea, Ernest and Celestine, any Studio Ghibli film, and so on... Would the likes of those ever have a chance at getting into the race? We know very well that the voters - a whole other group - don't watch most of the films, let alone the animated choices. We also know very well that a chunk of them either have contempt for the medium and/or are tone-deaf.

Do we all remember that leaked ballot back in 2014? Do we all remember that one anonymous voter who nonchalantly called Song of the Sea (an acclaimed Irish animated film) and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (an acclaimed Japanese animated film) "obscure freakin' Chinese f*ckin' things that no one freakin' saw"? Another close-minded individual abstained from picking an animated feature, saying he was done with those things since he/she was 6, and whenever his/her kid wanted to see one... He/she would drop them off at the theater and hang outside on their phone. This past race had a real gem, a fellow who said that he doesn't like animation or even animators! And went on to talk about his "turtle fetish"...

Academy, alright.

Now they'll have more of a say...

Will this push those "obscure freakin' Chinese f*ckin' things" out of the races for good? Will future marvels that aren't from the big guns have a hard time even getting nominated for Best Animated Feature?

Eric Beckman, founder of GKIDS, doesn't seem to think so. In speaking to Cartoon Brew, he expressed hope that the Academy will still nominate a diverse range of features each year. However, the Brew's piece mentions a Wrap article that hints at the whole rule change being a conspiracy to squash "old school" forms of animation (read: traditional, 2D, and stop-motion) out for good.

The committees have been under increasing criticism in recent years for shunning films like The Lego Movie and showing a marked preference for hand-drawn or stop-motion films over CG movies…The move should substantially increase the number of voters in the category, and perhaps lessen the bias toward old-school animation.

Bias towards "old-school animation"... Give me a bloody break.

Like the industry doesn't have a CG bias, 99% of the damn time.

It might be too early to tell, but... I don't like the sound of this. The Academy has shown time and time again that they are stuck in 1987 when it comes to evaluating animation. The Academy has never given it much consideration before then, even. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs should have been nominated for Best Picture of the year it was given a general release (1938, ceremony in early 1939), several of Walt's early films should've been nominated in their respective years. No, it took the Academy until the early 1990s to do it... And then they wouldn't do it again for another 18 years, creating the token category we have now.

Ever since Toy Story 3's nomination in 2010, no animated film has been in the Best Picture race. Inexcusable, but the Academy group is like most Americans - they think animation in almost every form is inferior to films shot with flesh-and-blood people in real-life locations. Imagine an art show only nominating photographs for Best Artworks of the Year. I don't need to spell it out for you animation fans of course, but doesn't that sound so absurd? Who in their right mind thinks a painting is simply inferior because it's not a capture of a real-life subject?

C'mon... Get. With. It.

The Academy Awards are really just an overblown advertisement for Hollywood, it is not the great decider of film excellence. It's an excuse for movie companies to put sexy "Winner of 5 Oscars" blurbs on DVD/Blu-ray jackets. That being said, I felt that some indies and traditionally animated films getting nominated gave them some spotlight that they probably wouldn't get elsewhere. Now, that might be a thing of past.

Maybe.

The Brew and others warn that this rule change could mean that the 5 nominees of this year will be The Lego Batman Movie, Emoji Movie, The Boss Baby, anything mainstream and CGI regardless of quality. Those folks in the feature animation and shorts branches don't have a bias, they want to spotlight high quality works of every kind of animation. Now, leaving out Lego Movie in 2014 - I agree - was a big mistake. If I were them, I would've swapped Big Hero 6 (a very good movie, don't get me wrong) for Lego. That way, we still would've had the 2D Song of the Sea and Kaguya in the race, alongside the stop-mo Boxtrolls.

Honestly, this news and the reports of the change being due to fear of "bias towards old-school animation" is another slap in the face, in a year that I think is - so far - kind of a bummer to begin with. Yeah, I'll say it now, the first quarter of 2017 has been relatively dour and I'm not quite sure on the rest of the year's mainstream output. Couple that with all these photoreal/live-action remakes of animated classics coming out left and right, studios setting up shop only to make the same ol' same ol', things like Emoji Movie happening... Yeah... I'm bummed right now. Not going to lie.

It might've always been this way in some way or another, but I never thought it was this... Worrisome.

What say you?

