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?

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.

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?

Tidbits: Ralphie's Title, STX Animation & 'Leap!' Leaps Again

Two of today's bits come from CinemaCon, one didn't...

Walt Disney Animation Studios' sequel to their 2012 video game adventure Wreck-It Ralph finally has title...

It is...

Next year, he's gonna break it 👊. Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 opens in theatres on March 9, 2018. pic.twitter.com/u1qQn7TUUI

— Disney Animation (@DisneyAnimation) March 29, 2017

Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2...

Ummm... I don't know what to think of this title. Right now, I'm thinking, take off the "Wreck-It Ralph 2" subtitle, or move it to the front, and it's a bit better. The placement is what's bothering me, not so much the title. The logo is also giving me an Emoji Movie feel, which isn't... Quite... Good...

But this is from Disney Animation. This is from Rich Moore and Phil Johnston. They've been working on this for a while, so... A title is just a title. I still think it could be better, though.

Someone also happened to snap a photo of the big slate Disney showed off during their presentation, which looks exactly like the one they showed roughly two years ago...

So now we know what The Incredibles 2's logo looks like. No more Roman numeral. Disney Animation's second 2018 release, Gigantic, didn't see a logo change. I say they should stick with it. Interesting that the "untitled fairy tale" slated for 7/28/2017 is still on there... It's less than four months away, and no title, no info, no this, no that. What could it even be? I thought it was going to be this currently-filming pic called Magic Camp, but I hear that's not it. Hmmm...

Next up... STX has their animation plan...

Earlier, STX - quietly making the waves as a distributor amongst the heavies - went over some animation plans. For a while, we've known that they've been planning an animated film based on the Uglydolls toyline. Illumination was once set to do that film, but after abandoning it, STX got a hold of it. Simply titled Uglydolls, STX plans to release it on May 10, 2019. Robert Rodriguez is set to direct it... A very interesting choice! Rodriguez has quite the resume, though not all of his family films were winners.

Anyways, I still think it's quite the pick. I have few feelings about this project, being something based on a toyline and all. The dolls themselves are certainly odd-looking, and it's a nice break from the typical character designs you see. It looks like something Illumination would've sunk their teeth into, but... I'm interesting to see how Rodriguez pulls this off.

STX also has an original animated movie on the docket, one starring Eddie Murphy. Apparently titled Bo the Bull, all we know is this: It's about a bull who wants to be a clown.

Another animated picture on their slate is a planned adaptation of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, the nearly 50-year-old stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. A psychedelic update of the Biblical story of Joseph, it falls in line with STX's apparent need to make family-friendly animated features. Of course, we animation fans know that Rice got around long after this production... Doing such minuscule things like... Writing the lyrics for Aladdin and The Lion King's songs...

Not the most thrilling slate, as I was kind of (naively) hoping that STX would break the mold and do bolder animated pictures... But it looks like they'll playing the same game everyone else is in on. I still wish them luck, though.

Lastly, the Weinstein Company - to no one's surprise - has delayed Leap! yet again.

The film, delayed for the second time, will now debut on August 30, 2017. No real compelling reason was given, it's probably just an excuse for Harvey Weinstein to further destroy the film. That's nothing new in the world of Weinstein. It probably would've been so much easier for them if they had just left Ballerina (the original film) alone, and just released that here back in March, like they had initially planned to do. As far as I'm concerned, Leap! really ain't Ballerina... Just like how Doogal ain't The Magic Roundabout. I don't understand how the guy doesn't get it...

All of the non-American animated films he has hacked up have sunk like stones. The one family film he didn't destroy, Paddington, did pretty well at the domestic box office. It was leggy, it got outstanding reviews by US critics, how could he not learn from that? How could he not learn from Arabian Knight and Doogal?

Anyways, Leap! is looking to be Underdogs Deux. Underdogs is his "re-imagined" version of the Argentinian animated film Metegol, which already got a halfway-decent English dub (released in the UK) before he got his hands on it. It was delayed roughly four times, and then it just went straight to video. I think Leap! will suffer the same fate... Of course, they wouldn't ask themselves, "Was the 're-imagining' of it even necessary?"

