Mountain Splat: Paramount Animation Launches New Nick-Heavy Slate [UPDATE]

During their presentation at CinemaCon earlier today, Paramount revealed some big changes to their animated movie slate...

Their animation presentation was overall pretty short, but footage from next year's Amusement Park was shown. Reactions seemed rather mixed, some said it looked like kids-only fluff, others said it looks like it could have some substance. The release date is now August 10, 2018. It used to be July 13, 2018. The change was obviously going to happen. Hotel Transylvania 3 recently landed in the mid-July slot. Smart move, Paramount.

Paramount will team up with Nickelodeon to do more animated pictures, no shock there. Ever since they established the animation label in 2012, Paramount's plan always included lots of Nick-based features. They started on a Nick-based movie, the successful Sponge out of Water. A third SpongeBob movie has been on the slate for quite a while, it is no longer opening the same exact day as The Lego Movie Sequel. It's now set for August 2, 2019. Another smart move right there...

They have also announced a movie based on the current Nick hit, The Loud House. I'm sure that will raise the roof somewhere... That film is currently set for February 7, 2020. Will it be a traditionally animated picture? Or a CG'ed take on the show? Hopefully the former, even if its success won't mean anything for 2D's future here in America outside of TV show adaptations.

The plan is to release six animated movies between 2018 and 2020. So far, that's four...: Sherlock Gnomes (1/12/2018), Amusement Park, SpongeBob 3, and The Loud House.

The next two? They will also be Nick pics (slated for 3/22/2019 and 7/31/2020, respectively), and the sixth? Probably one of the films they announced some time ago, like Beastlies, The New Kid, Shedd, or maybe something else. Hopefully something original and/or fresh.

I'd say it's a smart strategy, because if they do the Nick films in 2D, it won't cost them too much. They can make easy profits off of those, and save the $70 million+ budgets (should they go that high) for the more "event"-type pictures. One thing is for certain, Paramount Animation is not a studio. It's a group, with various studios doing different features for them. Just like Warner Animation Group!

That all being said, what will the other two Nick movies be? My guess... One of them will be The Fairly Oddparents, as that show is still going. Like SpongeBob, it just won't stop, and it's now their second longest-running animated show. In terms of currently-airing shows, maybe Rabbids? An animated Rabbids movie was talked about before, but Sony was set to do that. I kind of doubt Pig Goat Banana Cricket is a candidate, because that show seems like it's on ice these days.

As for an older Nicktoon? Maybe, although Hey Arnold!'s long-delayed "Jungle Movie" is going to be a two-part TV movie this coming fall. Some Nick classics like Rocko's Modern Life are coming back, but will they get the theatrical movie treatment? Who knows, who knows... Maybe it'll be that rumored Nicktoons team-up movie, apparently the thing was indeed pitched, but never made it past that stage. Or maybe... It's possible that it'll be a feature-length pilot for an upcoming Nick series.

Maybe it won't even concern a TV show. Nick's name has been attached to numerous family movies released by Paramount, including the likes of Rango and The Adventures of Tintin... So one of those pictures maybe is not a Nick show-based movie. Amusement Park looks to carry the Nick name, and will get a Nick show next year, so yeah...

UPDATE (3/29/2017)

BoxOfficeMojo lists the untitled 7/31/2020 Paramount/Nick film as a "Hybrid", while the 3/22/2019 Paramount/Nick flick is labelled as "Animation"... So the 2020 film is a live-action/animation hybrid? Welp, so much for Paramount being done with those. They said they'd move on from those because of how badly Monster Trucks turned out, but hey... Maybe it'll be a live-action/unreal animation hybrid. Still boring to me, but it's what they want to do.


What say you?

Still Bustin': Animated 'Ghostbusters' Seemingly a Go

It looks like the Ghostbusters franchise still has some life left in it.

Last year, the mega-budgeted reboot Ghostbusters: Answer the Call lost money at the box office. Despite that, Sony indicated that they would press on with the series. Talks of an all-animated Ghostbusters movie had happened, and that it would be the next attempt at rebooting the franchise for a modern audience. Now, it's looking like a reality.