Pony-Sized: Super-Quick 'My Little Pony' Teaser Debuts

Welp, looks like Lionsgate will promote the My Little Pony feature-length film the same way they promote their other animated releases...

Yes, the teaser for My Little Pony: The Movie is finally here.


At thirty seconds long, it's really more of an announcement for the movie than a teaser that establishes anything. You also gotta love how it outright announces its "all-star" cast and the Sia song that will apparently be in it. I've actually never watched Friendship is Magic, though I understand why it has the big fanbase that it has. It's certainly appealing in its looks.

Anyways, I doubt that this trailer will get anyone outside of the fan base and girls under the age of, like 6, interested. That's not a dig on the show or the fan base, but you know how the cookie crumbles... Most "normal" folk would take one look at the show and assume that it's just a toy commercial for girls. They're totally not in on it, they'd be completely puzzled if you told them "Oh yeah, the new My Little Pony show is actually good."

What do I think? I... Can't say. It's just an announcement teaser, really. That said, it is a new wide-release "2D"/traditional-style animated film, TV show adaptation or not, so there's that.

What say you?

More Players: Imagine Ent. to Launch Feature Animation Slate

Imagine Entertainment, the studio founded by director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer, is planning to get in on the animation game...

They will be joining forces with Animal Logic, the studio that did the animation for the Lego films, previous WB animated releases like Happy Feet and The Owls of Ga'Hoole, and Sony's upcoming Peter Rabbit. Their plan? Launch a slate of animated family films.

Now, family filmmaking isn't out of Imagine's wheelhouse, for they did the live-action Grinch film and Curious George. That being said, it's yet again another studio/team getting into the field and making what everyone else is making. They plan to spend less than $85 million on these pictures, which I do think is smart.

Grazer himself said:

“This marriage was a fortuitous situation, an opportunity for a unique chemistry for what we have done. Ron and I have always been narrative storytellers, the goal to reach people emotionally. Many times that has been movies and TV that are thematic family comedies. Ron has been in that space since he was an actor, and movies like Grinch, Liar Liar, Curious George and The Nutty Professor. What Animal Logic brings as the perfect complement is its ability to extend that family sensibility, and to make things look amazing. When we saw The Lego Movie, we, along with most anyone else who saw the movie, found it to be uniquely progressive creatively. The simple things that matter here are, how things look and make you feel. We believe this is a perfect marriage of skill sets.”

CEO/co-founder of Animal Logic, Zareh Nalbandian, said:

“We are both known for wanting to tell great stories, looking for things different and innovative, and not formulaic. Strong characters, world creation but with a universality. We came up with a slate of ideas we want to make as soon as we started talking. The thing is, it sounds like a no-brainer to make family films in animation and hybrid animation. But it all comes down to compelling IPs, great ideas, high concepts that capture audience imaginations and that look different, whether it’s original creations, licensed IP, or great public domain characters that are ripe for reinvention.”

I don't know, folks... It all just sounds like typical stuff to me, and again, there's emphasis on live-action/animation hybrids these days. Fox Animation's slate is full of them, word on the street is that DreamWorks' Shadows might be a hybrid, other movies want to go for the Jungle Book VFX look.

Anyways, Howard is said to be directing at least one of the films, and their first release is aiming for late 2019 (a bit soon for a new house). I wish them the best, and hopefully the films they put out do stand out from the rest. Probably too hopeful of me, but... It's worth a shot. It seems like they're going to try to get some original ideas going, which is nice.

What say you?

Remember the Zoo: 'Madagascar 4' Still a Go?

Since The Boss Baby is now out, it makes sense that director Tom McGrath has been doing some talking.

McGrath, alongside Eric Darnell, launched DreamWorks' Madagascar franchise nearly 12 years ago. Released just as the CG fad (short for: a time when ANY computer animated movie would make boffo bucks at the box office) was beginning to wane, it did pretty well, it was certainly more successful than the previous couple of non-sequel DreamWorks films that didn't happen to be about an ogre. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa was released three years later, and made a lot of coin as well. The third installment, 2012's Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, blew both out of the water critically and commercially... To the tune of $742 million.

Two years later, DreamWorks followed that up with Penguins of Madagascar, which ended up being a domestic doozy and a film that was labelled a big flop. The studio crashed, 2014 as a whole brought DreamWorks down, and regrouping was in order. Prior to all that, the studio had a fourth Madagascar movie slated for the spring of 2018. After the unfortunate chain of happenings, the studio whittled their slate down... Madagascar 4 was a casualty, but it wasn't outright canned.

