Fast-Tracked: 'Sonic The Hedgehog' Movie Gets Director and a New Team

Quite a transition... Deadpool to Sonic the Hedgehog...

Who is transitioning? Tim Miller, the director of Deadpool, the edgy turbo shot in the superhero movie coffee that shook the box office and impressed critics. After having "creative differences" with Ryan Reynolds, Mr. Miller sadly left Deadpool 2, shocking the world and leaving folk skeptical. While we wait to hear what he'll be directing next, we now know what's on his mind...

Revealed by THR today, Miller is set to executive produce Sega and Sony's long-in-development Sonic the Hedgehog live-action/CG hybrid movie. The film also has a director, an old partner of Miller's: Jeff Fowler. Fowler worked for Miller's Blur Studio, who have done VFX for several blockbusters, including Deadpool. This will be the man's directorial debut. Fast & Furious man Neal Moritz is still set to produce the film.

It appears that a few changes have occurred. The project's writers are Patrick Casey and Josh Miller, they're the creators of Fox's adult-oriented animated series Golan the Insatiable. Originally, Evan Susser and Van Robichaux were going to write the film, but it seems like they were out the door a while ago. Apparently, according to hearsay, they were aiming for something that was more of a PG-13 flick.

Miller had this say about Fowler tackling the project...

"Jeff is an incredible director with strong story instincts. The world of Sonic presents the perfect opportunity for him to leverage his experience in animation to bring new dimension to this iconic character."

I'm very curious to see what they bring to this given that Miller's own Deadpool and his Goon are adaptations of very family-unfriendly comics. If Sony and Sega want this Sonic feature to be more PG, then I can imagine Miller and Fowler bringing some edge to it, alongside the Golan creators. The franchise has never really gone above the E10+ rating (before anyone says something, no, I'm not familiar with the Sonic Archie comics - apparently some of those tried to go for a teen audience at one point?), so I can imagine - at best - a very edgy PG. I just wonder what kind of tone it will take on. I doubt it'll commit the mistakes Sonic 06 made, because I honestly wouldn't want a Sonic film that takes itself way too seriously. It's possible that it could be irreverent, and mock the ins and outs of the series, but how far can you stretch thtat?

Personally, I would like to see the movie be similar to Sonic's first true 3D game, 1998's Sonic Adventure. While it's probably not chic to consider that game good in this day and age (I'm not blinded by nostalgia here, I still have a blast playing it), I actually dig that game's sometimes overcrowded story and slick style. To me it was the right mix: There was speedy action, the adventure was big in scope, the variety in the levels was great, and I liked all the backstory stuff concerning Chaos. The only big problem with that game was the actual dialogue, which was mostly boring and flat, save for Eggman's parts. If they can take that game's style and combine with dialogue that's actually good and snazzy, then I'll be content!

Or they could perhaps make it similar to the early 90s cartoon adaptation known as Sonic "SatAM", which plunged the characters into a darker sci-fi story that worked... A complete 180 from the other early 90s Sonic cartoon, for sure! (Which, I think, you can enjoy on its own terms.)

All of that aside, I think Sonic the Hedgehog would make for a fun animated movie adaptation. Plus I'd love to see the gameplay translated into dizzying scenes, you know? Him running through loops and twists and whatnot. Time and time again, studios blow it up when it comes to films based on video games. I was initially so excited at the idea of a Ratchet & Clank movie, but we ended up getting a botched matinee that came and went. See, I think animation is the perfect route for video game movies, given that some games - to me - just wouldn't work in live-action or with hyper-real CGI. Sonic the Hedgehog, I think, is one of them, alongside the likes of Mario and many others. I sincerely hope the CG side of this hybrid won't be like Jungle Book, it's Sonic the Hedgehog for Pete's sake!

Now that the film has a solid crew behind it and a director, I'm guessing this will open in 2019 at the earliest. Years back, they thought that 2018 was the target, but I think they'll end up getting it out a year later. Who knows, maybe they can bang it out. After all, Miller banged out Deadpool and made the early 2016 slot, with pretty top-notch results. I think a Sonic the Hedgehog animated movie has a lot of potential, I like the series a great deal, so I'll continue to keep my eye on this one.


What say you?

Weekend Box Office Report: 'Storks' Keeps Hovering, 'Trolls' Incoming

We're now in the final stretch, before the holiday season kicks off next weekend. Everything winds down, while other movies are winding up...

