Monday, May 23, 2016

Executive Rotation

New head of development at soon-to-be Universal-Comcast subsidiary:

Jennifer Howell, who was Paramount’s Head of Comedy for the past two-and-a-half years, has joined DreamWorks Animation as the company’s new Head of Development. She is taking over for Gregg Taylor who began producing duties last August on DreamWorks’ Larrikins, the animated musical film. Like Taylor (who had the gig before her), Howell will report to Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria. ...

Howell comes to DreamWorks Animation with a strong background in animation. She previously ran 20th Century Fox Television’s animation department, and served as EVP at Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s film company Important Studios. She was a supervising producer on South Park and served as a producer for 10 years on that series as well as their Team America, That’s My Bush and South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. ...

A quarter century ago, the joke at animation studios was: the twenty-something execs who had production jobs in animation were only using their positions as stepping stones into live-action, where the real glitz, glamour and power resided.

Animation, back then, was still considered the ugly step-child that was really this quirky sideshow to the Main Event. (You know, actual movies and television shows with actual actors and sets and film crews. "Action! Roll 'em!")

But now that's changed somewhat. Animated features continues are now a highly profitable sector in Contentland, and fewer people look down their noses and sneer when the words animation and Cartoons get mentioned.

Funny how realities change. Big bucks will do that, I guess.

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Exclusive Home

The commercial giant known as Netflix has gained exclusive use of one of our fine, entertainment conglomerates.

Netflix has announced that its deal with Disney to be the exclusive pay TV home for all upcoming films from Walt Disney, which would include Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar, will begin in September. This deal takes effect with 2016's releases, meaning it would prevent movies such as Captain America: Civil Wa and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story from appearing on HBO, Starz or even online outlets like Hulu and Amazon Prime, but would not affect previous deals, such as Starz' U.S. rights to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was released in 2015. ...

Netflix is a distribution platform that Hollywood wants. NF has money to burn, and it's willing to pay for exclusivity.

It's made the calculation it can make a nice profit, and the calculation is likely correct.

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Sunday, May 22, 2016

Bob's

The directors for one of Fox's prime time shows board, direct and time animation out of a small studio on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank. And they've worked their way past the century mark.

... “Bob’s Burgers” now hits the Big 100, with Sunday night’s sixth season-ending installment entitled “Glued, Where’s My Bob?” at 9:30 (in fact, the website epguides.com, usually reliable in such matters, counts Sunday’s offering as actually No. 107, but 100 is likely a better marketing hook for the season finale) .

[The show] is like “The Simpsons'” young nephew that’s moved from an unsteady kindergartner to a confident fifth-grader. It entered syndication last fall and is performing decently. It even won a 2014 Emmy for Outstanding Animated Comedy. And don’t look now, but a burger cookbook authored by Bouchard and the show’s writers actually ranks 9th on the New York Times Bestseller List of Food and Diet Books.

Moreover, “Bob’s Burgers” has shown sufficient heat as a consistent Sunday night performer for Fox to justify renewal for seasons seven and eight. Not too bad for a ‘toon about a guy who runs a burger joint with the help of his sassy wife and three kids that often feels like a time traveler from the 1970s. ...

The crew for BB has been remarkably stable and consistent over the course of its run. Sure, there have been artists that have come and gone, a lot of veterans remain. And as one of them noted:

"When you're with anything for six seasons, you feel like you've won the lottery. Sure, there's "The Simpsons", but a hundred episodes doesn't happen that often, you know?"

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Overwatch

The fourth and final "Overwatch" short from Blizzard Entertainment headquartered down in Irvine, california.



"Overwatch" is a video game that launches on May 24th. Like most video games in the present age, shorts and featurette advertising the game get put up on the internet ... like this one today.

So. What happened to the robot at the opening of the short?

Add On: Inquistr speculate about this franchise's future:

... Overwatch’s animated shorts show the potential for Overwatch to be a mainstream success, bringing more than just video games to the scene. If Overwatch is successful, the animated shorts show the potential for longer animated features, toys, and more starring Overwatch characters.

“With the final cinematic trailer, Blizzard might as well be teasing an entire cinematic universe based around their universally appealing characters. These stories are crafted with immense attention to detail and design that rival some of the best animated films currently released in full. This is only one avenue that is available to Blizzard if they’re looking to expand their Overwatch brand beyond their video game.” ...

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Your Worldwide Box Office

Animation and super heroes seems to have the global film market by the short hairs.

WEEKEND FOREIGN BOX OFFICE -- (WORLD TOTALS

X-Men -- $103,300,000 -- ($103,300,000)

The Angry Birds Movie -- $55,500,000 -- ($151,000,000)

Captain America: Civil War -- $30,700,000 -- (1,053,500,000)

The Jungle Book -- $7,300,000 -- ($857,700,000)

Zootpia -- $4,700,000 -- ($981,700,000) ....

It's good to note that all of the above are totally animated or have large chunks of animation in them. This is the current state of commercial box office. Our fine entertainment conglomerates need lots of animators and technical directors/compositors and surfacers and lighters to get their blockbuster movies made. And the digital trade papers tell us:

... The Angry Birds Movie nested the top spot in 48 markets chirping an overall second weekend of $55.5M. That flies the Rovio movie’s overseas cume to $112M. Together with its $37M-$39M stateside bow, Angry Birds counts a global tally of $149M-$151M. ...

Opening in 64% of the international marketplace, the latest installment in the X-Men franchise blasted off with $103.3M to best the X-Men Apocalypse debut of X-Men: Days Of Future Past in the same suite of 75 markets and at today’s exchange rates. ...

The feature directorial debut of directors of Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly collected $55.5M from a total of 24,000 screens in 83 markets. Angry Birds flew into nine new trees abroad including China, Korea and the Netherlands. In the Middle Kingdom, Angry Birds owned the best opening day so far this year for an animated pic import, and drew a total weekend of $29.2M from 12,000 screens, outstripping the debuts of Zootopia (+24%), Big Hero 6 (+87%) and Inside Out(+265%). ...

The Jungle Book held strong with a $7.4M weekend which swings the international cume to $530.2M and the global total to $857.7M. Currently playing in 47 material markets, it still has Korea and Japan to come. China, where the run is over, leads markets with $150.1M . ...

Picking up $4.7M in its 15th (!) frame, Zootopia’s global gross has reached $981.8M. That takes it past Despicable Me 2 ($970.8M) to become the fourth biggest animated release ever. ...

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Saturday, May 21, 2016

The Stateside Steeple Chase

It seems there's a new cartoon in town centered around unhappy feathered friends.

THREE DAY TURNSTILE TOTALS -- U.S. BOX OFFICE

1). The Angry Birds Movie (SONY/ROVIO), 3,932 theaters / $10.9M Fri. (includes $800K previews) / 3-day cume: $39.4M / Wk 1

2). Captain America: Civil War (Disney), 4,226 theaters (0) / $8.7M Fri. (-56%)/ 3-day cume: $32M (-55%) / Total cume: $346.5/ Wk 3

3). Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (UNI), 3,384 theaters / $8.8M Fri. (includes $1.67M previews) / 3-day cume: $22.8M / Wk 1

4). The Jungle Book (DIS), 3,460 theaters (-510) / $2.7M Fri. (-33%) / 3-day cume: $11.3M (-34%)/ Total cume: $327.8M / Wk 6

5). The Nice Guys (WB), 2,865 theaters / $3.9M Fri. (includes $700K previews) / 3-day cume: $11M / Wk 1

6). Money Monster (SONY), 3,104 theaters (0) / $2M Fri. (-60%) / 3-day cume: $6.9M (-52%)/Total cume: $26.9M/Wk 2

7). The Darkness (HTR), 1,769 theaters (+14)/ $700K Fri. (-67%) / 3-day cume: $2.1M (-57%)/Total Cume: $8.2M/ Wk 2

8). Zootopia (DIS), 1,377 theaters (-558) / $367K Fri. (-47%) / 3-day cume: $1.7M (-41%) / Total cume: $334.4M / Wk 12

9.)The Huntsman: Winter’s War (UNI), 1,246 theaters (-1,272) / $333K Fri. (-65%) / 3-day cume: $1.2M (-53%)/ Total cume: $46.7M / Wk 5

10.) Mother’s Day (OR), 1,719 theaters (-1,572) / $319K Fri. (-66%) / 3-day cume: $1.1M (-66%)/ Total cume: $31.3M / Wk 4 ...

So there are three animated features in the Top Ten: Angry Birds, The Jungle Book, and Zootpia, which with three months of exhibition under its belt, has apparently taken up permanent residence on the list.

Captain America, now at #2, is thickly encrusted with animated visual effects, so I would say domestic audiences haven't been turned off by all the animation flying around. Zootopia now owns $971,700,528 at the global box office. Shortly it will tick over a billion. (Not bad for a picture about furry animals ... who would have thought?)