Well, if ya had only left it alone...

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?

In the Ring: Trailer for 'Ferdinand' Arrives

At last, a trailer for Blue Sky's new animated picture is out!

Ferdinand is based on the classic children's book that was first published in 1936. Walt Disney himself adapted it into a solid animated short two years later, this Blue Sky adaptation happens to be the first feature-length film take on the story. Rio director Carlos Saldanha is at the helm. It also has two co-directors attached, four writers, and a long-list of producers... Paul Fieg (Bridesmaids, Blue Sky's own Peanuts Movie) being one of them.


I have to say... This was a pretty decent trailer!

It was refreshingly quiet, quieter than most American trailers for animated movies that is. No ping-ponging, no noise, surprisingly it's quite calm. It introduces the titular bull with no fuss, it hints at the picture's more emotional side, the montage set to the song is pretty good, and the china shop gag is actually a lot of fun. If we are to believe Mythbusters, a bull would likely navigate a place like a china shop with precision. It was cool to see them play with that gag here.

Yes, I am more curious now. It looks like a potential dark horse, ermm... Dark bull? Anyways, I hope it fares well this coming holiday season. 20th Century Fox apparently thinks this thing can do well as counter-progamming against The Last Jedi, let's just hope the budget wasn't much higher than usual $90-100 million Blue Sky usually spends on their features, and let's hope the overseas markets are charitable if the film comes up short in the domestic market.

What say you?

New Batteries?: 'Toy Story 4' Adds a Writer

It turns out that someone else might be playing with the toys...

When reporting on an upcoming Pharrell Williams-driven musical movie called Atlantis, Variety and various publications mentioned that the screenwriter of the project - Martin Hynes - is a writer on Toy Story 4.

Up until now, we knew that Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (Celeste and Jesse Forever) were handling the screenplay for this Pixar fourquel. Fresh outside voices that hadn't tackled one of the Emeryville studio's films before. Now it looks like Hynes (who wrote and directed The Big Split and The Go-Getter, and also played George Lucas in the short film George Lucas in Love) is in the sandbox. Funny how it usually somehow goes back to Mr. Lucas...

We know little beyond this, though. We don't know if he is rewriting the script, or if he's aiding Jones and McCormack. I have a feeling the former might be the case, because... Toy Story 4 was delayed twice after it was first announced. Pixar originally unveiled the project in November of 2014, and a summer 2017 release date was inked. Nearly a year later, the movie got pushed to summer 2018, Cars 3 took its original spot from it... But then last autumn, it lost the summer 2018 slot to The Incredibles II. It is now set to open in the summer of 2019, and no Pixar films have been slotted beyond that.

Now perhaps this happened because Cars 3 and The Incredibles II just so happened to surge ahead in development, and reached that "in good shape" state before Toy Story 4 could. The movie is still a good two years away, so at the same time I assume that these delays happened for another reason. It's no surprise, for Pixar is following up what is pretty much a perfect ending. Toy Story 3 ended everything on such a high note, making the series that rare trilogy where every installment in it is great.

We may have been told over time that Toy Story 4 wouldn't be a continuation of the "master story", as I like to call it, but that it would be its own standalone movie. Basically a feature-length Toy Story of Terror! or Toy Story That Time Forgot. I was fine with that, until they revealed that it was going to be about Woody and Buzz setting off on a road trip to find Bo Peep, Woody's long-lost love interest who was given away between the events of Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3. Ever since that announcement, I've been unusually skeptical of this film... How could they bring her back into Woody's life without softening the bittersweetness of Toy Story 3?

What makes the Toy Story trilogy so great is that it deals with abandonment, among other great themes. Woody and Buzz and the gang know that, one day, Andy will grow up and will stop playing with them. This comes into play in Toy Story 2, and it's the main focus of the third movie... And Pixar, being the studio that they are, didn't sugarcoat things. They didn't make things all rosy-rosy, instead they made a rather melancholic movie! I remember some complained at the time that it was too dramatic, and that it wasn't funny enough. Andy ends up giving his toys to someone else, friends have disappeared over time, the villain has a bleak outlook on toy life, the Prospector was ultimately right in some ways...