Down just 30% in its last weekend all to itself, Storks is making it to the seven-oh. It should settle for a decent $75-77 million domestic haul when all is said and done. Worldwide, it is now at $153 million, barely double the budget. Hopefully it lands closer to $200 million soon.

That's the only animated picture in the Top 10 right now. Bubbling far below at #25 is The Secret Life of Pets, at $366 million domestically and $868 million worldwide. Watch the sequel break a billion in summer 2018.

Kubo and the Two Strings saw a nice 100% rise, it has one more weekend then the Blu-ray hits (alongside Sausage Party, both on Election Day), it's at $47 million here and $67 million around the world. The film is LAIKA's lowest-grossing, but that doesn't matter. They have the clout to keep doing these films.

Finding Dory is still at $485 million here, but at $1,021 million worldwide. Just two millions away from topping Zootopia as biggest animated movie of the year. It's really rocking in territories like Germany, it seems!

Sausage Party is pretty much done, $97 million domestically and $136 million worldwide. Expect more sequel announcements soon.

Trolls spiked a little overseas, it's now at $61 million, indicating that the new DreamWorks film could be saved by other countries if the stateside gross is not up to par. At this point I see it missing $100 million domestically, but who knows. I still think they threw away an opportunity by not releasing it in mid-October here in the states, when that field was arguably wide open.

How do you think next weekend will go?

Cuss Yeah!: Wes Anderson's New Animated Film in Production

What's this? Wes Anderson's new stop-motion film is closer than we thought?

During an interview with Alexander Olch in GQ, Mr. Anderson let it slip that his new animated film is currently in production...

Wes Anderson, renowned auteur, entered the feature animation world with a bang with his stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox. Definitely quirkier than most mainstream animated fare, it was beautifully done in stop-motion, had a razor-sharp script, and it just knew where it was at. There was a confidence oozing from that picture like no other, and it excelled at pretty much everything else. It's a personal favorite of mine, from the writing to the staging to the tone to the subtle but potent emotional side.

His next animated film, also a stop-motion project, involves dogs, and its cast is pretty impressive so far: Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray (obviously), Edward Norton, and Bob Balaban.

Anyways, yes... In production! That means it could show up either next year or in 2018. It's interesting that Anderson is keeping it rather secretive, which I think could indicate that it is not based on a book. Whatever it does with talking dogs, I'm intrigued. I have a feeling it'll be a bittersweet comedy like its foxy predecessor, and one of all-time great animated talking dog films. If we get it next year, it'll be one heck of a coincidence: This, Rock Dog, and Blazing Samurai, all animated, all about talking dogs.

What say you?

Dashing to the Front: 'The Incredibles 2' Moves Up!

Talk about a big switcheroo, Pixar has played musical chairs with two of their upcoming sequels.

The Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4 have swapped spots. The Incredibles 2 is now set to open on June 15, 2018, while Toy Story 4 - being pushed back for the second time - will open on June 21, 2019...

Honestly, I'm not surprised that The Incredibles 2 has surged ahead in development. Director/writer Brad Bird is a lightning-fast problem solver, a skill that he probably got from his days on The Simpsons. Exhibit A is the first Incredibles, which he worked on for four years, most Pixar films take longer journeys to the big screen. Exhibit B is Ratatouille. In early 2005, the Pixar brass removed Jan Pinkava from the 5-year-old project, and that was around 2 1/2 years before the picture's summer 2007 debut. Bird turned it around so fast, and the resulting movie... You wouldn't even think for a second that it had all those troubles!

The Hollywood Reporter implied that Bird's Walt-like method was indeed the reason why these two sequels were swapped. An "accelerated production schedule", the insiders say.

Toy Story 4, with its new summer 2019 date, will nearly coincide with the 20th anniversary of Toy Story 2. Some are reading the delay as a bad sign, thinking that Toy Story 4 is having multiple story troubles and might be beyond saving. I get that a lot of us don't want Toy Story 4 (I wouldn't flinch if it were cancelled tomorrow), but I think it's simple: Incredibles 2 surged ahead, Bird knows what he's doing, and there's a huge demand for a sequel. Toy Story already got two sequels and spin-offs, this is the first Pixar-made Incredibles anything in years. They probably figure that we can wait for another Toy Story, and that a lot of folk have been waiting a long, long, long time for an Incredibles follow-up.

The old D23 poster, I know.