In an interview with io9, original Ghostbusters writer/director Ivan Reitman outlined some of the plan. He says...

We jumped into an animated film [after the last movie] and we are developing live-action films. I want to bring all these stories together as a universe that makes sense within itself. Part of my job right now is to do that.

I'm honestly okay with Ghostbusters going animated for the big screen. It worked for the small screen, so why not? In a day and age where Disney gleefully assimilates its animated classics into superior live-action/photoreal CG, this is actually refreshing and kind of exciting. When's the last time you saw a live-action film franchise go animated? Outside of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I have no idea! And direct-to-video animated sequels like The Animatrix don't count!

You might bring up The Smurfs, but here's the thing... The first Smurfs movie - a package feature of roughly five previously-released animated shorts - came out in 1965, in Europe only. Then there was The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, which debuted in Europe in 1976, and came out in the US in 1983 after the success of Hanna-Barbera's Smurfs TV cartoon adaptation. So that went from animation to live-action/animation hybrid, and then back to animation. Headspinner! A Sony headspinner! Tintin flipped back and forth in Europe, there was a stop-motion film in 1947, followed by live-action films and traditionally animated films, long before Steven Spielberg's all performance-capture adaptation. Though Scooby-Doo is based on a long-running cartoon series, I guess that could count. Two live-action theatrical Scoobs, and now the all-animated one from Warner Animation Group is coming next year.

Given that Ghostbusters was arguably given closure in the form of 2009's Ghostbusters: The Game, I think they can go anywhere with it now. Perhaps Answer the Call should've been connected to the main master storyline, but it decided to be its own new story instead of a truly soft reboot. A sort of "Next Generation" kind of Ghostbusters story. Hopefully the animated film honors the original, but is also successfully its own thing as well. Ghostbusters is a bit of a hot button because of what happened last year, but really, I think Answer the Call's failure had more to do with its absurdly big budget and Sony's piss-poor marketing. Even Reitman thinks the budget ballooning was a big problem.

So apparently the animated movie will share a universe with new, in-development live-action movies. This sounds like a very Sony Pictures kind-of thing, as the company I believe has been making some rather tone-deaf decisions these says, especially since the post-hack management change. I mean... The Girl in the Spider's Web not bringing back Rooney Mara? An MCU-less Venom movie? C'mon...

But hey, if they can somehow make it work, I'm all for it. A shared universe having both live-action and animated movies? Either this is a big clustercuss in the making, or something that could change shared universes. Who knows!

Also, Reitman apparantly said he hopes the animated picture will be out by 2019 or 2020. Sony Pictures Animation has multiple "franchise" films set for 2019 and 2020, so it could fill one of those slots.

What say you on all this Ghostbusters business?

Won't Stop the Feeling: DreamWorks Announces 'Trolls 2'

No need to wait for an annual report, for it appears that DreamWorks is very happy with how Trolls did...

Right out of the gate, DreamWorks announced the sequel and its release date: April 10, 2020.

That's one week after an untitled Sony Pictures Animation "franchise" film. With this year, we're seeing animated movies opening closer and closer to each other, so clearly they feel that this particular risk is worth taking. I don't believe in cannibalization myself, but I hope all these films being released so close together doesn't bring too many downsides.

It seems a little confusing at first. Why a sequel? Trolls made 2.7x its $125 million budget, and I'm sure a lot of money was poured into the marketing. By contrast, DreamWorks' supposedly-disastrous Penguins of Madagascar made 2.8x its budget, and that lead to cutbacks, layoffs, and a whole studio (PDI) being shut-down. I always assumed that Penguins was called the disaster because it missed $100 million domestically, whereas Trolls and Home each surpassed $150 million on American soil. That, and Trolls was a merchandising monster. I hadn't seen so much merch for a DreamWorks film in *years*...

It also helps that its main song was a big hit. I can't get away from it, because my theater lobby's ad-TVs play it on near-infinite loop. I don't dislike the song, but ya know... It gets a wee bit tiresome when you hear it all the time.