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Friday, May 20, 2016

Going Digital in Korea

The Atlantic details changes in some Asian TV cartoon studios:

... Although primetime [cartoon] series appear as American as apple pie, and are conceptualized and written in the U.S., the bulk of their animation is done in South Korea. ...

The process of outsourcing animation began in the 1970s, when the three major American networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—aired Saturday morning cartoons like Scooby-Doo and Fat Albert. These shows were hugely popular, and American production studios struggled to meet the demand for more episodes. “They had no other choice but to outsource production,” says Nelson Shin, the founder of Seoul’s AKOM Production, which has animated The Simpsons for more than 25 years. ...

This is flat-out wrong.

Outsourcing began in the '70s because studios could get production done more cheaply overseas. Period. Full stop. American artists went to Seoul and Tokyo to train artists in the American art form. Bit by bit, production moved offshore.

It was never a question of capacity, but one of money.

Networks and animation studios wanted to spend less on production, and so went where labor was cheaper. It's an old story. To say that studios shipped work away because they couldn't find enough American animators to do it is a bright and simple falsehood.

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Alan Young, RIP

Alan Young, veteran character actor, has passed.

Alan Young — who answered to the name “Willburrrrrrrrrrrrr” on Mister Ed, the wacky 1960s sitcom that revolved around a talking horse — has died. He was 96.

Young — who for six seasons played straight man to a golden palomino, a gelding who was named Bamboo Harvester — died Thursday of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Home in Woodland Hills. He was there for more than four years.

Young himself was the voice of a talking bird, playing Scottish miser Scrooge McDuck (the uncle of Donald Duck and great uncle of Huey, Dewey and Louie) on the 1987-1990 syndicated series DuckTales. ...

Alan Young was a sturdy character actor and a top-notch vocal performer. He portrayed Hiram Flaversham in The Great Mouse Detective, and a bit later the long-running voice role of Scrooge McDuck (a character he first limned in the featurette Mickey's Christmas Carol. He did the part with an impeccable Scottish accent, but then he was born in Scotland so why not?

Mr. Young was prepared, professional and good-humored on Detective, and played his part well. His was a long life well lived. Condolences to the Young family.

Add On: Deadline memorializes Alan Young here.



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Thursday, May 19, 2016

The Newer Animation Reality

It's not just content spilled onto a silver screen anymore.

Entertainment veterans from DreamWorks Animation have started their own virtual reality startup with $3 million in funding.

The Santa Monica, California-based Spaces is headed by chief executive Shiraz Akmal and chief technology officer Brad Herman, two veterans who worked on DreamWorks Animation’s early VR experiences through 2015. Comcast Ventures led the funding for the company, which will VR and “mixed reality” experiences. Spaces is already working with such companies as Microsoft, NBCUniversal, Big Blue Bubble and The Hettema Group, among others, to develop and produce a wide range of projects across all VR and mixed reality platforms. ...

Different L.A. animation studios are getting into virtual reality. Many of them aren't sure exactly where it will take them, but the conglomerates (also some smaller studios) think there's serious dollars to be made in the format. TAG has a number of its members now working in it.

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Cal Arts Character Animation

Once upon a time, you wanted to see Cal Arts students' animated work, you trekked out to Valencia during the Spring presentations and watch it. But times have changed.

You look scary from Xiya Lan on Vimeo.


CalArts Character Animation Program’s online channel scored its millionth viewer [a few days ago]. The 2016 channel went live on April 24 and received one million views on Sunday, May 15.

Since 2010, at the end of the academic year, undergraduates in the world-renowned Character Animation Program at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) post their new films to a channel on Vimeo. The first channel was posted in April 2010. Over the last six years, the annually produced channels have garnered 15 million combined views. Totals are quantified by views of each film. ...

Back when Animation Guild staff (me) drove out to Cal Arts to look at new films by new, young talent, the major studios were raiding the department like crazy. Disney Feature was growing its staff hand over fist as it developed Beauty and the Beast, Alladin, and Lion King. Television animation was rocketing along. It wasn't unusual to see second-year students get snatched up and spirited away to the San Fernando Valley, all of twenty-three miles away.

Today things are different. Movies are digital and on-line. The tidy little animation industry that was nested snugly in Burbank has gone global. CG has taken over; board artists and animators work in far-blung parts of the globe, with pictures developed in Southern California but produced in other geographic locations where the Free Money cascades into eager corporate hands.

Time, she marches on. But Cal Arts continues to produce talent that creates new television shows and movies.
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Show Creator SPEAKS

The orignator of Bob's Burgers remembers:

LOREN BOUCHARD: I originally thought the show should be about a family that runs a restaurant who are cannibals. Very early on, [Fox] said, "Well, do you need the cannibalism?" I had really put it in there because I thought they would want it. I'm coming off of working for Adult Swim, and the darker, more shocking aspect seemed like what you needed in order for an animated idea to cut through the noise. ...

TV series and features seldom end up where they first started, although occasionally it happens.

I'm disappointed that the cannibal thing got cut. Maybe they could have added pygmies or old Nazis in the basement for more texture and viewer interest.

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Wednesday, May 18, 2016

A Word (Or Two) About New Media

The term "new media" refers to live-action and animated product (like Peabody and Sherman below) produced by studios for delivery over the internet.


This usually refers to "Subscription Video On Demand" (SVOD). The one-offs and series produced for that new age pipeline by signator studios are covered by the Animation Guild Contract under "Sideletter N" ... "Productions Made For New Media." ... .

The Sideletter goes on for multiple pages (pp 99-106 to be exact) and declares that New Media Work is covered work, and that wages, health and pension benefits will be paid to employees performing it.

That's the good news.

The less good news is that the contract's minimum wage rates don't need to be paid if the budgets for New Media productions don't hit certain tiers. And guess what? Currently no productions hit the budgetary tiers that are required for minimums. And so ... the studios are free to engage employees at lower weekly pay rates.

Last year, when we negotiated the guild's new collective bargaining agreement, TAG's negotiating committee knew that every other entertainment guild and union, the DGA, the WGA, the Editors Guild, the Camera Guild (etcetera, etcetera) had negotiated the exact same language.

We also knew that animation budgets were lower than live-action budgets, and argued that fact with management. (I jawed with the head of the AMPTP on the subject in an Alliance hallway.) The killer for us was that SAG-AFTRA's cartoon voice over unit had negotiated the same terms and conditions we were faced with, and they had already accepted the deal. In the end, we ate the same Vaseline sandwich that they did.

What does all this mean one year later?

It means that DreamWorks Animation TV, which produces all its half-hour shows under "Sideletter N" can negotiate lower weekly wages with employees. It means that other studios who get into internet distribution in a major way, will be able to do the same thing. (Right now, DreamWorks Animation TV is the only signator studio heavily involved in this type of work).

Because the market is relatively tight, we haven't seen lower pay rates across the board, but there are certainly newer employees who are working under scale.

It's important to know that the current terms and conditions of "Sideletter N" sunset on July 31, 2018, and the Animation Guild and every other entertainment union will be negotiating new terms and conditions for internet delivered work. At that time, it will be TAG's goal and aspiration to equalize "New Media" pay rates with all the other minimums in the contract.


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Test Mania

The Animation Guild has been collecting studio tests.

They're of various lengths. The longer ones tick off many job applicants. The shorter tests also tick off people, especially when artists find out that NOBODY got hired off of them because the studio decided, at the last minute, to staff the new show with a board artist already on staff.

So that test those sixty-two artists slaved over for a week? Without pay? Suddenly inoperative.

Pretty loused up. ...

What really makes the current test mania so bizarre is that from available anecdotal evidence, a number of studios are desperate for experienced board artists, designers, etc., and the test thingie hampers their ability to engage high-quality artists.

Even so, some of those studios are insisting that job applicants participate in tests "to see if they can do the style of the show." (Like the artists' portfolios wouldn't give the companies a strong hint ... just like portfolios did the previous forty-five years).

But the big problem with the test strategy?

Many experienced board artists are working and refuse to do tests. So the studios are faced with a conundrum. They can stand on ceremony and sift through the tests of newbies, then hire some with the knowledge they'll need to hire a raft of revisionists to get the boards in shape. Because the seasoned vets aren't there. And the newcomers, although good artists, are shaky about putting a useable production board together.

The studios, of course, have a second choice: they can (quelle horreur!) engage qualified veterans without benefit of testing and throw their dumb-ass test requirement overboard. (In some qurters there's stou resistance to this. At least one studio won't hire anybody without a test ... including people who've worked for the company before. That's counterproductive because seasoned board artists, flush with work, respond "thanks but no thanks" and the studio loses out on gaining a top-notch employee.)

Testing is now a wide-spread corporate practice, but in L.A.'s tight talent marketplace ... which is getting tighter ... it often causes studios to shoot themselves in their big fat corporate feet.

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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Sito's Month In Entertainment History

From the President Emeritus:

May 1, 1999- Spongebob Squarepants debuted on Nickelodeon.