Toy Story 4, should it keep its current release date, will have taken 7 years to make. That's not unusual for a Pixar film. Let's keep in mind that WALL-E, counting all its early iterations, took fourteen years to get to the big screen. Some projects come together faster than others, and if Pixar needs more time to really make what is actually one of their riskiest film, that's fine. Toy Story 4 has a tall order to fill, and that's living up to one of the rare perfect trilogies, and being the follow-up to what was such a perfect ending. Maybe a whole story change is in order right now (I'll be brutally honest, I don't really dig the whole idea of Bo Peep being pushed back into the story), or they're trying their damnedest to make something impossible work.

Or maybe, as a friend of mine suggested, it's because of director John Lasseter. Lasseter, ever since the acquisition ten years ago, has been a super-busy man. Not only is he running Pixar, but also Walt Disney Animation Studios, DisneyToon Studios, and he's also a key person in the theme parks and elsewhere. I was shocked when he said he was directing the film, because he really doesn't have all the time for that... Or does he? I know he directed Cars 2 from his iPad in less than a year, and that movie was a mess. To be hands-on, he'd either have to put some duties aside, or really multi-task like a pro.

Before anyone brings it up, I'm aware that Josh Cooley is a co-director on the picture. At Pixar, however, a co-director is not necessarily a second director. It's more like the director who handles things on the lower deck of the ship. Lasseter's Walt Disney Animation Studios uses this model, but often times, more than one person is a main director. Take Zootopia for example: Main directors were Byron Howard and Rich Moore, and there was one co-director: Jared Bush. Perhaps Toy Story 4 needs a second "main" director, so why not move Cooley to the position?

Who knows.

What say you?

Onward, Herd: 'Shaun the Sheep Movie 2' Beginning Pre-Production in January

Are ewe surprised? Shaun the Sheep Movie, based on Aardman's highly successful stop-motion TV series, is getting a sequel...

In addition to getting outstanding critical reception, Aardman's Shaun the Sheep Movie grossed $106 million at the worldwide box office against its tiny $25 million budget. Lionsgate's piss-poor handling of the film in the US ultimately did not matter, and it's technically Aardman's first real smash since Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. See, Flushed Away and Arthur Christmas failed to double their budgets, and The Pirates! barely doubled its budget. It's good to see that Aardman had a super-profitable film again.

No shock, they are going to move forward with a sequel, with Richard Starzak set to return to the director's chair. Pre-production is set to begin in January...

Rejoice, the Shaun The Sheep movie is getting a sequel! The original director starts pre-production work in January.https://t.co/rDnrpQNUQn pic.twitter.com/RewrH1Csqm

— Den Of Geek (@denofgeek) October 25, 2016

Which makes it seem like it'll be Aardman's next after Early Man, which is pegged for a January 2018 release. Whatever happened to the sequel to Wallace & Gromit? Or that Cat Burglars project? Either way, it's a smart move, and it's sure to be just as fantastic as the original. This will be Aardman's first-ever theatrical animated sequel feature. Presumably 20 years after the release of their first feature!

Anyways, good news all-around, more Shaun, more stop-motion, more Aardman. What say you?

Weekend Box Office Report: 'Storks' Continues to Ease, 'Trolls' Starts Overseas

Yet another pretty slow October weekend, but that means the current crop can ease.


Storks only fell 28%. It seems the final total for this film, currently at $64 million domestically, will be somewhere in the mid-70s. Just a good click below a similar September animated opener from a decade ago, Open Season. Sony was happy with that film's $197 million worldwide haul against its $85 million budget. Right now, Storks has doubled its $70 million budget worldwide. A few more chugs, and Warner Bros. should be happy with its performance.

Finding Dory lingers in the Top 25, still at $485 million domestically, $1,017 million worldwide. It's a few clicks away from outgrossing Zootopia and becoming this year's highest grossing animated film. It remains the grand champion of animation box office domestically, as the previous record was held for 12 years by Shrek 2. If Moana pulls a billion, the mouse will be a happy camper: Three animated releases of theirs, one Pixar, two from their once-ailing animation house, makin' the big billions.

We are so far from where we were ten years ago, when Disney Animation was scraping the bottom of the box office barrel and mostly putting out disappointing efforts.

Pretty much on its final legs, Kubo and the Two Strings may or may not hit $50 million domestically. It's currently at $47 million here, and $66 million all around the world. It doesn't matter, because LAIKA has the clout to keep making stop-motion extravaganzas. Also, $47 million is 3.9x the opening weekend gross. Shows that word-of-mouth was pretty strong!

