Monday, May 19, 2014

Another Princess Film

The Reporter and Moscow Times tell us:

... Russian animation company Wizart has sold its 2012 feature The Snow Queen and its sequel to China's Flame Node Entertainment for theatrical distribution among a slew of early deals in Cannes.

The Snow Queen, a $7 million adaptation of the famous Hans Christian Andersen fairytale that also inspired Disney hit Frozen, will be shown in Chinese cinemas by the end of the year. The Snow Queen 2 will be in cinemas next year. ...

The Russians have been in Andersen territory before. As previously noted, they produced a hand-drawn Snow Queen back in the 1950s, when the goal (then as now?) was to do "Disney style" animation:

... Universal purchased outright the United States and Canadian rights to The Snow Queen, which had been produced in Russia in 1957. ...

Soyuzmultfilm Productions, the Russian production company, entered the film in the Vancouver Film Festival on August 3, 1959, and Universal ran the picture at the San Francisco Film Festival in November 1959. ...

I saw the earlier SQ when I was ten years old. I remember it being a trifle slow, but maybe I was over-influenced by Disney style and pacing. The current feature and its soon-to-be sequel went be Russia's second and third tellings of the Andersen fairy tale. (When you're on to a lucrative thing, you keep doing it.)

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