May 2, 1964- Disney’s audio-animatronic Abe Lincoln exhibit opened at the NY World’s Fair. The animatronic technology formed the basis of modern motion capture techniques.

May 3, 1948- THE PARAMOUNT DECISION- In 1938 the independent theater chains had brought suit in Federal court against the major Hollywood Studios over their monopolistic practices. Ten years later, the Supreme Court ruled the Motion Picture Studios did constitute a monopoly and under the Sherman AntiTrust Act ordered them to sell their theater chains. One casualty of this rule was the art of the short cartoon. Theater managers no longer were forced to run a cartoon, newsreel and short with a feature (block-booking), so instead they opted to use the time to run more showings of the main feature. ...

May 4, 1927- The Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences formed. Studio heads Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer originally conceived the Academy as an arbiter where studio artists could air grievances without fear of retaliation, thereby sidetracking the call for unions. It didn’t work, because of the nature of its founding by studio heads.

May 5th, 1945- Happy Birthday Yosemite Sam! Hare Trigger, the first cartoon to feature the red mustachioed desperado, premiered.

May 9, 1955- A Washington D.C. station put on a young University of Maryland grad named Jim Henson as filler before the TODAY Show. He antics with his green frog called Kermit, fashioned from fabric from one of his mothers old green coats. The Muppets are born.

May 10, 1929- Skeleton Dance, the first Disney Silly Symphony premiered. It’s tight sync animation by Ubb Iwerks inspired a generation of animators.

May 18, 2001- Dreamworks' Shrek opened.

May 20, 1975- In a small warehouse in Van Nuys California, George Lucas assembled an effects crew to create the film Star Wars. It was the birth of Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM.

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Dark

Jeffrey K. speaks:

J. Katzenberg: When I started DreamWorks [Animation] the goal, the ambition, was to go from what had been a G-rated approach to [the Disney animated] films to PG, where we actually tried to put more dimensions in the film and more adult, broader appeal. When I went back to watch "Prince of Egypt" for the 10th-year anniversary—I never watch these movies when they’re done, I see them each so many times while making them—I said, "What were we thinking?"

It's a dark movie, so dramatic! There’s a barely even a little humor. It’s beautiful and ambitious. But dark, jeez. ...

In DWA's earlier years, while Shrek, Shrek 2 and Shark Tale were being made, full of sight gags, fart jokes and zany humor, the hand-drawn Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron and Sinbad were being made, both of them dark, dramatic, and relatively humor free. More than one DreamWorks employee complained:

"We don't get why our traditional features are like masterpiece theater, and the CG stuff has all the comedy." ...

At the time, I didn't understand why DreamWorks Animation reserved CG for its light-hearted movies either. It seemed confusing. Especially with seventy years of hand-drawn, animated comedies and musicals ... including the ones Jeffrey oversaw at Disney ... to study and emulate.

I guess Mr. Katzenberg now harbors second thoughts about the strategy too.

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Monday, May 16, 2016

Nintendo Dives Into The Animated Feature Pool

This "Hey everybody! Let's do a feature film!" fever gets caught (again) by a well-loved game company.

... Company president Tatsumi Kimishima announced today that Nintendo will attempt to create feature films starring its most iconic characters within five years. But fans of the live action Super Mario Bros. movie shouldn’t get their hopes up. ... Kimishima announced that the push toward movie adaptations will either be hand-drawn or computer animation.

The news arrives on the heels of a recent uptick in big-budget video game adaptations like Warcraft and Assassin’s Creed, which will attempt to turn the tide in the long list of terrible video game movie adaptations. But Tatsumi’s announcement seems to hint at Nintendo’s high-minded, yet small-scale approach

“We want to do as much as we can by ourselves,” Kimishima told The Asahi Shimbun, all but confirming the company want to go the in-house Marvel route and produce movies of its own properties. ...

You can see what's going on here. Nintendo sees that Marvel has made a fortune with its Intellectual Properties, that Warners is (finally!) doing well with its Lego franchise, and Illumination Entertainment has turned into a production powerhouse, coming out of nowhere to make a fortune with Despicable Me and the minions.

And you can almost hear the discussion in the Nintendo board room:

"The f*ck?! If big bucks can happen to a tiny company that a few years ago was a total nothingburger, why the hell not us?! A game company with a raft of characters known and loved around the wide world?"

Having been scalded in the live-action arena, Nintendo will focus on animation, which is probably a wise move.

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The Animation Guild Golden Award Interviews #25 -- Jeanne Selby Thorpe and Betty Smith

Today, Cartoon Research and TAG Blog publish a pair of interviews with veteran ink-and-paint employees.



Jeanne Selby Thorpe (interview above) worked at most of L.A.'s major animation studios over four decades. Breaking into animation at Charles Mintz in the mid 1930s, she ended her career forty-three years later at Hanna-Barbera as a scene planner and animation checker. ...




Betty Smith started at Disney the same year Jeanne Thorpe commenced work at Mintz. Five years later, she was on the picket line during the '41 Disney strike and (surprise!) she was no longer working at the House of Mouse when the job action concluded. Like Jeanne, she spent a long stretch of her working life at Hanna-Barbera, exiting the business in 1981.

The two women died four years apart, Ms. Smith in 1998 and Ms. Thorpe in 2002.

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Sunday, May 15, 2016

Rovio's Gamble

It's the first weekend of The Angry Birds Movie release, and already the big bet appears to be paying off.

The producers of “The Angry Birds Movie” are taking a page from the unlikely playbook of “Iron Man” and “The Avengers” for their big-screen version of the mobile-game series.

Rovio Entertainment Ltd., the Finnish company behind “Angry Birds,” decided four years ago to take a gamble: Rather than license its characters to a Hollywood studio in exchange for a percentage of the proceeds, it would finance a $73 million movie with its own cash. That means most of the profits or losses from the film will accrue to its bottom line.

The high-risk, high-reward approach is unusual in Hollywood, where even large companies such as Lego A/S and Hasbro Inc. typically rely on studios to finance their films. If widely adopted, however, Rovio’s model—similar to the approach that made “Iron Man” pay off for Marvel—would pose a risk to studios that count on long-term control of franchises to drive their bottom lines. ....

Writing, storyboarding and other development was done in a small Los Angeles office, while other artists contributed from around the world and animation production was handled by Sony Pictures’ Imageworks division in Vancouver, Canada.

The “virtual studio” approach allowed Rovio, like Illumination, to make its movie for less than half of what Disney sometimes spends on its animated pictures, produced by full-time employees.
...

What's going on here, of course, is the Chris Meledandri/Illumination Entertainment model. Like IE, Rovio is setting up pre-production in Los Angeles, where experienced feature board artists reside in abundance, and shipping the production work elsewhere, preferably where a state or foreign government provides bushels of Free Money. (Ain't unfettered capitalism grand?)

For Illumination Entertainment, the Free Money comes from the taxpayers of France. For Rovio and Sony Pictures Animation (the contracting studio) it's Vancouver, British Columbia.

The first weekend of foreign release, The Angry Birds Movie raked in $43 million. If these early box office returns hold up, The Angry Birds Movie will be a hit, and all on a budget of $73 million, within the Illumination Entertainment range.

So we now have two proven business models for making high-grossing animated features: The Pixar, Disney, DreamWorks Animation system where all production, start to finish, is under one roof ... and the Illumination Entertainment/Rovio method where story, storyboards and story reels are created in one place and the actual movie in another.

Call me starry-eyed, but I think the "under one roof" model can be cost-competitive with the "done in multiple locations" model", even without the subsidies. But it would take focus and discipline and a stripping away of frills. I think going forward, we will see both methods in play.

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International B.O.

... where super heroes and animation remain in force.

WEEKEND FOREIGN BOX OFFICE -- (WORLD TOTALS)

Captain America: Civil War -- $84,200,000 -- ($940,892,078)

The Angry Birds Movie -- $43,000,000 -- ($43,000,000)

The Jungle Book -- $15,200,000 -- ($828,060,110)

Zootopia -- $4,700,000 -- ($969,830,439) ...

And the trade journals tell us:

Sony has come in with numbers for the international debut of The Angry Birds Movie which took off with $43M in 74 markets. In 37 of those, it grabbed the No. 1 perch. It also scored a record May opening for an original animated film. The inaugural flight topped The Lego Movie by 20% in the same grouping of markets and at current exchange rates. ...

With $296M domestically and $645M internationally, [Captain America: Civil War] is the No. 2 film of the year globally and the No. 1 film of the year internationally after 19 days of release. It had a 61% drop this frame from last, but differed according to the region. China pushed ahead to a running cume of $155.8M and Korea is at $60.1M. ...

Meanwhile, The Jungle Book, which passed $800M global on Friday, is now the No. 5 Disney live action movie ever and the No. 6 internationally. It added $15.2M in its 6th weekend of overseas release from 50 material markets, swinging the international total to $516.3M and the global cume to $828.06M. The hits keep coming. With Zootopia at an estimated $970M, Disney now has three of the top four films of the year globally with three consecutive releases grossing over $800M. ...