The Secret Life of Pets treks slowly to $370 million here, it has topped $860 million worldwide. $366 million stateside, $864 million worldwide. Ice Age: Collision Course still skates a bit, $64 million domestically and $406 million worldwide. Sausage Party looks to just miss $100 million, but the little $19 million movie topped $135 million around the world.

On the other side of the globe, things are happening with the new kid on the block.

Trolls has collected $21 million overseas, as it rolled out in some territories recently. I think Fox and DreamWorks dropped the ball by keeping the early November release date for the US bow, as October was pretty much family film-free and it's out now in other countries. I get the sense that Fox just doesn't care, and will toss the remaining DreamWorks films that they have on hand, if Boss Baby's super-divisive teaser is any indicator.

Anyways, tracking says Trolls won't top $30 million for the weekend, but anything is possible. Remember when tracking said Home wouldn't make much more than like $25-30 million on opening weekend? Then in the week leading up to its release, the tracking folk were saying "$35-45 million", and it opened with $52 million. Anything goes, sometimes. Maybe Fox/DreamWorks can give it one last, eleventh-hour kick and have the little flick stack up well against the oncoming Marvel monster Doctor Strange.

On a side note, both films - visually - are kind of similar to me. Doctor Strange is psychedelic in one way, while Trolls is psychedelic in another. Doctor Strange is like Matrix mindbender-level stuff, while Trolls is the colorful, fuzzy, cute kind of psychedelia. It'll make for an interesting pair that weekend...

What say you?

From Demigod to Governor: Tom Hiddleston To Voice Villain in 'Early Man'

Well would you look at that, Aardman's latest, Early Man, has added Loki to its cast.

That's right, Tom Hiddleston will be voicing the villain of this very stop-motion picture: Lord Nooth, the governor of the Bronze Age town that the Stone Age characters, including main protagonist Dug, are at odds with. The character has been described as "ridiculously pompous". It's not Hiddleston's first voice acting gig. He had played Captain Hook in DisneyToon's Tinker Bell entry The Pirate Fairy over two years ago.

Interestingly enough, Deadline's article confirms that Studiocanal - who is financing the film - plans to shop it around next month to potential American takers. Does it land a distributor anytime soon? Or will we have to wait like we did with Shaun the Sheep Movie? Hopefully not the latter, and hopefully someone decent gets their hands on it. I can see this one getting a distributor before its UK release (January 26, 2018), I reckon Shaun took forever because it's a silent film and the TV show it's based on isn't quite known here. Early Man on the other hand is an original story and boasts quite the cast already, that could lead to a bigger distributor saying yes to it.

Right now, I think potential candidates are STX, A24, Focus, and Fox. Fox is losing DreamWorks next summer, so maybe they'll try to partner up with another animation studio so that they don't have just one under their tree. I'm not sure what's going on with Reel FX, it doesn't seem like they inked a distribution pact with Fox.

Anyways, it's good to see it moving forward. We'll probably get plenty more cast announcements soon...

Nothing's Changed: Universal Gets DreamWorks' 2018 Films, Doesn't Change Dates

It took a while, but it's been confirmed...

Universal Pictures will be releasing the other two DreamWorks films that are set for release in 2018: Larrikins and How To Train Your Dragon 3. They are now officially Universal films, 20th Century Fox's deal ends next year with Captain Underpants. Old news actually, a lot of us knew that a month ago. All these reports here and there implied that the early summer release would be the last DreamWorks film to be distributed by the gold twenty.

The news here is that Universal doesn't plan to change the dates for these two films.

Larrikins will still open on February 16, 2018, exactly one week after Warner Animation Group's Smallfoot, and the same day as Marvel Studios' hotly-anticipated Black Panther.

I thought this date was likely to change... I guess not.

The bright side. Universal knows how to market animated movies, unlike Fox most of the time, as Trolls is - unsurprisingly - tracking pretty badly and will be hit by Marvel's Doctor Strange. It's set to open with $30 million tops, worse than Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and not much higher than Turbo and Penguins of Madagascar. I assume that Fox is just ripping the band-aid at this point, not caring whether the $120 million-costing pictures will make it back or not. They lose DreamWorks in the summer of 2017, so are they thinking "So what?" You would think they'd want to make the most of what they have. Trolls' reception so far doesn't seem half bad, either... You'd think Fox would try harder to make it a little hit.