It was simply removed from the slate because they didn't want to release too many movies every calendar year. Yet it seems like it may not move forward, because as time has gone by, we've heard little about it. When Comcast acquired the studio last year, a new slate was slowly unraveled... It currently ends at spring 2020, and Madagascar 4 is nowhere to be seen. If it debuts in 2021, it'll have been nearly nine years since the last one!

McGrath, in an interview with Hey U Guys, briefly talked about the future of the zoo/circus gang: "There are things in the works, nothing is announced yet, but I think they’ll show their faces once more..." It was super-brief. In the interview video, he seems to get that one out of the way, as he probably can't say too much. Either that, or, it may not get the green light.

I wouldn't have minded one last movie with the gang, though the third one arguably ended their story on a strong note. Still, the new circus characters were a lot of fun and it would be cool to see them again... But, we don't know. I'd certainly take it over a fifth Shrek, for sure.

Do you think Madagascar 4 will happen?

Shrek Status: Fifth Film's Script Complete, May "Reinvent" Series

File this under the no-joke category as well, for I am a day late on this one.

Shrek, Shrek, Shrek...

Some 15 years ago, it seemed like the green ogre was the face of mainstream animation. All the newcomers wanted to follow its model, while oddly ignoring the Pixar model. Forget that it actually had a solid story, competitors thought its edgy sense of humor and potty jokes were the key to a hugely successful animated film. Naturally, that went belly up for them, and for originator DreamWorks as well.

Though Shrek kept going strong, probably because... You know... The likability of the characters. For as much ribbing as I give Shrek, I will admit that I found its story and characters to be pretty strong, and it's often a very funny and quotable movie. Shrek 2 may be uneven to me, but there are things I like about it, and I can see why it was such a big success back when it came out. Shrek the Third did little with the characters and world, and consequently the film had weak legs at the box office. Shrek Forever After was alright. Perhaps they put it to rest at the right time. Puss in Boots surprised a lot of folk, including me. I'm still waiting for that sequel to happen, I'd take that over Shrek 5.

About Shrek 5. It's still a go. Writer Michael McCullers, who recently penned the studio's The Boss Baby and is known for his work on the Austin Powers series, said in an interview that the script is done.

I finished that script which I really, really, really love. It’s really personal to me. It’s got a pretty big reinvention behind it that I guess I can’t really reveal, but since DreamWorks was sold to Universal in that time for over $3 billion, I imagine they’re particularly interested in it stepping up and actually figuring out the future of the franchise in that way on the corporate level. Reinvention was sort of called for.

Big reinvention, eh?

Well, what more can you do with the green ogre, really? What more can you do with his modern medieval fairy tale-esque setting? Shrek Forever After at least tried to do something kind of fun, even if it ended up being a rather flat and paint-by-numbers movie. So what now? Shrek in Space? Shrek Visits an Alternate Dimension? Shrek Time Travels? I know there's stuff to make fun of, especially current Disney films, but... That's routine for Shrek. To me, they need to really try something new, so why not just do something cool and a bit impossible?

Really, I can take Shrek 5 or leave it. I didn't ask for it, I'm sure most of us didn't, but Comcast, franchises, you know? Shrek 5 has been on the table since the days DreamWorks' raft had holes poked in it, and I'm sure the heads at Comcast want one. Me? I want that Arabian Nights-centric Puss in Boots 2 to happen soon, but I think that has probably gone the way of the dodo as well.

With that all said, I have a feeling this thing will be out sometime in 2020. If not that year, then definitely 2021, just in time for the series' 20th anniversary. 2020, coincidentally, will be the year the original book - William Steig's Shrek! - turns 30. Outside of us folk, I wonder who even knows that Shrek was a book.

What say you on Shrek 5?

No Fooling: 'Boss Baby' Flies This Weekend

Fox and DreamWorks' marketing teams must've done something right...

The Boss Baby collected $15 million for its opening day, which could translate to a $50 million+ opening weekend gross. Basically, it's the next Home for the studio. Few had hopes for Home, projections had it in the mid-to-high 20s, low 30s at best... Then it dashed out of the gate with $52 million. Will The Boss Baby equal that? Top it? Or land somewhere below it?