Clearly, there are just too many animated features in the global marketplace, except not.

What the Wise Talking Heads always miss is that animation is just a format of presentation. Animation doesn't cannibalize other animation any more than live-action cannibalizes live-action. When audiences want to see something, they go pay their money and watch it. Does anybody seriously think that people look at the playlist of their local cineplex and say: "Oops. Too many cartoons showing week. So we better not go see one."

If there's a title that Mom, Dad and the kids want to goggle at, they'll do so. Funny how that works.

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Saturday, May 14, 2016

Darwyn Cooke, RIP

Animation Guild member and master comic book artist Darwyn Cooke passed away today, succumbing to cancer. Deadline reports:

... Born in Canada in 1962, Cooke first attempted to break into comics in the early 1980s but was forced to back away from the industry due to financial concerns. Supporting himself as a magazine art director, graphic and product designer instead, his break came in the early 1990s when he answered an ad placed by Warner Bros animator Bruce Timm.
Cooke was soon hired as a storyboard artist on Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series, and continued in this role on the successor series, The New Batman Adventures as well as its spinoff Superman: The Animated Series. In 1999 he animated the opening title sequence for Batman Beyond, and in 2000 served as a director on Sony’s Men in Black animated series. ...

Turning to the creation of comics and graphic novels in the early oughts, Mr. Cooke returned to animation in 2007, writing and art directing Justice League: New Frontier, also for Warner Bros. Animation. He leaves behind his wife Marsha and other family members.

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The Weekend Steeple Chase

The Big Box Office Ten still has a bunch of animation in it.

THREE DAYS OF TURNSTILE MONEY

1). Captain America: Civil War (Disney), 4,226 theaters (0) / $19.5Mto $19.7M Fri. / 3-day cume: $69.7M to $70M+ (-61%) / Total cume: $293M / Wk 2

2). The Jungle Book (DIS), 3,970 theaters (-174) / $4M Fri. / 3-day cume: $16M to $16.2M / Total cume: $310M / Wk 5

3). Money Monster (SONY), 3,104 theaters / $4.9M Fri. (includes $600K previews) / 3-day cume: $14M to $14.4M / Wk 1

4). The Darkness (HTR), 1,755 theaters / $2.1M Fri. (includes $206K previews) / 3-day cume: $5.3M to $5.5M / Wk 1

5.) Mother’s Day (OR), 3,291 theaters (+150) / $935K Fri. / 3-day cume: $3.3M / Total cume: $28.8M / Wk 3

6/7). Zootopia (DIS), 1,935 theaters (-142) / $579K Fri. / 3-day cume: $2.3M / Total cume: $331.3M / Wk 11

The Huntsman: Winter’s War (UNI), 2,518 theaters (-383) / $682K Fri. / 3-day cume: $2.3M / Total cume: $44.25M / Wk 4

8). Keanu (WB/NL), 2,120 theaters (-561) / $530K Fri. / 3-day cume: $1.6M to $1.8M / Total cume: $18.3M to $18.5M / Wk 3

9.) Barbershop: The Next Cut (WB), 1,333 theaters (-401) / $433K Fri. / 3-day cume: $1.5M / Total cume: $51.2M / Wk 5

10). The Boss (UNI), 1,350 theaters (-583) / $321K Fri. / 3-day cume: $1M+ / Total cume: $61M / Wk 6 ...

Worldwide, Jungle Book has rolled up $799,198, while Zootopia owns $960,270,439, on its way to a cool billion.
dollars
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SAUGUS ARTS FESTIVAL

Fifty-plus years ago.


Left to right: Ralph Hulett, unknown, Walt Disney, unknown, Ward Kimball, Peter Ellenshaw.

This picture was taken in the early sixties, out near the present home of California Institute of the Arts, and was sent to us by Disney producer Don Hahn, who discovered it in the Diz Co. archives. It likely hasn't been seen in decades.

(Why put this photograph up here? It's the weekend, ladies and gents. And it's a rarity. And it's got Walt Disney in it.)

About the people in the picture: Ralph Hulett (my father) was a Disney background artist and landscape artist. He came to the studio in 1938 and remained until his death in 1974.

Ward Kimball was one of Disney's "Nine Old Men" and a veteran animator, director, and animation producer.

Peter Ellenshaw was a veteran matte artist and Academy Award winner, also a landscape painter of renown. Mr. Ellenshaw joined the Disney organization in the early 1950s. (His son Harrison, also a matte artist, Oscar winner, and longtime Disney employee, created mattes for the original Star Wars.)

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Friday, May 13, 2016

New (And Surviving) Series

On Adult Swim.

Adult Swim has announced its new and returning TV series. Are your favorites included? The original series returning to Adult Swim are: Black Jesus, Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule, The Eric Andre Show, Infomercials, Mike Tyson Mysteries, Mr. Pickles, Neon Joe Werewolf Hunter, Robot Chicken, Rick and Morty, Squidbillies, Tim & Eric’s Bedtime Stories, The Venture Bros, and Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell.

New Adult Swim series are: Dream Corp LLC, Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace, Brad Neely’s Harg Nallin’ Sclopio Peepio, Decker: Unclassified, and FLCL. Adult Swims Pilot orders are: Art Prison, Lazor Wulf, and Chuck Deuce. ...

And to think it all started as a small platform to reruns of the Cancelled Family Guy. How times change.

Adult Swim has grown in ambition and influence year by year. It shows Guild-signed shows (Mike Tyson Mysteries, Samurai Jack); it airs non-Guild shows. The live-action stuff is outside our wheelhouse, but the animation product, half-hours like Robot Chicken, the original season of Rick and Morty and some others have been produced without benefit of guild contracts.

Whenever and wherever possible, we have worked to organize non-Guild series, and have had success bringing Rick and Morty under contract. But Adult Swim (Atlanta) is not keen to shell out more production dollars when it doesn't have to, and we continue to encounter resistance from that corner of cartoon Network. Unfortunate, but there it is.

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And Still Another Into The Pool

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Filmmaker Kevin Munroe, best known for writing and directing Ratchet & Clank (2015) and TMNT (2007), has signed on to co-direct Troll: The Tale of a Tail (also known as The Zhou Rao Kingdom for the Chinese market), a big-budget animated feature based on a classic work of Chinese literature.

The film will be animated in both English and Chinese versions to appeal to both international and Chinese audiences — a strategy pursued most recently by DreamWorks Animation for Kung Fu Panda 3.

The picture is co-produced by China's Spring Era Period Films, China Lion Entertainment and Canada-based Blue Bug Entertainment. Made with a budget of $18 million, the project is a Chinese-Norwegian-Canadian co-production. Production is underway, and the partners are targeting a Christmas 2017 release date in China and North America. ...


Norway is now a cartoon co-producer? NORWAY!?


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Thursday, May 12, 2016

A History of Scoob

Man, I don't pay attention. I always thought there was just one long Scooby Doo series, a kind of canine Simpsons. Way wrong.

The Scooby-Doo franchise ... boasts feature length films, animated TV series, comics, toys, games, and tangential merchandise. For 47 years, the animated, lovable Great Dane Scooby has solved mysteries with his crew. It’s a weird and unexplained detail that only two out of the 15 different animated Scooby series have ever made it past a second season before cancellation.

From 1969, when it first aired, to now in 2016, when the newest iteration of the franchise, Be Cool, Scooby-Doo, will soon finish up its first season, there has never been a series to make it past 52 episodes. ...

According to spies and stoolies at WB Animation (where pre-production on the newer show has happened), there will be a second season of the Big Dog and his humans. And maybe this iteration will break the two-season curse.

My question is, where do all the older episodes, reaching back forty-plus years, go to die? Some vast Scooby-Doo graveyard?

And then, of course, there is this.


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Retirement

One of the longest-serving Guild reps in Hollywood is hanging up his spurs.

Ron Kutak, the longtime national executive director of IATSE Editors Guild Local 700, will retire on November 1. He will be succeeded by Cathy Repola, the guild’s Western executive director.

Kutak, 66, is the longest-serving chief executive officer of any union in Hollywood. He came to the guild in 1981 as a videotape rep, and was named executive director four years later. “I think I left the union in a better place than I found it,” he told Deadline.

He certainly left it bigger and stronger. Under the direction of then-IATSE president Tommy Short, Kutak oversaw the merger of the Local 776, the Editors Guild in Hollywood, and Local 771, the Editors Guild in New York, to form one national Editors Guild, Local 700. ...

I've known Mr. Kutak for years. He's tough, clear-eyed, and a savvy negotiator. He's served his members well.

And Ron has been involved with animation for years, being one of the labor reps who was at the table when The Secret Lab contract with Walt Disney Animation Studios was born back in 2000. Mr. Kutak has also been a long-time negotiator on the union side for the Sony Pictures Animation collective bargaining agreement agreement.