The Croods 2 still hasn't locked a new date, but it's clear that it'll stay in 2018, breaking the DreamWorks "two-a-year" policy... But then again The Croods 2 is a movie that will probably feel like it belongs in 2017 - even more so if it locks a January date, so I guess it's not a big deal in the end. It needed to be delayed too, not just because of Star Wars, but because of rewrites. Wherever it lands, who knows at the moment.

What say you?

Swear Dog: 'Rock Dog' Gets a PG for "Language"

Well, damn...

The PG rating, as I've said before, is pretty much slapped onto every current animated movie. Even the kiddiest piece of shovelware gets the rating, for something vague like "rude humor" or "crude humor". "Thematic elements" is the other magnet, it seems. I'd argue 90% of them don't deserve that rating, maybe because I come from a time when most PG movies actually EARNED their rating.

This year, interestingly enough, doesn't have a single G-rated animated film. Or a G-rated wide release, outside of a couple little documentaries. Others are picking up on this, too. Doug Walker, through his Nostalgia Critic character, talked about this in a recent editorial. Some articles pop up here and there...

Now, one new rating caught my eye yesterday. It was the rating for Rock Dog, the Chinese-American animated film that came out in China a few months back. Lionsgate is releasing it here in February, and the rating reason was quite... Rare for a modern PG-rated animated movie: Action and language.

Language.

When's the last a big-time animated movie got a PG for language? Rango? The Lorax? Rango had a few "damns" and non-religious "hells". I don't remember the villain saying "damn" in The Lorax, like at all. Other animated family movies, even the more sophisticated ones, decide to be a little more... Erm. Responsible? So that means you're left with subtle jokes that would be unsuitable for young'uns if spelled out, and little innuendos like that. So Rock Dog has language. Like actual, full-on swearing.

But it's PG-level swearing, so we probably won't get anything worse than "damn", "ass", or "hell". Still, it's rather interesting to see an animated family film sport some swearing. It's been a no-no in the post-Code days for the most part, particularly for Disney Animation and Pixar. Some films like Titan A.E. snuck some in, in the 1980s you had some things like The Secret of NIMH and The Transformers: The Movie (which got away with a "shit" in a post-PG-13 PG). DreamWorks got a few in with things like Shrek, but later just opted for the usual "goes over the kids' heads" jokes. Being a story about a dog making it big in the rock star world, the language probably won't feel out of place.

Of course, a few little "bad" words here and there don't automatically make an animated movie mature or "adult". The Lorax may have a "damn" in it, but it's hardly a "mature" movie when everything else in it plays to level of a 6-year-old. Rango on the other hand is mature because of the storytelling, the themes, and the execution of it all, so the few little words fit into the script quite nicely. I still find it interesting that this little picture is the one to actually include this kind of thing in a day and age where language is still mostly untouched by these films.

The big question, though... Will it feel tacked on? Or will it work?

Sequel Powers: Michael McCullers Writing 'Shrek 5' and 'Hotel Transylvania 3'

As Shrek 5 gets closer and closer to release, whenever that may be, we hear a little bit more about it...

Michael McCullers, confirmed in an interview with Trolls and Shrek Forever After directors Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn, is writing the script. From this, we can assume that those directors aren't tackling the ogre's fifth entry. Apparently McCullers came up with the story's idea, too. Who is McCullers? He wrote the two Austin Powers sequels, and has also written DreamWorks' forthcoming The Boss Baby.

This is good news to me. A little fresh blood, and someone who worked on another successful comedy series spearheaded by Mike Myers, is a good fit for Shrek. McCullers could perhaps weave some of that Austin Powers sense of humor into Shrek, which I think has been a tired series for a loooong, loooong while. (Yes folks, I'm the odd duck that doesn't think Shrek 2 is anything more than just decent.)

Getting his feet wet with animation, McCullers is also set to write Hotel Transylvania 3 for Sony Animation, which does have a concrete release date. That's also good news I think, because I wasn't fond of the first one, and apparently numero due suffered from the same problems: Great direction by Genndy Tartakovsky at odds with the Adam Sandler brigade's writing. Hopefully the third one is a step in the right direction and is a good animated comedy, not 90 minutes of noise with a mostly insincere, box-checking story slapped onto it.