So yeah, with that in mind it makes a little sense. Also, DreamWorks is no longer the studio they were in January 2015, when they got hit so hard by Penguins. They're now owned by Comcast, a big money pit. Without a safety net like that, they were in the position where they either had to sink or swim. Remember how some sites were ringing the death bell for them?

Trolls 2 is sure to repeat its predecessor's success in some way. The movie was no mega-hit by any means, so it would be wise for post-acquisition DreamWorks to keep the costs down this time. Since DreamWorks now looks to release one Glendale-made film every calendar year, this raises a few questions. The Edgar Wright-directed re-imagining of the cancelled Me and My Shadow, Shadows, was once planned for a 2019 release until DreamWorks/Universal decided on the one-a-year plan.

However, DreamWorks has their Shanghai-based unit. That studio is making their own animated feature, Everest. That's opening in 2019, the same year DreamWorks will release the mainline How To Train Your Dragon 3. That strategy is also being tested this year: DreamWorks outsourced this summer's Captain Underpants to Mikros Image, while The Boss Baby - a little over a month away - was done in the states. So say Trolls 2 is a mainline picture, will we get an outsourced/Shanghai film that same year? Could Shadows possibly be a smaller outsourced film?

Also... DreamWorks... Any news on Larrikins. It's out in a slightly less than a year. Maybe tell us a little bit about that one, eh?

What say you on Trolls 2?

Despicable Sequels: Illumination Announces Sequel-Heavy Slate

Illumination Entertainment... What a well-oiled hit-making machine...

As Sing continues to hang on at the box office, the studio has rolled out a revised slate that adds two sequels to the mix.

Remember how The Secret Life of Pets 2 was set to open in July of 2018, just two years after the release of the first one? That's no more, the film has now taken the July 3, 2019 slot.

Another sequel fills their summer 2020 slot: Minions 2. That is opening July 3, 2020. When will enough be enough?

Finally, and this was totally inevitable, Sing 2 has been penciled in for Christmas Day 2020. Four years after numero uno.

No word on what will take the July 2018 slot Pets 2 left vacant, but... Yeah, sequels sequels sequels.

Forget your old complaints about DreamWorks being sequel-heavy, forget the "Pixar is a sequel factory now!" schlop. Illumination has gleefully taken the cake. Outside of an already-adapted Dr. Seuss story, their slate is sequels and franchise entries. So far, they've already released two sequels... All within the span of five years. Unless an original miraculously finds its way into July 2018, this is what we're stuck with. What the heck's going on with Johnny Express and Flanimals? So much for a push for more original stuff. PR-friendly words...

Now, nothing is ever concrete. It's very possible that Illumination will slate an original (read: something that isn't a sequel, before someone chimes in) in-between two of the three sequels. They have nothing else slated for 2019, so maybe Johnny Express can worm its way into a fall slot and give us something cool. Something to off-set the barrage of sequels. I don't dislike sequels, but three in a row? C'mon.

You could bring up the fact that DreamWorks did a three-in-a-row once... Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots (yeah yeah, spin-off! Still a franchise entry, though), and Madagascar 3. All released back-to-back, all were pretty well-received. I found all three to be strong pictures. It's a good point! To be fair, many an animation fan in 2011 looked at Puss in Boots - coming off the heels of the relatively unwanted and safe-as-vanilla Shrek Forever After - and deemed it unnecessary. Kung Fu Panda 2 was highly anticipated because of how good the first one was, whereas I think we kind of treated Madagascar 3 as an "oh well, they had to make it" kind of movie.

That being said, we got the three-in-a-row because of scheduling issues. In 2009, DreamWorks' 2010-2012 slate was a whole lot different. The same is true of Sony Pictures Animation. The Smurfs 2, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and Hotel Transylvania 2 all opened back-to-back as well. Leave out Goosebumps, and you actually get four in a row, with Smurfs: The Lost Village. The streak is ironically going to be broken by The Emoji Movie. In Sony's case, it was two things... At one point, 2014 was supposed to house a feature called The Familiars, which would've put it between Cloudy 2 and Hotel Transylvania 2. At another time, Sony Animation's 2014 film was going to be Genndy Tartakovsky's Popeye. Second... There was a complete management overhaul not too long ago. Their slate looked a whole lot different before the late 2014 hack and subsequent switcheroos.