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"It's Doomed"

... Or so says the original Space Jam's Joe Pykta about an all-new Jam:

... "Don't do it. It's doomed. Michael Jordan was the biggest star on the planet. ... They all had a persona that complemented the film. There are none around like that now." ...

Okay, so Back In Action, the semi-sequel to the Michael Jordan movie, didn't float like a butterfly nor sting like a bee. (The only sting felt was to Warner Bros.'s wallet, as it grossed only $20 million in the U.S. of A. back in ought-three).

But that was then, this is now. And I have NO idea if Warners will go the hand-drawn route, or the CGI route with the newer offering. (Or if it's been decided. Maybe the information is out there someplace, but I haven't seen it). The way Hollywood goes, the corporate overlords at Warner Bros. will take few chances and charge down the goat path marked with the big neon sign: "Computer Graphics -- this way!"

Add On: And then there was this plea ... from way before the feature was announced:

... I’m hoping [LeBron James] can help out with the one terrible aspect of the original film: the characterization of Lola Bunny. James has spoken out about feminist issues before, and although Trainwreck may not be a bastion of feminist thought, I’ll take the crumbs of hope for the moment. Yep, that’s how bad Lola came off in Space Jam: I’m willing to settle for hope-crumbs. ...

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Wednesday, May 11, 2016

At DreamWorks Animation

I spent part of yesterday afternoon at DreamWorks Animation, walking around floors of the Lakeside Building.

The oncoming merger were on a lot of people's minds, and several staffers talked to me about it. One brought up the Hollywood Reporter article where some union rep speculated about the future of the studio ...

DWA staffer: That part where you mentioned layoffs, where you said two or three hundred people could go ...

Union Rep: I hope that didn't bother you. I pulled the number out of my backside. I'm speculating on what's going to happen. Chris Meledandri outsources Illumination Entertainment's work to Paris. ...

DWA staffer: No, I thought what you said needed to be said. There's going to be changes. Comcast is going to want to see profits on its investment. Believe me, people around here have thought about what's going to be happening. How could they not? ...

A supervisor said how there are six movies in work at the Glendale studio, all in different stages of production, and that crew is being hired for production work on a couple of them, and nothing is slowing down. I said that Jeffrey's still in charge until the end of the year. And Universal doesn't want to come in and stomp any golden eggs lying around in various production nests, what good would that do? They want to make money, after all.

The take of some senior staff is that change will come over years, not months. They thing that some administrative positions, merchandising position and publicity jobs will go away, since Universal can do those things over in Universal City.

So for now, everybody keeps on doing their jobs, and waits.

Then there was this:

Before it turned to a bigger, beefier offer from Comcast, DreamWorks Animation talked to the Chinese private-equity firm PAG Asia Capital about a buyout that would have taken the cartoon studio private, a source familiar with the talks confirmed.

PAG quickly faded into the background once the U.S. conglomerate trained its sights — and, eventually, a $3.8 billion all-cash offer — on the Glendale-based maker of films like “Shrek,” “Kung Fu Panda” and “Madagascar.” The Chinese investment firm came nowhere close to the Comcast offer, which amounted to a 51% premium for DreamWorks. ...

Jeffrey wanted to make the best deal he could get ... and he did. A couple of DWA employees said that the deal came together in four days (jibing with different industry reports) and that Chris Meledandri was informed of what was up when the merger talks were down the road a piece.

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The Weinsteins Wheel and Deal (Again)

As we said earlier: the Weinstein brothers are getting back into animation.

The Weinstein Company has picked up all U.S. rights to the upcoming animated film Ballerina, starring Elle Fanning, Maggie Ziegler and Carly Rae Jepsen. Directed by Eric Summer and Eric Warin, the historical drama is set in 1884 Paris and follows Félicie Milliner (Fanning), an orphaned girl with no money but one big, passionate dream: to become a dancer. ...

Currently in production in Montreal, it’s written by Carole Noble and Laurent Zeitoun. Ballerina and is being produced by Nicolas Duval Adassovsky, Yann Zenou, and Zeitoun of Quad Productions, Main Journey, and Andre Rouleau and Valerie D’Auteuil of Caramel Film. ...

Several days ago the trade press reported that TWC was picking up the Chinese animated feature The Little Door Gods for release in markets outside China. That picture will be renamed The Guardian Brothers.

So it looks like The Weinstein Company is serious about diving back into animated features head first. But for right now, they are acquiring and reworking titles rather than creating cartoons from the ground up.


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Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Disney Gallops On

Disney covers the most recent quarterly results of its surging profits:

Christine McCarthy (Disney CFO): Second quarter earnings per share, excluding items affecting comparability, were up 11% to $1.36, marking the 11th consecutive quarter in which we've delivered double-digit growth in adjusted earnings per share. Our financial results this quarter, which I will discuss in more detail in a moment, demonstrate once again how the strength of our brand and a relentless focus on creative excellence and execution can continue to drive growth across our businesses and create value for our shareholders. ...

So things are basically ducky in the kingdom of Mouse. And as Diz Co.'s Chief Executive observed:

Robert Iger: ... I think it's really important with this business not to look at it as a quarterly business. Because we're not only continuing to support the $11 billion-plus franchises that we have as a company, but we continue to create intellectual property that is leverageable across our Consumer Products businesses.

Now, not all is leverageable as Star Wars and Frozen, as a for instance, but when you look at Zootopia and you look at Jungle Book, somewhat small so far, but Captain America won't be and the impact of Captain America long-term on that business and the other Marvel properties, the reintroduction of Spider-Man. Spider-Man is the hottest or the number one Marvel character from a consumer merchandise perspective. And reintroducing Spider-Man successfully as we've done in Captain America through the release next year, 2017 of Spider-Man, is something that also has to be considered.

So it's a kind of business that I think is very difficult to measure in terms of the bottom line success on a quarterly basis. We just don't run it that way. ...

I noted with interest in a recent visit to Disneyland here in California that there was a line early in the morning for our guests to meet Zootopia characters. I can tell you that Zootopia having done so well in China, there will be Zootopia characters in our park in China sooner than we had initially anticipated. ...

So the Berkshire-Hathaway of entertainment conglomerates is not only thriving, but is now being imitated by other fine entertainment conglomerates.

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On The Other Hand ...

... the House of Mouse is hooking up and bailing out of the console video game business. Geronimoooo!!

Disney is putting an end to their Disney Infinity toy-game line and discontinuing their “self-published console games business,” the company said today. After June, Infinity will stop getting new updates.

Disney is also shutting down Avalanche Software, the Utah-based studio responsible for Infinity. As a result, around 300 people will lose their jobs. “This was a difficult decision that we did not take lightly given the quality of Disney Infinity and its many passionate fans,” Disney said in a statement.

There will be two new Disney Infinity releases in May and June before the series ends for good: one based on Alice Through The Looking Glass, and a second from Finding Dory. ...

Diz Co. has never had much luck in the video game biz. (Or rather, it's had a LOT of luck ... all of it lousy).

Just three short years ago, the video game industry was finally looking up for Disney. They had tried and failed, laid off hundreds of employees with long-term contracts, and generally gone nowhere. But then ...

... This time around, Disney is taking a leaf out of Activision's Skylander book, and seeing if it can generate some serious coin from a broader, interlinked model. Early indications are encouraging, but we'll just wait and see, won't we? ...

Now the results are in and ... again no luck. There is a dead cat under the House. And it stinks to high heaven.

Here's where a hopeful nation thought Disney's video game thingie was going somewhere:

Sales of “Disney Infinity” are picking up as it heads into the key holiday sales season, with starter packs for the game having sold 1 million units around the world, according to Disney Interactive.

It’s a significant milestone for Disney’s games group as it attempts to launch a major franchise for the Mouse House.

Each “Disney Infinity” starter pack is priced at $75, and includes the game, and three play sets with a figure in each. Additional figures and discs to play the game are sold separately.

With 1 million starter packs in homes, Disney now has more of a solid reason to call “Disney Infinity” a hit.

Sadly, two and a half years later, the hit became that rotting feline corpse under the floorboards.

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Monday, May 09, 2016

Frenchified Peanuts



Done right, or so it's said.

New adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, and other creations by comic-strip artist Charles Schulz begin airing Monday, on the Boomerang and Cartoon Network channels, and they’re as good as any of the 1960s CBS specials that have been endlessly rerun. The new Peanuts are based on the original comic strips by Schulz and feature a beautifully faithful rendering of the characters.

The results are familiar and funny, as well as being tart and distinctive. ...

The recent feature earned respectful reviews but pretty much went limp at the nation's turnstiles. It earned a mere $246,233,113 at the world box office.

I would have to see a full load of the new, continental Peanuts to say it's superior to the Melendez version. But it's nice that Schulz is getting a brand spanking new series.

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Free Money For Diversity

There's a tax subsidy bill coming up on the East Coast, and letters are being written.

Nearly 500 film and TV writers have sent letters to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo calling for a new tax incentive for television producers who hire women and minority writers and directors. Writers who sent letters include Tina Fey and Oscar winners Tom McCarthy, Paul Haggis, Marshall Brickman and Michael Arndt.