It's interesting to see McCullers transition into animation at this stage in his career. He had previously contributed additional script material to DreamWorks' own Mr. Peabody & Sherman. Now tapped to write some real biggies, I can only imagine what he lands from there.

What say you?

Nothing to Cry Over: Teaser for 'The Boss Baby' Debuts

We reckoned the teaser for DreamWorks' first 2017 picture, and their second-to-last film of theirs to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, would surface sometime this month in time for the release of Trolls. It is finally here...



Surprisingly... It looks like it could be fun.

The teaser isn't noise and ping-ponging between jokes and story points, it actually takes the time to set up the premise and work in some fun gags. I don't mind the look they're going for, it has a very soft, almost 50s feel to it, but the art direction in general is not dissimilar to the cartoonier CG stuff we've seen for over 10 years. What the trailer doesn't quite show is something reports touched upon: Apparently the baby only talks and acts like an adult in the older brother's imagination. I wonder how much they can get out of that for a roughly 90-minute movie. I've got some hope for it, for Austin Powers scribe Michael McCullers wrote it, and DreamWorks has made a few pretty good comedies before.

Ever since DreamWorks officially revealed this one, the opinions were either "it looks decent" or "it looks horrible". Yes, it's too safe and probably something DreamWorks shouldn't have blown $120 million on when much cooler projects languish on the wayside. I would've easily taken Bollywood Superstar Monkey and Me and My Shadow over this, but if it succeeds at being a very fun comedy that I'll want to watch again, I can't complain too too much. DreamWorks is now under the Comcast umbrella now, so it probably won't matter too much if this film flops, but it should still be a major concern because it's the animators who could get affected by this... And it has happened many times before at the studio. Not sure how things will flow with Comcast and changed management.

What say you? Did you enjoy the trailer? Do you think this film could be decent? Sound off below!

The Banjo of Pixar: 'Borrowed Time' on Vimeo For Limited Time

For a while, we've heard about a little project called Borrowed Time...

It's a short film from two Pixarians, Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj. They were working on it for five years while working on the studio's feature-length pictures. Shown at various film festivals since last year, it is not a family film by any means, and is something that Pixar - and before anyone assumes, I do love Pixar and I think they excel at making family films - would probably not think of making.

Before I go on, here's where you can watch it. It's on Vimeo for a limited time, as it is now a Staff Pick. What follows are spoilers...

It's a Western, albeit a very grizzled and moody one. Poignant and very direct, it's about a sheriff who visits the very cliff where his father died. Through brief flashbacks to a wild wagon chase, we see that the sheriff - in attempting to save his father - was responsible. It comes as a shock, but yet none of it ever feels so forced. The short's aesthetic rings similar to Pixar's house style, but very detailed yet very abstract. The humans feel like they're from a Pixar film, but an unmade, PG-13 Pixar film.

Coats himself emphasized the significance of the darker tone, saying "In America, animation has largely become synonymous with kids’ films, whereas elsewhere around the world it’s celebrated as a medium that can be used to tell any story. We feel this cultural difference limits the potential audience and range of themes in American animation, and is a large part of why we chose to make Borrowed Time."

Beautifully said. When I clamor for more adult-oriented animated features here in America, this is the kind of thing I'm asking for. Not lowbrow, middle school-level raunchfests like Sausage Party, or a good chunk of what passes as "adult animation" on television.

Hamou-Lhadj adds, "Having worked on family films with a lot of heart and comedy, we wanted to do something outside of our comfort zone: a serious, action drama. We knew this would be a huge challenge for us."

In a way, this short kind of reminds me of Don Bluth's Banjo the Woodpile Cat. He pitched it during his time at Disney, it got turned down, so he and a couple of the young animators worked on it outside of the studio for roughly four years. It attempted to explore what early-to-mid 70s Disney was staying away from (more classical animation, legitimately perilous situations, less comedic tone), things Bluth pushed for before his exit. Eventually, Disney revisited the bite and the gusto that made the Walt films work, Pixar however has yet to go for the subject matter of something like Borrowed Time. Will they ever? Probably not, but perhaps - hopefully - another American animation studio can do the same. Someone smaller maybe, like Reel FX.

It'll be offline in roughly two weeks...

Weekend Box Office Report: Billion Dollar Dory, 'Storks' Still Flies

Estimates for now, weekend actuals to be posted on Monday...

Another relatively quiet weekend, but some things are happening here and there...