But what mattered was that most of the gang was still together, and that someone Andy knows will take good care of them. That's life. It can't always be perfect. It was very similar to Up in that regard, Carl doesn't live his dreams with his wife, his childhood hero is a monster, and he ultimately ends up losing his house. To me, bringing back Bo negates a chunk of the series' emotional core. Now, I have said before that I'm willing to be wrong on this. I don't doubt for a second that Pixar's story team could make that story work, despite how I feel about all of it.

Maybe the delays and the addition of another writer suggest that they may have rewritten the story completely, or have worked very hard to make the return of Bo Peep an emotionally satisfying follow-up to a great trilogy. I don't know, I'm not a fly on the wall at Pixar, but it seems like development on this one has been pretty rocky. Of course I'm not too phased that we're not getting this movie in less than three months, because I'm used to animated movies getting release dates and then getting delayed. I'm also used to many cool-sounding animated movies getting cancelled. If they need a lot of time to make Toy Story 4 excellent, so be it!

What say you?

Ready for Take Off: Trailer for 'Captain Underpants' Arrives

At long last, the trailer for DreamWorks' Captain Underpants is finally here.

... and just in time for the release of their newest film, The Boss Baby...


I've said it before many times on here, I like that they are going the Peanuts Movie route with the visuals. That way, the look of it can be more faithful to the illustrations in Dav Pilkey's books. The movie itself looks gleefully silly, and some of the action bits are pretty funny. I wasn't blown away by this trailer by any means (then again I didn't really read the Captain Underpants books when I was little), but it looks like a fun romp from DreamWorks. While Boss Baby's latest trailers and spots have left me unsure, this looks pretty straightforward. They also set things up nicely, before it all becomes noise. Typical of 95% of American animated movie trailers, but ya know...

For those who don't know, this is the final DreamWorks movie that's being distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was outsourced to Mikros Image, the intention was to get this thing done on a lower budget, so I guess that's why Fox waited till now to launch the marketing. Yes I know Boss Baby is right around the corner, but they could've started the campaign earlier. Either way, not much seems to be at stake. I'm going to assume this thing cost around $70 million to make, as opposed to the usual $120 million+ budgets DreamWorks usually blows on features.

And yet, for a lower budget feature, visually it's a lot more exciting than most of the CG films we're getting nowadays. They took full advantage of the budget, and made a very neat, cartoony-looking CG film where everything is done in a simplistic, weirdo style. I dig it.

What do you think of the trailer?

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?

Shattered Dreams: Is Oriental DreamWorks Being Phased Out?

DreamWorks' Shanghai unit apparently is the next casualty of the Comcast acquisition of the company...

The moon boy studio, according to Variety, is going to give up their 45% stake in the overseas unit.

The Shanghai unit, which is called Oriental DreamWorks, has actually had it kind of rough. Attempts to jumpstart live-action pictures fell through. It took a while for their homegrown Everest (set for fall 2019) to get off the ground, and now that picture (according to this) has apparently been ported back to Glendale.

Variety also mentions that Kung Fu Panda 3, despite grossing a strong $521 million against a $140 million budget, was seen as something of a disappointment. Though Kung Fu Panda 3 took in over $150 million at the Chinese box office, I can see why they could've been disappointed with the results. The film was pretty much localized, a whole other version of it was made specifically for China with some alterations here and there. It doesn't help that Zootopia blew past it with ease a few weeks later. A film that wasn't an entry in a pre-existing franchise, and one that wasn't either overtly American or Chinese. No one predicted how huge it was going to be.

Not too long ago, the Shanghai unit laid off 40 animators. The staff number was 250 in 2014, now it's less than 100. Universal has their own Chinese distribution firm, and supposedly they see Oriental DreamWorks as extra weight. A source told Variety, "It’s not because it’s not an important or successful business, it just duplicates what they already have in China."

