It looks like Animal Crackers is having some trouble getting to the big screen.
The film, the passion project of fx/animation veteran Scott Christian Sava, was mostly done up at Blue Dream Studios in Spain with help from several other units/investors. For a long time, we kept hearing that the CG picture - a fun-sounding story looking to emulate the feel of some 80s family films - was aiming for a late Q1/Q2 release this year. However, the film didn't seem to lock an American distributor, thus no concrete release date ever showed up.
From what I've heard, the filmmakers looked to Relativity Media, but we all know what Relativity has been going through since the summer of 2015. Despite getting out of bankruptcy not too long ago, Relativity pulled a couple movies from their slate this past November, one of which was a long-delayed Halle Berry action flick called Kidnap. Prior to its abrupt disappearance, it was set to open in December, and a trailer for the thing was rolling in theaters. The studio was also sold to Singaporean company called Yuuzoo.
Relativity never inked a date for Animal Crackers, but it was on their slate for a little while, something that flew right past my radar over the last few months. The crew had wanted this thing out by the middle of this coming April. April 21st, in fact. Believe it or not, but National Animal Crackers Day is a thing... It's April 18th. You learn something new everyday!
Anyways, Animal Crackers' animation work is all done. What's left? Sound and music, of course. All post-production stuff. Unfortunately, it won't be making that date. Sava himself spilled some beans on the movie's Facebook page...
This is nothing surprising, but rarely do you hear the filmmakers themselves say something like this early on. Sava further explained the problem in a later comment...
So now the desired date is the out-of-the-way Labor Day weekend slot. Animated films typically don't land around there, only the smaller ones. (Such as Lionsgate's US dub of Robinson Crusoe.) It's smart, though, because a lot of the good slots have been taken up this year. August is booked with The Emoji Movie and The Nut Job 2, and late September has The Lego Ninjago Movie.
Is he referring to Relativity themselves? Or another group of people? Cartoon Brew notes that Odin's Eye Entertainment was supposed to sell the film to potential buyers, but they no longer list it on their website. I had a feeling something was up, given the quietness, the lack of a firm release date, and a few other things.
Hopefully that "bad stuff" is settled, and that Sava's film eventually gets a wide US release. What say you?
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