Shufflin' Sony: 'Hotel Transylvania 3' Moves Up

Look at that, more release date shuffling!

Not too long after their recent slate roll out, Sony has announced that one of their animated pictures is moving up a few months. That film would happen to be Hotel Transylvania 3, which was originally set to open on the same day as Warner Animation Group's S.C.O.O.B. - September 21, 2018. The picture, which is about Dracula and the gang on a cruise ship, is now slated to open on July 13, 2018...

But that's the same day as Paramount Animation's Amusement Park, their first all-original, all-animated movie. The very movie that could be the one that establishes them as a legitimate player again. Methinks Paramount moves it yet again... But to where? Well, maybe early August. Two weeks after Mission: Impossible VI, maybe?

Sony filled Hotel Transylvania 3's old date with Goosebumps 2, which will likely come with the Sony Animation logo attached, despite it and the first one not being Sony Animation productions. January 2018 seemed a bit too soon, so it's cool to see it easing back into the pre-Halloween field... But why against S.C.O.O.B.? Both go for the families and are spooky-themed. Maybe one moves to mid-October, who knows.

It'll be settled eventually,  I think.

What say you?

Sonypalooza: Numerous Sony Animation Announcements Made

Out of nowhere, Sony Pictures Animation gave us plenty of updates on their big slate yesterdary...

Why? Apparently, it was Sony Animation Day, even though the studio was founded in May 2002. You're almost 15, guys, hold 'yer horses!

Before anyone asks... Yeah, I'll say one thing about The Emoji Movie's casting. Patrick Stewart as the poop emoji... Now we've seen it all. You can't make this shit up. (Yes, shamelessly intended) Oh, and the character Maya Rudolph is voicing is kind of unsettling-looking.

In fact, the whole design of this movie is just... It's some of the most questionable I've seen for a big-time CG animated movie.

Anyways, despite how I feel about any animation studio wasting resources on something like this, I'll still say a few other things. The full cast - outside of Stewart and Rudolph - consists of TJ Miller, Jennifer Coolidge, James Corden, Ilana Glazer, Rob Riggle, and Steven Wright. It's kind of a solid cast, I suppose, but it's still baffling to me that Stewart is on board on this flick, let alone voicing "Poop Daddy". Yes, I'm still processing the fact that the character is named that.

Perhaps the only cool thing about this movie is that it'll have a Hotel Transylvania short attached to it. Titled Puppy, it's one of the only Sony Animation theatrical shorts to be based one of their movies.

Hotel Transylvania 3 is keeping the September 21, 2018 release date (regardless of S.C.O.O.B. having that date, the Drac Pack got it first), and the plot synopsis sounds a bit interesting. Dracula and the gang will go on a cruise, Dracula falls for the captain, who turns out to be the daughter of Van Helsing. Now that is kind of a cool plot, despite what I think of the Hotel Transylvania series. I have a little faith in this particular entry because it seems like the Adam Sandler camp has been dialed back a smidge, and that Austin Powers scribe Michael McCullers will be handling the script instead.

Opening after The Emoji Movie is The Star, a new take on the Nativity story. Sony Animation's co-production with Walden Media will actually be outsourced to Cinesite Animation, who are up and coming and actually quite promising. Anyways, Sony Animation is usually conservative with budgets, but this move is rather smart. An animated faith-based movie is not a guaranteed $150 million-grossing no-holds-barred blockbuster, so it's good to see them being careful here.

We now have a look at two of the main characters...

Who is starring in The Star? Zachary Levi, Gina Rodriguez, Steve Yeun, Kristen Chenowth, Keegan-Michael Key, Anthony Anderson, Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Tracy Morgan, and Christopher Plummer. The latter two are voicing Felix and King Herod, respectively.

The most exciting of the 2017-2018 Sony Animation bunch is the still untitled animated Spider-Man movie...

It has been confirmed that the film will be about Miles Morales, not Peter Parker.

Joining director Bob Perischetti is Peter Ramsey, the director of DreamWorks' good but ill-fated Rise of the Guardians. It's great to see him at the helm of a new picture, and it's also great to see another big-scale animated feature being handled by a person of color. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, as reported several times before, penned the script. It's sure to be great, and probably a unique and irreverent spin on superhero movies. The big superhero franchises are in need of a good send-up. (Whether Megamind was just that or not, that's all up to you.) No cast announcements were made, but the film is still set for December 21, 2018.

There was no word on the live-action/photoreal CG pictures Goosebumps 2 and Peter Rabbit. Both are set to open in the first quarter of 2018, and are likely to bear the Sony Pictures Animation logo. Also, no word on the untitled 2019/2020 pictures, not a peep on Vivo. Those projects are still a little ways off, but since it's been two-oh-one-seven for half a month, I'd expect some animation studios to talk 2019/2020 films... If not 2021 films.

Anyways, that's Sony Animation's line-up for this year and all of next year. Some of it's exciting, some of it I couldn't care less for, other parts make me curious. What say you?

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?