Legislation to amend the tax incentives program, which has bipartisan support in the New York State Legislature, would allocate $5 million from the state’s existing $420 million annual rebates to go toward the salaries of female and minority writers and directors. ...

Since we're all about providing cash for the production of motion pictures in various states across the fruited plain, it would be a good idea for California to hand out cash for TV animation, which fled California in the seventies and eighties and never returned.

(And sure, crtoon PRE-production is done here, a lot of it. But not production.)

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The Animation Guild Golden Award Interviews #24 -- Lew Irwin and Betty Brenon

We don't hear a lot about the people who were a notch or two down from the "stars" of the animation business -- the Ward Kimballs and Chuck Jones and Milt Kahls -- who have been celebrated in books and documentaries. But they were there, doing the work that needed to be done getting cartoons on the silver screen. Betty Brenon and Lew Irwin were two of those artists.



Lew Irwin worked at Schlesingers before World War 2 and Warners after it. He began his career in the 1930s as an in-betweener, and by the end of his journey through Cartoonland half a century later, Mr. Irwin was a production manager and supervisor of assistant animators. ...

Betty Brenon also worked farther down the food chain, painting and inking cels for Leon Schlesinger (where she was hired in 1933) and went on to a multitude of other studios ... which included running her own ink-and-paint service.




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Sunday, May 08, 2016

Harvey's and Bob's Latest Foray Into Cartoonland

A trade paper tells us:

Meryl Streep, Mel Brooks, Nicole Kidman and Zendaya are on board to voice characters in the animated film “The Guardian Brothers.”

The Weinstein Company has bought worldwide rights, except for China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, and will launch sales at the Cannes Film Festival.

The movie was released previously in China by Alibaba Pictures under the title “The Little Door Gods.” Streep will play the film’s storyteller.

Gary Wang directed “The Little Door,” produced by Zhou Yu and Light Chaser Animation Studios. TWC noted that it recently bought international distribution rights for “The Nut Job 2,” which it will also be selling at Cannes.

“I’ve loved working with our Beijing partners Light Chaser Animation,” said TWC Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein. “Everyone who knows me, knows I’m determined to build our animation division for film and television. This is going to be a huge area for our company and ‘The Guardian Brothers’ is just the beginning of our plan to bring the caliber of film associated with TWC to animation.” ...


Eleven years back, the Weinstein Company had a positive experience with Hoodwinked, it's first animated feature release. HW was made inexpensively, received mixed reviews but made a fortune relative to its cost.

The Weinsteins have had their hands in other animated projects since, but none have come close to their first release (which they picked up at Cannes near the end of its production). As with Hoodwinked, The Little Door is a movie made by others that TWC intends to buff to a glistening sheen with high-powered vocal talent.

It's anybody's guess whether Harvey and Bob Weinstein can reignite the magic audiences discovered in their 2005 animated offering. But we will soon find out.

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Surprise, Not.

The Mouse is setting records.

With such films as Zootopia, The Jungle Book and now Captain America: Civil War swinging at the global box office, The Walt Disney Studios scored a hat-trick of records this weekend.

In 128 days of 2016, the Mouse crossed $1B domestic with $1.121B to date. The studio also crossed $2B international with $2.22B and zoomed past $3B global with $3.341B. Each is a new industry record. ...

Worth noting: two animated features (one a remake) and one super hero flick heavily crusted with animated effects, is propelling the House of Walt into the stratosphere.

I'm sure the other fine, entertainment conglomerates are taking copious notes about how Diz Co. achieved this, because imitation is the sincerest form of Hollywood.

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Worldwide B.O.

Our friends at the Walt Disney Company are (apparently) well on the way to opening their own mint ... and also too, a couple of overseas branches.

FOREIGN WEEKEND BOX OFFICE -- (WORLD TOTALS)

Captain America: Civil War -- $220,000,000 -- ($678,391,000)

The Jungle Book -- $24,100,000 -- ($776,185,265)

Zootopia -- $5,700,000 -- ($956,424,990)

Ratchet and Clank -- $500,000 -- ($10,095,633) ...

And the trade press notes:

... Disney/Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War added $220M overseas in the sophomore session. The cume to date is a fantastic $496.6M international and $678.39M worldwide. The China start led the charge abroad with $95.8M moving through Middle Kingdom turnstiles this weekend. ...

With a $24.1M international weekend, Disney’s swinging adventure [The Jungle Book] is well within reach of $500M overseas. The total to date is $491.2M for a global $776.19M. The Jon Favreau-helmed crowd pleaser just leapt through its 5th offshore frame in 52 territories and still has Korea and Japan to come. ...

Zootopia has zoomed past the $950M mark with a global $956.43M to date. Disney’s animated parable is the No. 1 movie of 2016 worldwide and internationally, and the 6th biggest animated film of all time. ...

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Saturday, May 07, 2016

Newer TV Animation Technology

... delivered by the patriarch of the Yellow Family.

In just over week, The Simpsons will offer ... the final three minutes of an episode that will feature Dan Castellaneta, who voices Homer Simpson, improvising dialog as he takes questions from fans. Motion capture technology will allow the show to animate the interaction in real time.

Jean revealed that the show's creators had been talking about doing a live Homer bit since 2007, when they considered it for a Tonight Show promotion of The Simpsons Movie. But he said that motion capture technology wasn't up to the task at the time. When the improv-themed episode came along, they looked into the technology again and found that it had advanced well enough to meet their needs.

"[Motion capture technology] used to have electrodes wired into the person," he said. "Now they don’t. The actor just speaks into a mic, and the camera records his motions, and transfers it to the character onscreen. However, you can only do that with one or at most two characters. The backgrounds don’t change and the character can’t really interact with somebody in the background." ...

It's unlikely that television animation will be turning into "improv theater" anytime soon.

The technology is restricting, and unless you're superior at unscripted verbal riffs (Robin Williams is, unfortunately, dead) then I think the only thing gained is an opportunity to create stilted animation that teeters on being an incoherent mess.

However. For a three-minute tag on a long-running comedy show, it might work.

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Your American Box Office

Lots of Disney animation, from super heroes to fuzzy animals, populated the Top Ten list.

WEEKEND TICKET SALES

1). Captain America: Civil War (Disney) 4,226 theaters / $74M-$76M Fri. (includes $25M previews) / 3-day cume: $176.4M-$182M / Wk 1

2). The Jungle Book (DIS), 4,144 theaters (+103) / $5.3M Fri. (-48%) / 3-day cume: $23.6M (-46%) / Total Cume: $286.7M / Wk 4

3.) Mother’s Day (OR) 3,141 theaters (+106) / $2.1M Fri. (-26%) / 3-day cume: $8.4M (0%)/Total: $20.1M/Wk 2

4). The Huntsman: Winter’s War (UNI) 2,901 theaters (-901) / $988K Fri. (-63%) / 3-day cume: $3.8M (-60%) / Total Cume: $40.6M / Wk 3

5). Zootopia (DIS), 2,077 theaters (-410) / $675K Fri. (-46%) / 3-day cume: $3.3M (-38%) / Total cume: $328.3M / Wk 10

6). Keanu (WB/New Line) 2,681 theaters (+23)/ $861K Fri. (-75%) / 3-day cume: $2.9M (-69%)/Total cume:$14.9M/ Wk 2

7.) Barbershop: The Next Cut (WB), 1,734 theaters (-576) / $625K Fri. (-62%) / 3-day cume: $2.6M (-57%) / Total cume: $48.7M / Wk 4

8.) Ratchet & Clank (GMY/FOC) 2,895 theaters (+4) / $434K Fri. (-71%) / 3-day cume: $2M (-58%)/Total cume: $7.7M /Wk 2

9). The Boss (UNI), 1,933 theaters (-890) / $455K Fri. (-62%) / 3-day cume: $1.8M (-57%) / Total cume: $59.2M / Wk 5

10). Batman v Superman (WB), 1,593 theaters (-737) / $263K Fri. (-72%) / 3-day cume: $1.1M (-71%) / Total cume: $327.3M / Wk 7 ...

Let's see: We've got two pure animated features -- Zootopia and Ratchet & Clank -- in to top ranks, one 88% animated feature, and then two VFX-heavy offerings featuring caped crime fighters.

SO it's not really a big surprise that animation remains a growth industry.

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Friday, May 06, 2016

One More Animation Studio

Feature animation continues to be all the rage.

LONDON — Paramount Pictures and Locksmith Animation, which launched in 2014 with backing from Elisabeth Murdoch, have inked a deal to co-develop and co-produce a series of animated projects for the studio.

Under the pact, Paramount and Locksmith are progressing three properties, which Locksmith has been developing since it launched, with plans to head into production within the next 12 months and to release the first theatrical movie in 2020. The deal also contemplates developing other projects together over time to create a pipeline of releases.

