As we all know, the horrid DreamWorks Animation is addicted to sequelitis, being a klunky and money-grubbing studio, and also devoid of imagination or creative panache. (Plus, it's run by a non-artist.)
So this bit of news is hardly a surprise.
Disney announces release date for Monster’s, Inc. sequel
Disney’s new film chieftain, Rich Ross, announced a couple of Pixar release dates during a discussion and presentation Thursday. BRAVE, a tale of archery and royalty, ... is set for June 15, 2012. Then five months later on November 16, 2012, MONSTERS’S, INC. 2 is set for release.
Oh, wait ....
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35 comments:
But Peter Docter will be directing the sequel, right? RIGHT?
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/04/22/pixar-to-release-monsters-inc-sequel-and-brave-in-2012/
Oh. I guess not.
June AND November?
Ouch...I recall that being one of the exact painful lessons learned when Disney tried to release two of their major tentpoles that year in the same months:
No matter how "diverse" you may think the titles are, never try to stock more than one studio's output per year--Give the audience enough time to take a breath and salivate; otherwise, you'll have both products competing with each other, and the audience taking sides.
The MUPPETS? Christ.
Repeat this quote from the article to yourself: "Prom, Pirates and the Muppets". And try to keep a straight face.
I bet the other studios are sweating bullets over THAT announcement.
I read in another article that Ross' favorite movie is "Tootsie". Wow. A movie about a man pretending to be a woman. I can see why Ross identifies with that. And why he's made the choices he has regarding the movie's upcoming film slate.
Because they're tasteless and asinine. Monsters Inc. was a self-contained story with a satisfying ending. So why would it need a sequel? Well, I guess for the same reason Cars is getting one - not because it's similarly satisfying (it was BORING), but because it sells tons of toy cars to little boys. And merchandising is what the new Disney is all about. The drive for merchandising dollars drives every cog in that factory now. It's kind of sickening. It's like Ross and Co. are determined to fashion Disney into the caricature dissenters have characterized the company as for years. It makes that evil, grasping, shilling, hypocritical Mickey Mouse stereotype, as portrayed in South Park and the Simpsons, seem all too real.
Thanks, Ross, for dragging Disney down to satisfy your own bad taste. Excuse me, I have to go hurl now.
You can also thank Rich Ross for the title "Tangled," and for making the trailer for it sound like High School Musical.
Gee, guys. You make Disney sound like a greedy, money grubbing corporation.
Oh, wait...
So if Pixar is committing suicide by releasing two movies in a year, what is Dreamworks doing releasing three this year? The only risk there of releasing two movies the same year is not spending enough time to make sure they are both good movies before they are released. It's taken Pixar 17 years to work up to this. Give them a shot.
I do hope that everyone realizes that all of these movies were greenlit by Dick Cook before he left. The only thing Ross did was not cancel them.
Ross was not responsible for the name Tangled, Ed Catmull and Roy Conli were.
I'm not necessarily endorsing Ross, he just hasn't done anything yet other than put together his executive team. Lay the blame where blame is due.
This is nothing new. Disney invented mass licensing exploitation back in Walt's day. Try looking up "mickey mouse" in the dictionary. That was the response to all the crap flooding the marketplace.
Hey man, I get Mickey Mouse checks every week. They seem not to be "crap" and allow me to live a relatively stable life and raise my family.
Disney didn't "invent" it. Not even close. He did exploit it.
So if Pixar is committing suicide by releasing two movies in a year, what is Dreamworks doing releasing three this year?
Hey, Dreamworks always commits suicide by assuming they're more popularly loved than they actually are, we're used to it! ;)
Seriously, think Pixar's either trying to clean off their slate with a lot of backed-up projects, or play "backup strategy" to put the original movie between the two sequels that seem to have been getting so much knee-jerk bad press.
