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?

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?

Amped Up: Another Spot for 'Cars 3' Surfaces

If the teaser, the US poster, and the extended version of the teaser didn't already spell it out... Pixar is apparently really sorry about the direction they went for Cars 2...

This new preview of the film, dubbed an "extended look" (though I'm sure it'll unravel in theaters, because that extended teaser shown during the National Championship is currently playing before Lego Batman and was spinning before a few other movies), is no different from its predecessors.


Again... No Mater, no humor whatsoever, just racing, racing, racing. The tone is pulse-pounding and intense, it's emphasizing the heck out of the fact that it's not going to be anything like Cars 2. It's almost like a loud apology... I think they get it. Heck, I'd laugh out loud if halfway through the finished movie, Lightning tells Mater, "Mater, we've been through this. That spy stuff was all just a dream!"

I'm not sure if this kind of marketing will really work in the film's favor or not, but I like the way they're presenting it... Now a little more dialogue and some story in the next full trailer, that would be cool.

Anyways, they finally hint at the late Doc Hudson's role in the film, though the trailers are seriously lacking new face Cruz Ramirez. The trailer also confirms that the crash takes place at night, which I already knew because I saw the leaked clip from the presentation at the International Auto Show in Detroit. Oh, and finally... The film's logo and not, ya know, "Summer 2017" on top of the film's signature hood ornament.

Yes, it looks good. The sequel we should've gotten, and I say that as someone that didn't mind Cars 2's silly spy stuff.

What say you?

Burning Rubber: Extended Sneak Peak for 'Cars 3' Debuts

Aired during the National Championship as expected, a new look at Pixar's next is now online...

Instead of being a proper full trailer, this is more an extended version of the teaser that debuted back in November. The very teaser that got folk talking! The first half is the whole teaser, the rest is all-new stuff.


No silly country bumpkin hijinks with Mater to be found here, no spots of humor, really. The trailer focuses entirely on McQueen and his millennial competition. We get a little peak at Cruz Ramirez, but the trailer shows off the antagonistic Jackson Storm. The trailer also confirms that this will be very different from its predecessors, and as a trailer, it has an overall intense and dramatic tone.

I want to point out that the nighttime crash that you see quickly in the second half of this is going to be the one in the finished film. The crash scene in the teaser? It's in the movie, but they re-lit it and made it look like it was set during the day. How do I know? Someone leaked the actual clip from the movie, which was only shown to those who attended the presentation at the International Auto Show in Detroit. The same shots and everything, but at nighttime. It was much more colorful, too... Almost as if the marketing people were jabbing at Hollywood's love for desaturated, grayed out, "gritty" movies.

That's the last thing most folk would associate with Lightning McQueen and pals. It's genius, really. The film will probably open higher than I expected it to at one, because of this. Long shunted aside as the "kiddier" Pixar series, the marketing is really making an effort to get adults interested. While the film itself looks more vibrant than the teaser, it still isn't as popping as the first two installments in the series. They've gone for something a little less candy-coated this time, and I think it'll work.

Anyways, I've been sold on it since the day they said it would be much like the first Cars. This new extended first look/trailer? I'm impressed. What say you?

Time to Cry: Full Trailer for 'The Boss Baby' Surfaces

Out in three months, DreamWorks' The Boss Baby got itself a full trailer...

Right off the bat, I wouldn't call this a good trailer. If you're new here, I have a particular frustration with American animated movie trailers. They aggressively dart from jokes to story bits to jokes to story bits, and when they end, I'm like... "Okay, what did I just watch?" But I don't review trailers for their editing, what's the footage like?


Well, this looks a little weird in some ways, but in other ways it looks like a typical lightweight animated comedy-romp. There's the frenetic tone, the one-liners, the goofy premise, and some inevitable gross-out humor. The trailer clarifies that a lot of it is pretty much happening in the older brother's imagination, which is kind of cool, but I can only imagine how they'll stretch that out to 90 minutes.

It's also interesting how the boss himself talks, but the other babies act like babies. It very much reminded me of the old Family Guy episode where Stewie, during his first birthday party, is trying to assemble a team out of the neighbor babies. They of course act like babies, much to his frustration. Anyways, in terms of the story? I'm pretty iffy on this one. The Boss Baby is pretty much spillover, it's a product of a short era where the studio was quietly regrouping after the fallout in January 2015.

Context: DreamWorks had a lot of box office misses over the span of two years, and only two pictures released during this troubled time - The Croods and How To Train Your Dragon 2 - made a profit. The final straw was Penguins of Madagascar, which posted very low numbers domestically. So in January 2015, DreamWorks shut down sister studio/veteran house Pacific Data Images, laid off over 500 employees, and drastically reduced the number of films on their slate. Then former CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg took it upon himself to really oversee the next couple of features, The Boss Baby included. It was pretty much in the can before Comcast stepped in.

Boss Baby could go either way. It could be a sharp, clever comedy like director Tom McGrath's third Madagascar installment, or it could be all over the place like The Croods, or it could be a plain-nothing movie like Turbo. It looks very, very hyperactive but there were some bits that made me laugh.

I actually am kind of digging the very soft animation style they went for. In a few interviews, some of the crew emphasized how they wanted this film to have a retro cartoony feel, and I definitely get a slight 50s vibe out of the whole thing. Everything looks kind of painterly and like something you'd see out of an old animated commercial or something. It certainly looks unlike many of DreamWorks' CG pictures.

The verdict? I really don't know. The story seems kind of there, but some of the humor is good, seems very jumpy, I like the look of it, and hopefully it's a solid comedy in the end.

What say you?

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

What say you?

Closer to Land: Action-Packed Full Trailer for 'Moana' Debuts

Well, no more fretting, for the full trailer for Walt Disney Animation Studios' 56th is finally here!

Moana's trailer is all about action, thrills, the scale of the picture... It looks so massive, even if it's not set in a fully thought out city or a series of video game worlds.


Wow...

This one's really going to amaze. If there's one thing animation can really excel at - when done right - it's pulse-pounding action. Few shots in this particular trailer gave me the chills! That's rare. The whole trailer is just a showcase of the spectacle, and it's less about Lin-Manuel Miranda's music or even the comic relief - even though there's a good-sized dose of it here. In terms of editing it is above most recent American trailers for animated movies, not anything amaze but it does do its job. I particularly like how much they showed of Moana and Maui's interactions, and give a tiny glimpse of how the water works. (If you have not seen the older Japanese teaser, that is.)

The visuals... Color-wise, it's top notch in the world of Disney Animation's CG. The water alone is stunning, and the staging looks out of this world. I got some real Pirates of the Caribbean vibes in some shots, another shot actually reminded me of The Incredibles. Maui taking on what appears to be the Lava Witch? Dear lord, if that's not a Ron and John-ism I don't know what is! Giant Ursula, snake Jafar, the Hydra...

Yes, it looks epic.

What say you?