It's yet another Jenga peg being pulled out from the tower, the tower that is the old DreamWorks. After Comcast's acquisition of the company, the now 23-year-old animation studio is changing quickly. Many layoffs ensued, ties with the India-based unit were broken, the new executives pulled the plug on movies like The Croods 2 and Larrikins, and the film slate was reshuffled. While Everest was on DreamWorks' docket long before the acquisition, the only film given the go-head under Comcast/Universal so far is Trolls 2. A film that did far better in the merchandise department than at the box office.

What DreamWorks gets mutated into by the end of the decade, I have no idea. My brutally honest opinion? I don't think things are looking too good right now. The one project of theirs that I was interested in is now dead, and I kind of fear that the new executives may just turn DreamWorks into an Illumination-lite hit-house. Maybe, maybe not. If Edgar Wright's Shadows gets the greenlight, maybe I'll have a little faith.

What say you?

Box Office Catchup: 'Batman' Holds On, 'Rock Dog' Disappears

A few weekends have gone by, nothing of note had really happened.

This weekend, The Lego Batman Movie held its own against Disney's beast of a movie. Still in the Top 10, The Lego Batman Movie collected $4 million for the weekend, and is now up to $167 million domestically. Worldwide, the film has pulled in $287 million, as it's still bubbling up overseas. Not a bad gross if you think about it, considering that The Lego Movie made less than $500 million worldwide. Lego Batman, like its predecessor, cost $80 million to make. They're all set...

In 19th place is Moana, even though the Blu-ray has been out for a couple of weeks. It's up to $248 million here, I wonder if Disney will fudge some numbers and get it past two-five-oh. Sometimes, they'd do that by double-billing the movies with their then-newest releases. For example, by the time Tangled was out on all home media formats, it was at $198 million domestically. Disney kept it in theaters all throughout April, and when Pirates of the Caribbean's fourth entry came out in May of that year (2011), some double-feature screenings had Tangled. Tangled finally crawled past the $200 million mark, the first time a Disney animated film had done that since The Lion King.

So maybe Disney may do just this for Moana when Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 comes out in May. Or maybe, coincidentally, Pirates of the Caribbean cinque.

Worldwide is another story. The picture is finally out in Japan, and the opening gross was around $5 million. Some are questioning this, but Zootopia had opened with $3 million, so it all depends on the legs. Things play out differently in Japan than they do here. Moana's next target is Big Hero 6, which finished up with $657 million worldwide. It may or may not beat it, I think it has something of a shot at doing it. If it does, then it'll the third biggest Lasseter-era Disney animated feature.

Sing is right below Moana on the domestic weekend chart. $269 million here, $589 million everywhere. Should be wrapping up its run soon.

In 24th place is Rock Dog. Losing roughly 900 screens this past weekend, the film 75%. $10 million looks like the final total here, and that's around the same amount it made overseas. Lionsgate will probably yank more screens next weekend when their Power Rangers hits. A big flop, sadly.

Trolls still rolls in 69 theaters, but there has been no dramatic change with the numbers. No matter, Comcast is clearly pleased with the results, if Trolls 2's release date didn't already confirm that.

In limited release, the Swiss-French frontrunner My Life as a Zucchini has made $219k. The Red Turtle has made $788k. For some reason, the 2004 Danish CG flick Terkel in Trouble is still playing! Running in 12 theaters last month, it's now playing in 2, and the thing has made $104k to date. This is way more than what its first two (!) American releases took in, combined. Those American releases occurred in 2010, six years after the film came out in its country of origin.

Strange, strange, strange...

Sky's the Limit: Skydance Gets Into Animation

The blockbuster end of Paramount is now looking into feature animation...

Skydance Media has produced and co-financed several tentpole pictures for Paramount, such as the newer Mission: Impossible films, the two Abrams-Star Trek sequels, and both Jack Reacher films. Though they are doing more films with the mountain studio, they are apparently set to end their partnership soon, which explains why two upcoming projects of theirs - Life and Geostorm - aren't Paramount movies.