The time Disney tried loading their plate with "backup" was the year they had no idea how to promote "Lilo & Stitch" as a summer movie...But it was okay, because an "unmarketable" sleeper like that would be easily gone and forgotten by the time their big-book classic movie opened for the Thanksgiving slot to make the company look respectable again--Who wouldn't like "Treasure Planet"?
(And leaving Chris Sanders discussions aside, putting two major studio entries five months apart--before word-of-mouth for the first movie had had a chance to die out yet--was one reason most of the audience wasn't aware the second movie had even opened.
Walt didn't create a film in order to sell merchandise. That's the main difference between him and Eisner,
Iger etc. He was an artist whose impractical-seeming ideas turned out to be the mainstay for his company.
To the guy who gets Mickey Mouse checks, a word of advice: save your money. There's a chance of rain in the forecast.
Hey, Dreamworks always commits suicide by assuming they're more popularly loved than they actually are
Um,perhaps DW assumes they are "popularly loved" based on their BOXOFFICE receipts, maybe?
Moviegoers have made DW a huge success. Get over it already.
Angry things to say about Dreamworks! RAWRS!!
Angry things to say about Pixar and Disney GROWLS!!
Anyways back on topic. This press release was a waste of time, everything Rich Ross announced was already announced by Dick Cook or secretly leaked. The only things confirmed and was technically new was the pixar stuff about Monsters 2 and Brave.
Remember the 90's sequels onslaught that Eisner started? Sequels are nothing new. Some companies may exploit their properties more aggressively then others, but ALL companies exploit their properties, marketing, merchandise, media.
To the guy who gets Mickey Mouse checks, a word of advice: save your money. There's a chance of rain in the forecast.
Go back to the basement Stanley, momma's watchin her soaps.
Wow - I can't believe I have to pay $3000+ in guild fees to pay guys like you to sit around and complain all day about successful studios. Dreamworks really nailed it with How to Train Your Dragon and nobody who saw it can deny that - its a great film. Sequels give me and many of my friends stable employment for years. Dreamworks offers long contracts, the only Guild studio doing so. To start blogs representing the guild with, "the horrid DreamWorks Animation" is immature - and I'm calling you out on wasting our guild funds doing posts like this. This industry is tough, but to know we pay $3000 to join a guild that calls the studios funding the guild "horrid" is just too much - I want my money back!
If Anonymous get's their money back then I want my money back too!
Hey Anonymous 6:28:00
Steve was being SARCASTIC.
Christ.
"Plus, it's run by a non-artist." SARCASTIC huh? Yeah right.
Just wait'll you get dumped...its brutal out here.
WOW. You guys are in the entertainment business and you don't understand sarcasm. The entire first paragraph of that post is a JOKE. As in, "Here goes Dreamworks again with their shitty sequels... oh, wait, what? Oh, PIXAR'S making the sequel? Oh, who'da thunk?!"
Like, maybe the high and might Pixar fanboys who always like to point out that "Pixar doesn't do cheapquels" might step back and release that it's part of the business, no matter what studio you're at.
The post is not bashing Dreamworks whatsoever. If anything is being bashed, it's Pixar fanboys and/or Dreamworks haters.
That said, although I don't think this sequel is necessary, I'm excited about it, simply because Pixar hasn't let me down yet.
The guy complaining about the "$3000 in guild fees" is a troll, probably from Animation Nation. Pay him no mind.
This industry is tough, but to know we pay $3000 to join a guild that calls the studios funding the guild "horrid" is just too much
I can't say much for your reading comprehension skills, dude. If you can't figure out that what Steve wrote is his typical snarky sarcasm, you probably should've taken a few other classes in college than just computer graphics.
To spell it out for you--he was defending Dreamworks from the oft-made accusation that they make too many sequels, while Pixar is held in higher esteem even though they are making many sequels too.
DreamWorks is pretty much the only company keeping TAG in business at this point. Most of the other companies don't even keep people over a year at a time because of production schedules. And some have folded or just simply closed because the big guys don't want to pay to keep them on life support anymore.
