Saturday, May 15, 2010

French Animation

France is doing beaucoup animation just now. Despicable Me comes out later this year, and some newer projects are rolling.

French film studio EuropaCorp. has partnered with HP to make an animated feature film version of Mathias Malzieu's novel "The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart" for a fall 2011 release. ... Malzieu will direct the €20 million ($25 million) project alongside Stephane Berla, with EuropaCorp. producer and Luc Besson's wife Virginie Besson-Silla set to produce in association with France's Duran Duboi

... After their "Arthur" franchise, EuropaCorp. is expanding into the animated realm with another 3D animated feature "A Monster in Paris," set to hit French theaters at Christmas.

EuropaCorp. is the studio of Luc Besson, whose current wife is one of the producers of Cuckoo-Clock Heart. Besson is one of the more prolific and profitable French film-makers.

Over a 30-year career [Besson] has not only directed 10 features ... but has also written and produced dozens more, including a handful of the most commercially successful French movies ever. ... [H]is "Arthur and the Invisibles " — a Harry Potteresque children's adventure that is a hybrid of live action and innovative 3-D animation — has earned nearly $110 million. ...

Arthur did well in Europe, but the Weinstein Co. took a major bath releasing the film stateside. More's the pity.

Happily, the non-traction of French c.g. features hasn't poisoned the Gallic appetite for le animation. We'll find out what sort of hunger American audiences possess for French product when Despicable rolls out this Fall and Cuckoo-Clock Heart opens the next.

13 comments:

Teodor said...

The French recently have made and a lot 2d animation.
Some are visually richer than the The Princess and the Frog.

Anonymous said...

The french animation is all flash, no substance. It'd be nice to see them do some CHARACTER animation. Especially at that goeblins school.

Steven said...

The quality of French animation is beside the point. The important question is, what is the economic/tax structure there that makes these productions feasible? If we want to create jobs here we have something to learn about that. There is no doubt that we have the talent.

Anonymous said...

The U.S. pays the 14th highest taxes in the world. When the gNOp starts spending like drunk sailors (during the bush years) to drive the economy to the brink--and then whine about having to PAY for it---we just may have to climb up that list.

Anonymous said...

**The U.S. pays the 14th highest taxes in the world. When the gNOp starts spending like drunk sailors (during the bush years)**

Oh, and we've got a spendthrift in the White House now? Give it a rest, lefty.

Anonymous said...

^Sorry, I meant we DO have a spendthrift now. And hopefully that mistake will also be corrected come 2012.

Steven said...

You know what needs to be corrected? A corporate tax structure that allows a company like Exxon to pay 15 BILLION dollars in corporate taxes overseas and ZERO in America. How do you pay LESS than zero? Typical righty hypocrisy; billions wasted on undeclared pre-emptive wars is necessary and patriotic. The same amount spent, (even temporarily), on the economy is irresponsible, destructive "overspending." Figuring out and spending astronomic amounts of money on redundant obsolete ways to kill people is "defense." Spending money to help people get back to work, see a doctor or stay in their home is "socialism."

If America got Exxon's 15 Billion dollars in corporate taxes instead of zilch, maybe the money could be used, among other things, to give producers a tax incentive to put more of us back to work.

Anonymous said...

"Arthur did well in Europe, but the Weinstein Co. took a major bath releasing the film stateside. More's the pity..."

Blaming the Weinsteins for Arthur box office performance? The movie sucks big time. It's slow, boring, predictable, the story just doesn't work.

"is a hybrid of live action and innovative 3-D animation..."

...come on...

And yes, the Triplets of Belleville is much better (in every aspect) than the Princess and the Frog... (how they abuse in copy-pasting things! The birds in Mama Odie's song, the horses and their riders of the wedding carriage, but specially the birds... How could anyone think that they looked good?) Madame Souza, The Triplets and Bruno are much better characters than Tiana and Naveen (and they don't need to say anything!). Geez, when people try to find out why it bombed, they look everywhere for excuses, but the two main characters and their love story are the most boring things on the planet! (remember Ariel's first scene, or Aladdin's, or Belle's! or Cinderella's, or Carl's! They were absolutely brilliant! Here we've got two boring "Syd Field" type of characters, full of rules, but no heart!) (For the record, yesterday I saw "Arthur" again (the Dudley More movie) and noticed that the very frist moment in which Arthur meets Linda YOU WANT THEM TO MARRY EACH OTHER! (unlike the boooring Tiana/Naveen relationship). They should've brought someone like Richard Curtis to write the script). And by the way, why did they buy the rights to the "Frog Princess book" if what they only wanted was the "kiss twist"? There's a Kermit the frog skit with (correct me if I'm wrong) Goldie Hawn, in which the same things happens to her: after kissing him she becomes a frog!

Teodor said...

french and flash for tv-wakfu , kind of magic.
french and 2d traditional-some of last year:lascars movie, mia et le migou, kerity,
litle older:nocturna,lucky luke go west.
more?

Anonymous said...

^
^
^What????

Anonymous said...

Hey righty...now you know what it feels like to get owned by Steve H.

Anonymous said...

And hopefully that mistake will also be corrected come 2012.

Keep dreaming, rightwinger. Gallup's daily tracking poll has Obama higher than either Reagan or Clinton at this point in their respective presidencies. Fox New's latest poll has Obama at 53%, with 91% support from Democrats.

Economy's slowly getting better. The TARP, although very unpopular, appears to have worked and is now mostly paid back. More and more reports of Republicans admitting they were wrong about healthcare reform. I'd say Obama will be in excellent shape for re-election in 2012.

Anonymous said...

Most of the wingnut republikkkans who whined about paying for their failures over the bush years are gladly [attempting] to take credit for the bailouts' success. Too bad they aren't getting any.

What a bunch of hypcrites.

republikkans think they can get things like WAR for free. They can't WE have to pay. No problem with Afghanistan--but major problem with Iraq. We'd be nearly out of Afghanistan if dick and bush hadn't lied us into Iraq. Mission Accomplished.

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