Ilion is already hard at work on a feature for Paramount Animation, which is next summer's Amusement Park. Prior to Amusement Park, they did Planet 51 and a local film called Mortadelo and Filemon: Mission Implausible.

Two projects have been launched... The first of which is an untitled fantasy tale that will be penned by Linda Woolverton, screenwriter of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. According to Deadline, the film "tells the story of Elian, a teenager who comes of age using her magical powers to defend her family when the opposing forces of light and darkness threaten to divide her kingdom." That's currently aiming for a 2019 release.

The other picture in the works sounds more interesting. Titled Luck, it's about organizations who are behind the good and bad luck in our lives. The premise kind of makes me think of Reel FX's upcoming film WISH Police, which is about a secret team taking on evil forces who attempt to make people's malevolent wishes come true. Glenn Aibel and Jonathan Berger, writers of the Kung Fu Panda trilogy and Trolls, are handling that one. Skydance CEO David Ellison will have a hand in producing both.

There is no word on what distributor Skydance is prepping these pictures for. Again, Paramount and Skydance are set to split soon, but some co-production pictures are still on the docket. However, those two films - Mission: Impossible VI and World War Z 2 - are entries in Paramount franchises that Skydance previously worked on. So right now, I don't know if these will be Paramount Animation films or if they will be released by someone else. That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us. One has a cool concept, the other sounds like a fun old-school fantasy story.

What say you?

A New World: Teaser for 'Coco' Surfaces

It is finally here! The teaser for Pixar's new original tale, the Day of the Dead story Coco!


What a teaser this was!

Not only does it successfully establish the concept *and* some of the storyline itself, it also has a great atmosphere, a very nice retro vibe (VHS and LPs!), and lots of little subtleties. Pixar's take on the Land of the Dead is a country mile from The Book of Life's depiction of it. While Book of Life's was a painterly, visually amazing city... This is like a forest of town neighborhoods and highways, they almost look like individual trees with buildings wrapped around them. It's big, complicated, and stunning.

The music also sounds great, and also boosts the atmosphere. I think the teaser really shows how songs will be worked into the picture, and how the film won't be a more traditional break-out-into-song musical, as that has been emphasized long before this teaser was put together. I'm quite fine with this direction, though one day it would be cool to see Pixar take their crack at the classic "singing" musical.

The teaser is definitely a nice change of pace from jokes-jokes-jokes.

In fact, Pixar's teasers have been rather different as of late. Pixar actually sort of pioneered the gag-based animated movie teaser.

For their second feature, 1998's A Bug's Life, they made a teaser composed of animation made just for it that wouldn't be used in the film itself. Ever since that film came out, Pixar has done this for almost every subsequent picture of theirs. Now, for a long while, these were also very humorous teasers. WALL-E's teaser broke the mold a bit and Up's was a little cryptic, but it was back to the funny teaser after that. Then the teaser for Brave showed up. Not a joke in sight in that one, it was rather serious and it ended on an intense moment, not a gag.

Now... The current trend we're seeing began with, oddly enough, The Good Dinosaur. That film's teaser showed the film's opening minute with the asteroid missing Earth, and then a montage of clips from the actual movie - not special animation made just for the teaser - set to some pretty epic music, no dialogue at all. Finding Dory's teaser was an alternate version of a scene from the movie, this very version was going to be in the movie before the filmmakers decided that it wasn't up to snuff. (You can see this on the Blu-ray's selection of deleted scenes.)

Cars 3, their next feature, had a teaser that had maybe one line of dialogue... It was just shots of a race, and then Lightning McQueen crashing and flipping over in slow-motion. The race is also in the movie itself, though it was re-lit for the teaser. McQueen's climactic crash is actually going to take place at nighttime.

Now we've got this. This has got to be footage from the movie itself, all of it. If it isn't, I'll be surprised. There's very little humor in here, and it's all about story, Miguel's character, the atmosphere, and the premise itself. This is one of Pixar's best teasers yet...

What say you?