February Studio Roundabout

At Film Roman/Starz Media, the first pass of The Simpsons movie is close to complete...

...and work on The Simpsons feature has kicked into high gear. Like 12 hours per day seven days per week high gear. A staffer who's mostly worked in television asked me:

"Are features always like this? Seven days a week?"

I replied:

"Sometimes. Space Jam was like that, a long grind that went on for months. And the Disney features in the early nineties were tough. One assistant there told me she only went home to sleep, and she had to hire somebody to clean the house and do the laundry, because she was never home. She said it sucked."

"I know what she meant."

Because of the push on the feature, some work on the teevee version is on hold. Some of the television staff had been told their end-of-season layoff dates, but then held over another week...and another week (which of course they're happy about.)

At Disney Feature Animation, it appears that American Dog, Frog Princess and Rapunzel could all have their individual story passes up on reel by summertime.

At Sony Pictures Animation, story work continues on Hotel Transylvania and Cloudy with Meatballs (among others.)

When I walked in, there was discussion among artists about how well Open Season was doing on DVD:

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's Open Season easily took the top spot on the national DVD sales chart for the week ending Feb. 4. The animated feature, which generated $84.3 million in theaters during the holidays, outsold its nearest competitor, 20th Century Fox's "TheMarine," by a margin of nearly 3-to-1. -- The Hollywood Reporter - 2/8/2007.

Happily, a big chunk of revenue comes from direct-to-video, so Open Season will be doing its bit to help Sony's bottom line.