Locksmith, which claims to be the U.K.’s first dedicated high-end CG feature animation studio, was founded by writer/director Sarah Smith (“Arthur Christmas”) and producer Julie Lockhart (“Shaun the Sheep Movie,” “Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists!”), with backing from Murdoch. ...

Elizabeth Murdoch is the forty-seven-year-old daughter of Rupert, and considered one of the most powerful women in the United Kingdom.

Sarah Smith is a British film director, writer and producer. She worked in Culver City on the Sony-Aardman feature Arthur Christmas, which earned middling box office returns at the time of its release in late 2011.

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Oh Dear ...

From the Reporter, delivering ominous news:

Bubble Watch: 10 TV Shows Facing Imminent Cancellation

... Bordertown (Fox): Animation is judged by a different set of standards, but Fox's latest Sunday entry is a ratings bummer by any measure. Shuffled since its little-promoted premiere, Bordertown is only netting a 0.9 rating among adults 18-49 (in live-plus-7 returns) on a block that typically performs much better with the younger set. Sure, the network and studio 20th Century Fox TV aren't keen to upset executive producer Seth MacFarlane — but it's not like he doesn't have his hands full. ...

BT was always a bit dicey. Subject matter, developed a while ago, didn't roll out at an opportune time. And the shows could have been funnier. Viewing several episodes, the jokes and sight gags were hit-and-miss, with perhaps a few too many misses.

So, if THR is correct with its prognosication, I guess it will son be adios!

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Thursday, May 05, 2016

No Warner Acquisitions

So there's plenty of media speculation, after Comcast gobbles up DreamWorks Animation, that more acquisitions and mergers are just over the horizon. But the Warner Bros. top-kick pours cold water on that idea.

Comcast’s $4.1 billion pact for DreamWorks Animation won’t pressure Time Warner or any other media conglomerate to go on a buying spree, Warner Bros. Entertainment CEO Kevin Tsujihara told analysts on Wednesday.

“I don’t think we’ll see more consolidation,” he said during a conference call to discuss Time Warner’s first quarter earnings. “I don’t think [the DreamWorks Animation deal] is going to be a precursor to a lot of transactions.”

There has been speculation that entertainment companies could begin to pool resource through mergers and acquisitions as they try to compete with Disney (the owner of LucasFilm, Pixar, and Marvel) and Comcast (the cable giant that also houses NBCUniversal). Viacom is currently selling a minority stake in Paramount and Lionsgate, the last pure play, publicly traded studio has been the subject of merger speculation.

But Tsujihara doesn’t see many things for sale that could add to Warner Bros.’ arsenal of superhero and animated tentpole films. ...

Part of the problem? There aren't a lot of tent poles ... or companies owning tent poles ... available to buy. Not long ago the smart money thought that Disney Chairman Robert Iger overpaid for Pixar, Marvel, and finally LucasFilm. But Diz Co. has made sizable profits from its purchases and the skeptics are re-thinking their earlier positions.

But Warner's decision of not going the Disney route is understandable. It's building a new feature animation division named WAG (Warner Animation Group) and has already had sterling results with The Lego Movie It already owns a plethora of DC super heroes, and how many caped wonders does one movie studio really need?

Still in all, corporate strategies change over time. In 2007 Comcast-Universal partnered with Chris Meledandri to create Illumination Entertainment from scratch. Eight years later, Comcast-Universal pulled a leaf from Robert Iger's playbook and paid $3.8 billion for DreamWorks Animation, its TV operation, and twenty years worth of DWA animated features.

The Mouse's business model is plainly enticing, and Comcast-Universal and Warners mean to replicate it, each in their own way.



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DreamWorks' Profits

So Jeffrey K's company (though not for much longer) does well in the earnings department.

... DreamWorks Animation just disclosed better-than-expected financial results for Q1 at a point when — with its $3.8 billion agreement to sell out to Comcast — the strong performance can’t really influence the stock price.

The studio reported a net profit of $13.8 million, up from a $54.8 million loss a year ago, on revenues of $190.4 million, up 14.4%. Analysts thought the sales number would be lower, at $182.6 million. Earnings at 16 cents a share were well above expectations for 1 cent. ...

And Jeffrey had this to say:

... A week ago, Comcast and NBCUniversal announced the acquisition of DreamWorks Animation. I believe the agreement not only delivers significant value for our shareholders, but also supports NBCUniversal's growing family entertainment business. As stated in the press release, the transaction is subject to a number of closing conditions including regulatory approval and Comcast expects the transaction to close by the end of 2016.

Between now and then, it is business as usual for us. I will continue leading the company and will be working diligently each and every day with our teams to ensure that we are executing towards our strategic goals. ...

So it is, as stated previously, "full steam ahead" and business as usual until January, 2017.

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Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Blues Bros.

From yesteray, this:

Bento Box Entertainment announced plans [May 3] to develop and produce “The Blues Brothers,” as an animated comedy series. The project, which has been in the works for years, hails from Dan Aykroyd and former “Saturday Night Live” writers Judy Belushi and Anne Beatts.

The music-centric series will center on the adventures of Jake and Elwood Blues, two brothers who belong to a blues band. While no network is attached, Bento Box will shop around the project as a primetime comedy series. The independent studio is currently behind Fox’s “Bob’s Burgers,” among other shows. ...

Nostalgia is all the rage, what with The Jungle Book and various live-action remakes of Disney animated features. So why not do a rebake of a "Saturday Night Live" act from the seventies, one that birthed a #1 album, a moderately successful feature film, various tours and additional recordings?

Remaking earlier hits, breathing new life into old franchises, that's what American entertainment is about.


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Animators Fret

The Hollywood Reporter analyzes the marriage of Comcast Universal and DreamWorks Animation, and some union rep shoots off his mouth:

If you listen closely, you can hear a hint of pessimism in the predictions of Steve Hulett, business rep of the Animation Guild, about what will happen after NBCUniversal completes its acquisition of DreamWorks Animation. Thanks to the Walt Disney Co.'s 2006 purchase of Pixar Animation Studios, for example, Hulett has seen versions of this movie before.

"Usually they spend a period of time trying to soothe nervous hearts," says Hulett of acquirers. "They lie to the crew because they've got a picture to get out, and they can't have people jumping ship. … They use whatever argument they can use to calm you down." ...

We've discussed this with a few DWA employees, and it appears as if the television side of the biz is in good shape. In fact, the television side of DreamWorks Animation's business, appears to be a large part of the reason that Comcast-Universal desired the acquisition. The conglomerate has a cable network to program and DWA's growing cartoon library looks to be -- once the Netflix obligation runs its course, ready-made for C-U.

What will happen to feature animation production in Glendale is murkier and more uncertain. Our assumption is that more production will sooner or later be shipped to the land of snowy winters and Free Money, but this merger ... if approved by the government ... won't finalize until the end of the year and the word we've picked up is that work on current feature projects is "full steam ahead".

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Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Lining Up Talent

... for the next Space Jam.

... The Fast & Furious 6 and Star Trek Beyond helmer [Justin Lin] is co-writing, with Dodge and Botello, Warner Bros.' Space Jam 2. Lin is also looking to direct and produce via his Perfect Storm Entertainment, and sources say he will be thoroughly involved in the creative development of the project.

The WME-repped Cleveland Cavaliers forward, who recently appeared in Amy Schumer comedy Trainwreck, will star in the sequel. Rumors of a follow-up to the live-action/animated 1996 hit have been circulating for years but picked up steam in July when James and his company SpringHill Entertainment signed a deal with Warner Bros.

The first film, which earned $230.4 million worldwide, featured Michael Jordan teaming up with a collection of Looney Tunes characters to play a game of basketball against aliens threatening their freedom. ...

That first film, twenty years back in 1996, was a harried, hectic affair. The live-action shoot went well enough, except they didn't do a lot of pre-planning for the animated elements (Bugs, Daffy, etc.) and the schedule for the animation crew ... when animation finally got rolling ... was a hair-breadth short of insane. There was nine months to get everything done before the release date, and animators and assistant animators were sleeping under their desks. (This was in those happy, now-distant times when Warner Bros. actually paid overtime to animation crews).

I imagine Mr. Lin will want to pre-visualize the feature. I also imagine that Warners will desire to make the cartoon characters in CG, since CG is all the rage. But I have no idea when the picture might start production. It will likely happen when the studio gets a script that it likes. Now, at least, Space Jam 2 has a director.

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The Soldier on The Merger

I've been asked by many: "What's going to happen with DreamWorks Animation?" Though I don't have specifics (because the rude folks at Comcast-Universal have dropped me off the "CC" list for internal e-mails), I have made predictions about how DWA's future will unfold. And now I find, courtesy of a TAG member, that VFX Soldier has stirred back to life and offers this:

... [The DreamWorks Animation-Comcast merger] is a huge success for Katzenberg and he deserves it. However for the employees at DWA it’s a vastly different story because Comcast will subscribe to Mellandri’s feature animation production model and not the production model of Katzenberg.