Either way, it's thankfully not another flop for DreamWorks. As much as I don't want them to be rewarded for movies like these, I don't want to see animators get put out of a job. Even more surreal, it looks to top juggernaut Beauty and the Beast on the charts.

I'm honestly not surprised.

I know the theater I work at is just one theater out of 4,000+, buuuut... I'd say 90% of the customers there have all reacted positively to the posters and displays that we have. Things like "We gotta see that Baby Boss movie!" It kept making me think... "You know, this may not be a flop."

This is the fourth post-fallout success in a row for DreamWorks. Whether it was the marketing chief switch at the studio or not, they've been on steady ground. Home, Kung Fu Panda 3, Trolls, now this. Captain Underpants is the last Fox-distributed DreamWorks movie, and being an outsourced film, I don't think too much will be riding on its back.

UPDATE - Monday 4/3/2017

$50 million. Not too shabby. Quite a few millions above Kung Fu Panda 3 and Trolls, and just a little behind Home. With little family competition until the summer, I think Boss Baby should be fine. 3.0x multiplier at the minimum, which would translate to a $150 million domestic gross.

Consequently, The Lego Batman Movie lost over 800 screens, dropped 64%, and collected $750k for the weekend. It now sits at $172 million domestically and $297 million worldwide.

No big changes for Sing and Moana domestically, the former is at $614 million worldwide and the latter is at $628 million. Moana is now coming up on Big Hero 6's worldwide gross. Rock Dog lingers. Rose 11%, but it doesn't matter, the pic is still at $9 million stateside and about the same amount overseas.

Going for Gold: Netflix Plans Their First Animated Feature

Netflix is finally getting in on the animated feature action...

Their first entry will be an animated feature for...

Adults.

Not a family film, not something to rack up bucks and sell toys everywhere. No, an adults-only animated film from Archer creator Adam Reed and executive producer Matt Thompson. Thompson will direct, the script is being handled by Expendables scribe David Callaham, and the dynamic Lord-Miller duo are involved as well...

It'll be an R-rated, comedic, revisionist take on American history. It's titled America: The Motion Picture... Channing Tatum has been cast as George Washington.

While other up-and-coming studios and new-to-animation companies are starting out with tried-and-true family films, Netflix is aiming higher. They seem to know that there's an audience for adult animation here in America, good adult animation. They happen to have fostered BoJack Horseman, which is above your usual Family Guy/[adult swim] stuff, an adults-only animated series that actually is "adult," not stuff that's only "mature" if you're 12 years old.

That all being said, I'm not sure what direction America: The Motion Picture is going to take. Will it be brilliant while also being gratuitous and happily immature? Or will it really have something to say? It's clearly aiming to be comedic, and given these guys' backgrounds, I'm not expecting too, too much out of this other than some wit and some creativity. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I'd say it's a good step forward. I also don't doubt that Sausage Party's success probably helped make this a reality, among other things.

Will it not be a CG film? Probably, for Archer, Frisky Dingo, and Sealab 2021 weren't CG cartoons. I expect the art style to resemble those, but it would be cool if it was something different. All I keep thinking of, actually, is a Robot Chicken skit that meshes the Revolutionary War with 300... And ironically Zack Snyder said not too long ago that he was thinking of making just that. (This wouldn't be the first time Robot Chicken was rather prophetic about Hollywood.)

Definitely an exciting development, and I'm looking forward to seeing where Netflix goes with their original feature animation...

What say you?

More Fantasy: DreamWorks To Adapt Cressida Cowell's Next Book Series

Once the dragons fly away, the wizards will come in...

DreamWorks Animation announced earlier today that they have acquired to rights to Cressida Cowell's upcoming book series The Wizards of Once. Cowell, as many of you may know, conceived How To Train Your Dragon. Her 12-book series inspired DreamWorks' two epic fantasy stories, and the third entry in the series is due out in March of 2019. The movie series will end there, not sure about the TV side of things...

The Wizards of Once is about a wizard boy and a warrior girl who were taught to loathe each other, but things change when their two worlds come together. The full premise, via Amazon...

Once there was Magic, and the Magic lived in the dark forests. Until the Warriors came...

Xar is a Wizard boy who has no Magic, and will do anything to get it. Wish is a Warrior girl, but she owns a banned Magical Object, and she will do anything to conceal it.

In this whirlwind adventure, Xar and Wish must forget their differences if they're going to make it to the dungeons at Warrior Fort.