Quit being so negative about every little thing. Be crappy about something worth a damn and don't take cheap little punches at the big bad corporate machines on the internet blog-o-sphere. Anyone WORKING in this industry should be ecstatic when any company ramps up production, It means more jobs and better job security. This is something elitist High School kids and College students with big egos and nothing else on their minds should be wasting time complaining about, not something INDUSTRY pros should be scoffing about. This is OUR lively hood. Get your head out of your asses and wake up.
Yeah, I'm sure lots of animators will get work for the Muppet movie.
"Yeah, I'm sure lots of animators will get work for the Muppet movie."
Have you heard of storyboards...?
I read somewhere a while back that Henson Productions were quietly recreating all the classic Muppet characters in CG so they could be performed as mo-cap characters. If a new Muppet movie is done as a mo-cap feature then it would mean work for many animators.
I'm cracking up over Anon 6:28's complaint about the Guild wasting fees on making posts on this site.
Uhm...it's a free site.
As for the topic at hand...anyone who's been in this industry for more than five minutes knows that work's work. It's great when you can get it.
**"Yeah, I'm sure lots of animators will get work for the Muppet movie."
Have you heard of storyboards...?**
Oh, ANIMATORS do those? Thanks for enlightening me...
**I read somewhere a while back that Henson Productions were quietly recreating all the classic Muppet characters in CG so they could be performed as mo-cap characters. If a new Muppet movie is done as a mo-cap feature then it would mean work for many animators.**
Uh, uh. Jason Segel, who started the whole sorry project, is a muppet fanatic who insists that NO special effects or CGI will be used in the new muppet movie. He wants it to look like the first movie made back in 1979. The only "effect" will be felt and foam rubber dummies covering sweaty hairy male hands. That's entertainment!
Yes, storybaords. Many of the SMART animators saw the demise of 2D and were smart emough to jump into storyboarding. DW even had training classes for awhile to help animators make that transition if they didn't want to learn CG.
I'm surprised this needs discussing, but as every 2D animator (and 2D assistant animator and cleanup artist) found out you will have problems making animation your lifelong career if you don't learn other facets of the filmmaking process...
...just something to think about.
"Uh, uh. Jason Segel, who started the whole sorry project, is a muppet fanatic who insists that NO special effects or CGI will be used in the new muppet movie. He wants it to look like the first movie made back in 1979. The only "effect" will be felt and foam rubber dummies covering sweaty hairy male hands."
How perfectly idiotic. If anybody wants to see vintage Muppets, rent the Muppet Movie and forget the freaking sequel.
There's no inherent reason why a Muppets movie can't be successful. Make a great movie, for a modest budget, and it can certainly do well. Seriously, some of you are as stupid as executives.
I can think of several reasons why a Muppets movie can't be successful:
1. Jim Henson is dead and Frank Oz is retired. The people who have replaced them, from what I've seen and heard, are in no way adequate replacements. The new voices alone are terrible. People may say, Well Walt Disney is dead but Mickey has lived on. But Mickey was never reliant on a single performer to be successful. Kermit was, and thus he effectively died with Jim.
2. The Muppets seem awfully quaint, and not in a good way. In their heyday, their puppetry seemed fresh and inventive. Computers have changed all that. We now have a new Kermit the frog - the Geico Gecko. He looks convincingly real. Kermit, by comparison, looks like a green mitten. Not exactly in the same league as the Gecko, as Shrek, as Woody, as Toothless, as Astro Boy, as Mike and Sully, as Po the Panda...
3. I don't think the Muppets can compete with the CG characters I just listed. And I wonder why some are still so enamored of them. Maybe they believe that if the Muppets come back, their youth will come back...
Hm, let's see, Jason Segal's biggest laugh came from *ahem* exposing his inadequacies to the world in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Now he wants to make and star in a Muppet movie.
The man's got issues.
Allow me to say:
No union dollars were killed in the construction or ongoing use of this site.
I guess I'm the only one here that's looking forward to see more of Sully and Mike on the big screen....
rufus
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