I think it's a me problem as well, because Illumination kind of frustrates me to be honest. I think their movies show potential and have some charm, but end up feeling very plastic and corporate. Plus their only Dr. Seuss adaptation (for now) is another issue. I like that they put out two original, half-decent movies this year, but they can do better. For a studio run by one guy that keeps its budgets down, they really play it safe. Despicable Me, as far as I'm concerned, is their only genuinely good film. But like all overhyped things, it took on a form of its own that can be somewhat annoying when crammed down your throat during a period of time. Minions, Minions, Minions... Screaming yellow tictacs, their designs so generic, yet people love them so much. So much for their "animation is for kids" attitudes, they find joy in the simplest of animated characters.

I don't hate the Minions, I think they're a lot of fun in the first Despicable Me, because they didn't overuse them in that film. In part deux, yeah, they're more prominent and the film's could've-been-great story about the kids wanting a mother takes a backseat. Despicable Me 3's teaser intrigues me because the Minions only appear for like a few seconds, the trailer's all Gru and the new villain.

I'll put aside my bias for a few seconds. Minions 2 could work if it's still set before the events of Despicable Me. The first spin-off ends with them ending up with Gru, so the sequel could be about them and their relationship with Gru throughout his childhood. I'm not saying that Gru is some hyper-compelling character who needs all this backstory (the stuff with his mother rejecting him was enough), but in this world of "everything needs a sequel", might as well salvage it in some way.

Sing 2's existence doesn't bother me, but where do they go from there? Same thing with The Secret Life of Pets 2. They could use the sequels to explore new avenues and experiment, but they didn't do that with Despicable Me 2, which leads me to believe that they'll just be business-as-usual entries that gross a billion dollars each and Universal/Comcast/Illumination goes home happy. Hey, it's business, I get it... But I still think they should even things out a little bit.

Despite the fact that these things reel in money, maybe I wouldn't be as ornery if they only announced Sing 2 and pushed Pets 2 - already a known thing - back. Minions 2 in-between both, instead of an original, kind of irks me a bit.

What say you?

Singin' Sony: Sony Animation and Lin-Manuel Miranda Launch Monkey Musical 'Vivo'

A little shocker announcement that came out nowhere... Sony Animation's got something interesting cooking.

Vivo is the name of the film.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is doing the songs... All eleven of them. The Croods director Kirk DeMicco will helm the picture, and long-timer Lisa Stewart (Almost Famous, Monsters vs. Aliens) is set to produce. Originally pitched to DreamWorks six years ago by High School Musical creator Peter Barsoccini, the project will also be written by a LMM comrade, the writer of his In the Heights - Quiara Alegría Hudes.

A pretty strong line-up right there. Sony Animation's brass is very confident in this tale, the story of a music-loving capuchin monkey that goes on an epic journey from Havana to Miami to meet his goals. It now has a concrete release date... December 18, 2020.

Sony Animation had originally staked out December 11 of 2020 for an "Untitled Original", the slot is filled, and the movie in question moved back a bit. Yes, they seem super-confident in Vivo. Why wouldn't they? Hot off the success of Moana, not to mention Hamilton and the slew of upcoming LMM projects (Mary Poppins Returns, for starters), it makes sense. What I didn't know was that it was in the works for a long while before Moana entered development, about a year before Ron Clements and John Musker even pitched what eventually became Moana!

Anyways, this is great. I was originally a bit bummed on Sony's line-up, what with Emoji movies and stuff. This, alongside the animated Spider-Man movie and The Star give me a bit of hope. Whatever those untitled 2019 "franchise" entries are, I could kind of care less right now. Vivo sounds cool, it's neat to see Lin-Manuel diving into more animation, since his new Walt Disney Animation Studios project is probably quite a long ways off. I like the idea of a musical set in Havana, alongside some other things. If Emojimovie pays for more cool stuff like this, then that's all good.

What say you?