Where something that has been sleeping for hundreds of years is stirring...

The first book will hit shelves this coming autumn. This isn't the first time DreamWorks acquired a book series that was then yet to come out. Their 2012 fantasy adventure Rise of the Guardians was based on William Joyce's The Guardians of Childhood, which at the time of the film announcement, wasn't published. Sadly, Rise of the Guardians didn't go over due to the marketing's mishandling of it, and the gargantuan budget it was saddled with.

New DreamWorks head Chris DeFaria seems very gung-ho about this one...

“Cressida is part of the DreamWorks family and with The Wizards of Once she once again anchors a new franchise for us... The story is packed with the perfect elements to create a unique magical universe inhabited by adventurous, funny and memorable characters that will enthrall generations to come. We are honored to have another opportunity to partner with this amazingly creative author.”

This marks the second project that DeFaria and the new executives have approved of, the first of which was the Trolls sequel. At the moment, I think this is a very smart move. Years back, DreamWorks hinted at a transition into making big, epic, and even dark fantasy pictures. Movies that would align with the How to Train Your Dragon movies. Rise of the Guardians seemed like the kick-off to a future that included things like The Grimm Legacy, Alma, Rumblewick, and several other fantasy adventures.

Rise of the Guardians' box office collapse in fall 2012, unfortunately, brought that to a quick end. Despite how badly the likes of Turbo and Mr. Peabody & Sherman did, former CEO/founder Jeffrey Katzenberg - in his last years at the studio, and his last years being in control - felt the right way to go was with movies like The Boss Baby and Captain Underpants. Lightweight family comedies that weren't dissimilar to Turbo and Peabody...

So the possibility of DreamWorks getting back on the fantasy adventure kick excites me. I feared for a little while that their future slate would be mainly Minions-lite stuff (because Universal also has Illumination), but maybe that was hyperbolic. Now, nothing is set in stone. In a year, DreamWorks' heads could turn this away and instead greenlight a Minions-y trash movie, but we shall see what happens. How To Train Your Dragon 2, while successful, wasn't the leggy monster its predecessor was at the domestic box office. Worldwide, it did significantly better. I do know that their heads at the time were disappointed with its run.

How To Train Your Dragon 3's delays had more to do with their schedule constantly changing. They initially thought that they could get the thing out last summer, but then (and this was back in 2014, mind you) they moved it to summer 2017. Then DreamWorks' fallout occurred at the end of 2014, How To Train Your Dragon 3 got pushed to summer 2018, because they wanted to reduce the amount of movies they were going to put out every calendar year. Dragon 3 would've shared this year with 3-4 other movies! The final move to spring 2019 happened because of the Comcast acquisition, and under Comcast, several in-development projects got the boot.

Since 2018 is now without a DreamWorks movie (following the regrettable cancellation of Larrikins), it's very possible that How To Train Your Dragon 3 can slink its way forward, but for now this is all speculation. Whenever it hits, hopefully it's a hit.

Do you think this adaptation will take off? Sound off below!

More The Merrier: Second Teaser/Short for 'Coco' Arrives

Well how about that? Another look at Pixar's upcoming original story Coco has been released!

A sort-of teaser/short film, it's a fun watch. There's lots of classic cartoony slapstick here, though I wonder if the movie itself will have that kind of humor. Maybe, maybe not.


Now this was actually shown in other countries. Someone leaked it onto YouTube (it was a recording in a movie theater, and it was in Spanish) a couple weeks back when the American teaser was released, so it's cool to see that Disney's marketing and Pixar have released it here.

Just a month in, and this campaign is pretty strong so far. Definitely a real 180 from how they marketed The Good Dinosaur, which like Coco, was a fall release in 2015 that came off the heels of a summer Pixar event - Inside Out. Coco is the fall Pixar movie this year, Cars 3 is the summer release. Looks like the same mistakes won't be made again.

Now, will they attach this to something in theaters? The next family-friendly Disney release is the Disneynature film Born in China, it could show up before that, but there's already a great teaser out so maybe not. Or maybe they'll combine the two, for Cars 3's first extended look combined the teaser and new footage. (And that "extended look" is rolling in theaters, I catch it frequently at the theater I work at.)

Who knows what they'll do.

UPDATE: I'm hearing it was shown before Beauty and the Beast. I didn't get to catch the preview reels for that at work.

What did you think of the short?