Storks fell 37%, and is now sitting at $50 million domestically and $104 million worldwide. Certainly not the drop Open Season - the best we can compare this movie's run to - had on its third weekend, as that was at $59 million domestically by that point. Again, Storks cost $70 million, it's not too far from doubling that. Should it make above, around say, $180 million worldwide, it should be a success for Warner Bros. I've been watching Storks in particular, because I think it could set a new precedent.

Next in line is Sausage Party, which rose 139% because of an expansion, apparently extra footage was added to the film's ending. My theater didn't get this re-release. It's at $97 million domestically, $129 million. Quite the hit.

Notably, Finding Dory jumped 10 spaces up and rose 136%. Still at $484 million domestically, it has finally topped $1 billion worldwide. Amazing that it'll finish behind an all-original animated movie that came out a few months before it...

We did it... A calendar year where two all-animated pictures topped $1 billion worldwide...

Right behind it is The Secret Life of Pets, falling only 26% and landing at $365 million here, $848 million worldwide. Illumination really, really scored with this one. Watch Pets 2 be a potential candidate for highest grossing animated feature.

Kubo and the Two Strings is pretty much disappearing, falling 54%, the climb to $50 million may be a bit of a struggle from here on out. Even then, if it doesn't reach it, it still had incredible legs. It's at $63 million worldwide.

The Wild Life still lingers, going up 12%, but $8 million will be this one's final domestic gross. $30 million worldwide.

And so we wait for the trolls...

Rockin' Around the Corner: US Trailer for 'Rock Dog' Debuts

Ever since it was announced that Lionsgate picked up Reel FX's Chinese co-production Rock Dog for distribution in the US, some wondered when a trailer would drop...

Now one is here, and the film is still on track to open in late February of next year... Judging by this scattershot trailer, this looks like another one that Lionsgate is going to toss off.


It's weird because the first half, while a bit noisy, does a decent job at giving you the gist of the story. I was always interested in this picture because it looks to be a sort of The Gods Must Be Crazy-like story set in an all-animals version of our world, taking place in a Chinese village that's akin to an Amish community, and how one of its own ventures off into the modern world. Reel FX did the animation work, while this is mostly a Mandoo Pictures/Huayi Brothers film.

Lionsgate, however, has a history of dumping animated movies in theaters. They manage to get them wide, 2,000+ theater releases... But their marketing does little to sell them. It isn't just because of quality, they did this to Aardman's Shaun the Sheep Movie last year, and that had one of the highest scores of any movie released last year. Completely. Dumped. It. They've always been unsuccessful with feature animation, whether it's picking up less-than-desirable flicks or doing nothing with decent ones.

Anyways, at least we're getting this feature on the big screen. It looks stronger than Lionsgate's other non-Shaun movies, and I like the premise, so hopefully it's pretty decent. Sadly, due to theater politics, it bombed in its home country. I don't see it doing any better here.

What say you?

Dawning: 'Early Man' Officially in Production

Yesterday, Aardman made it known... Their next feature-length project has officially entered production...

Here's a tiny look at what's in store...


Early Man, as reported earlier, is a stop-motion feature about a caveman named Dug and his hog friend Hognob. He and his tribe unite, and take on the Bronze Age... Through the world's very first soccer match! Yes it sounds different from your usual caveman adventure, and that's one reason I'm there. The other? Easy. It's Aardman! And Nick Park - the Wallace and Gromit creator himself - is directing! The last time he directed a feature-length film was Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit... That movie is over a decade old! You can also tell it's his, because this new duo really look like a prehistoric Wallace and Gromit.

Anyways, the film is set to open in the UK on January 26, 2018. It still hasn't locked a US distributor/date. Like other Aardman pictures, it'll be reasonably budgeted, reports say it'll cost around $50 million.

Even though we've seen little, it already sounds like yet another knockout from the studio across the Atlantic...

A Bigger Giant: Disney Animation's 'Gigantic' Adds New Director

It looks like Walt Disney Animation Studios' next fairy tale adaptation has another director on board... Or, scaling the beanstalk...

Gigantic is the project in question. A new take on the Jack and the Beanstalk tale, the film has been in the works since roughly 2011, and was set to be directed by Nathan Greno alone. Greno made his big debut with Tangled in the autumn of 2010, a very successful reworking of another classic fairy tale that Byron Howard (Bolt, Zootopia) directed alongside him. Tangled was another impressive film in Disney Animation's resurgence in the early post-Eisner years, its box office take boosting confidence all around.

Over the years the story changed quite a bit. Old hearsay from mid-2013 indicated that the studio wanted to release it this coming holiday season, but it turned out that it wasn't quite ready, and that a picture set to open way later - Moana - was gaining traction. There were rumors going around that development had been rocky, and it's not surprising because when the film was officially unveiled at the 2015 D23 Expo, the synopsis was far different from the complicated one that was reported in 2013.

Rumors also suggest that this past summer, development was still a bit rocky on the movie... But that's nothing new in animation-land. Thankfully, Greno and crew won't be facing those issues alone, for a new director has been added to the picture... Meg LeFauve.

Who is Meg LeFauve? At Pixar, LeFauve co-wrote Inside Out and handled The Good Dinosaur's script. She is also set to write Marvel Studios' Captain Marvel, their first picture lead by a female superhero. Let's just say she has gotten around the house of mouse...

As for Gigantic getting a second director, well... Walt Disney Animation Studios has done this kind of thing many times before in the recent years. Only one Disney animated film made between 2008 and now was directed by a single person, and that was Wreck-It Ralph. The films - minus the two made by the dynamic duo, Ron Clements and John Musker - start out with just one director, the director in question is guided by John Lasseter and the story trust. Then things get a little heavy, and when the time comes to really crack the story, the brass add another director (not a co-director, but another *director*) to the picture. Frozen, for instance, started off as a Chris Buck-directed film, Jennifer Lee was then bumped up to director status after her script work on Wreck-It Ralph impressed the folk at the studio.

That's a country mile from what usually goes down at the Emeryville house. Lasseter and the studio's Brain Trust end up removing directors from their films, which has proved to be controversial and divisive.

LeFauve is an interesting choice because she hadn't worked on a Disney Animation project prior to getting this gig. That being said, the choice is great because now we have another female director within the walls of Walt Disney Animation Studios. She will be the second woman ever to direct a film for them. Interestingly enough, The Hollywood Reporter pointed out that LeFauve was writing this picture before rising to the top. Again, she gets around!

I think this is not only great for women in animation, but it's also good because if Gigantic really was facing story issues, now it might see smooth sailing from here on out. The movie is not out for another 2 years, so at least this change didn't come at the last minute... And who knows, maybe LeFauve was in place as director for months, because sometimes these things happen long before an announcement is made.

What say you?

Weekend Box Office Report: 'Storks' Eases, 'Dory' Near $1 Billion

It looks like Storks will be all set.

As said before, the film cost $70 million to make, so not too much is riding on the back of this pretty well-liked animated comedy. It fell a good 36%, ending up at $38 million domestically. Worldwide, it's at $77 million, so it's slowly but surely picking up steam. If it follows Open Season's ten-year-old trajectory, then the picture will end up with $77 million domestically. Overseas grosses should get it up to a good near-$200 million total worldwide, which Warner Bros. should be satisfied with, which I elaborated upon here.

Right now, Storks is the only caricature animation film flying around the Top 10. Kubo and the Two Strings fell 58%, it looks like the crawl to $50 million will be slow, but that will still be 4.1x its opening gross. Worldwide, it's at $61 million. The Blu-ray is coming in a little over a month.

The Secret Life of Pets continues to linger and linger and linger. It fell 36%, it's at $364 million domestically and $834 million worldwide. Just wow... Sausage Party fell 66%, still below $100 million domestically, but it doesn't matter, the budget was tiny on this one. $124 million worldwide, 6 1/2x the budget. Titmouse's adults-only feature Nerdland is hitting theaters thanks to Samuel Goldwyn Films, and perhaps this months-old movie got picked up because of how well the food film did.

Finding Dory looks to finish with around $485-486 million when all is said and done, but it surged in Germany, bringing the worldwide gross up to $986 million. It is now officially getting closer, and as Cartoon Brew noted, this will be the first year where two animated features (again, of the caricature/not same-as-real-life variety) have cracked the big billion at the worldwide box office. Yes, this year has been pretty darn good to the medium...

Little to no movement on Ice Age cinque, The Wild Life fell 25 places, lost 1,200+ theaters, and dropped 87%. The picture looks to barely crack $8 million domestically, much worse than Norm of the North. I hate to think what Lionsgate will do to Rock Dog this coming February... But what matters is, the microbudgeted movie made it back worldwide.

What say you?