... Katzenberg generally subscribes to the ["end-to-end"] production model in feature film CG-animation that is shared by John Lasseter at Disney and Pixar ... where from the storyboard to the final comp the whole production pipeline is generally housed under one roof. The employees are treated very well with good salaries, generally longer term contracts and with some having union benefits. The management team can clearly see what works and what doesn’t and adjust accordingly. The problem is adjustments can be like turning a huge ship which can lead to overflowing budgets if you’re not looking ahead. ...

Another model is the traditional outsourcing model that many ... love to talk about. This is where pre-production is done by animation veterans in the US and sent to CG productions facilities in Asia like India and China where labor costs are very low. ...

The final model is the one that I believe Comcast will subscribe to: The subsidized production model. This is the model that Comcast will adopt from its leading animation producer Chris Meledandri. It’s the same model former Imageworks exec Bob Osher adopted and one that many other VFX facilities have been forced to adopt: Move your production to locations where the government offers huge amounts of free taxpayer money. ...

The first bad sign [about the merger] is Katzenberg leaving. That gives Comcast no resistance to do what it intends to do no matter how stupid or costly it is. I know the Kool-Aid can be very potent at DWA and if I were you I would be completely skeptical of any terms of transition directed at any of you. A buy-and-hold period of about a year has been established so you have between now and “ground zero day” to pack your parachute. If ground zero day arrives and your safe great, if not, at least you are prepared. Given the landscape of VFX and CG animation production these days you might want to begin looking at the option to move to Canada, New Zealand, or the UK if you are interested in pursuing a career in VFX and animation. ...

Soldier's thoughts about DreamWork's future pretty much track my own.

On the bright side, I think the company will beef up pre-production for both features and television. Comcast is interested in following the Disney synergistic model where content boosts merchandise, beefs up the amusement parks, and becomes a driving force for video games and various distribution platforms. Much of this work will stay near the mothership in Los Angeles.

On the less-bright side, some (all?) feature production will leave town and go to places that pay lower wages or give away free money. As I write, there are 565 Guild members at DreamWorks Animation feature division and 261 Guild members at DWA's TV division. In the next one to three years, I would expect the feature numbers to diminish and the TV numbers to increase.

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Monday, May 02, 2016

Trimming the Free Money Sails

Oh my my.

The British Columbia government is cutting film and TV tax breaks amid an industry boom that drove the cost of the tax credits to nearly half a billion dollars in the last fiscal year – a decision that prompted some within the industry to worry U.S. producers could have second thoughts about bringing their projects to the province.

Finance Minister Mike de Jong followed through on his concerns about the cost of such tax breaks by announcing a plan to cut the basic production-services tax credit by five points – to 28 per cent, from 33 per cent. The credit compensates producers for claimed B.C. labour costs at the designated rate. At the same time, the digital animation or visual-effects tax credit will be cut to 16 per cent, from 17 per cent.

Earlier this year, Mr. de Jong said the province could no longer afford the tax credits, which have soared from an average annual cost of $313-million to $491-million in 2015-16. An increase in production, partly due to the low Canadian dollar, saw producers claiming more tax credits.

British Columbia’s decision to tinker with its tax-credit scheme comes as other jurisdictions have grappled with whether or how governments should support the industry. Saskatchewan got rid of its tax credits. Nova Scotia did the same last year, decimating its production industry. Ontario lowered its tax support last year for foreign productions. ...

The problem with giving away free money is it gets expensive for the geographic locality even as it becomes addictive for the fine entertainment conglomerate grabbing up the gobs of gratis cash.

California does it. Georgia does it. Likewise Britain and France and different Canadian provinces. But at some point the locals start to get restless watching their tax money go to big fat corporations that don't really need it, but will gladly take the moolah if some government chump offers same.

Long live free, unfettered enterprise!!

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The Animation Guild Golden Award Interviews #23 -- Curt Perkins and Lee Halpern

Curtis Perkins and Lee Halpern both entered animation in 1936, when the West Coast industry was expanding (Disney was still looking for artists to complete Snow White) and there were a cluster of other studios turning out shorts.

Curt Perkins began his career at Walter Lantz, but soon moved to Disney where he did effects animation and storyboarding. After World War II, he operated his own studio and worked for Hanna-Barbera and Filmation, among others. Curt passed away at age 80 in 1996. ...



Lee Halpern began his cartoon career at Leon Schlesinger's the summer of '36, making a princely $6 per week. Happily, he didn't stay at the rate for long, and by the 1960s was working on both theatrical shorts and television half-hours. Lee continued to work into the late 1980s, principally at Filmation. He passed away at age 86 in 2002



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Sunday, May 01, 2016

ONE MORE SETTLEMENT ON WAGE SUPPRESSION

Sony decides to make peace.

First Fox’s Blue Sky Studios reached a multi-million dollar settlement and now tellingly Sony has come to an 8-figure deal to exit the on-going potential class action suit against itself, DreamWorks Animation, Pixar, LucasFilm, Disney and the now shuttered Imagemovers Digital over wage-fixing and anti-poaching allegations. The $13 million dollar Sony deal signals a major shift in the ‘toon studios’ legal strategy and could see the remaining defendants moving to make their own deals to wrap this thing up. ...

Citing expediency, the plaintiffs’ attorneys want Judge Lucy Koh to schedule the preliminary approval hearing for the Sony settlement with the already set June 16 court appearance for the Blue Sky Studios deal. A hearing on class certification for the case is currently on the calendar for May 6.

Former DWA visual effects artist Nitsch first filed his case on September 8, 2014 with Wentworth and Cano putting their paperwork before the courts soon afterwards. “The Defendants themselves have explained the purpose of the conspiracy and in doing so, articulated the harm and injury caused by it to their workers. George Lucas explained under oath that the purpose of the non-solicitation agreement was to suppress wages and keep the visual effects industry out of “a normal industrial competitive situation.’” ...

The Animation Guild was subpoenaed for docments on this case several months ago, and I was then deposed for three hours in Century City. (I didn't have much of importance to say beyond giving dates of meetings and regurgitating a few points out of some redacted emails.)

My take on all the studios (alleged) wage suppression scheme is that companies large and small have been focused on keeping costs down for years. I understand that maximizing profits are what corporations do, but there are legit ways to go about that, and less legitimate ways. Studios working in concert to keep wages lower (allegedly) was a long-term strategy, and that the various companies are, one by one, making decisions to put the issue behind them. (Probably a wise thing to do.)

Our fine, entertainment conglomerates already get Free Money from various geographic locations (California, Georgia, Canada, Britain, France, etc., etc.) so they should lay off hammering paychecks into the ground. The Top Dogs should let the people that put the images on the screen earn more money too.

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World Box Office

There is a poop-load of animation (what with animated features plus animated visual effects) in the Global Box Office list:

WEEKEND FOREIGN BOX OFFICE -- (WORLD TOTALS)

Captain America -- $200,200,000 -- ($200,200,000)

The Jungle Book -- $57,100,000 -- ($684,795,800)

Zootopia -- $8,300,000 -- ($931,418,489)

Batman Vs. Superman -- $2,750,000 -- ($862,932,593)

Ratchet and Clank -- $600,000 -- ($6,823,000)

Kung Fu Panda 3 -- $3,100,000 -- ($509,907,337) ...

And our fine entertainment journal tells us:

Before taking the fight to the U.S. on May 6, Disney/Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War began its offshore campaign this frame in 37 territories. With an estimated $200.2M, Team Cap and Team Iron Man came in just behind Avengers: Age Of Ultron’s international start last year and set all-time opening weekend records in Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines. ...

Disney had a full dance card this weekend, also seeing The Jungle Book swing to another $57.1M internationally for an offshore total of $432.7M. In Europe, the Mouse dominated all the major markets with Civil War and Jungle Book placing No. 1 and 2 in many territories and with Civil War/Jungle Book/Zootopia sweeping the top three spots in the UK yesterday. ...

With a weekend of almost $100M global, The Jungle Book continues to beat its chest at the worldwide box office. The 4th offshore frame was worth $57.1M to bring the overseas total to $432.7M and the global tally to $684.8M. ...

Disney’s other animals were fairly wild again this frame, picking up $8.3M in the 12th – yes, 12th – offshore frame. The international total is now $607.9M for $931.42M global. Still playing in 40 territories, Zootopia benefitted from the Golden Week kickoff in Japan where it rose 9% versus last weekend. That holdover power enabled it to beat the launch of its own studio rival Captain America: Civil War, and bodes well for the coming frame. Meanwhile, in Germany, with 3.47M admissions, $31.8M in total box office and a 4th place finish in its 8th weekend of release, Zootopia has become the market’s No. 1 movie of 2016. ...

Kung Fu Panda 3 continued its run in 19 markets. Released by Fox, which has DWA titles through 2017, KFP3 grossed a further $3.1M to bring the total since its late January release to $368M overseas. ...

As their run winds down and with Marvel rivals now dominating offshore play, the Batman Vs. Superman pulled in an estimated $2.75M this weekend from approximately 3,400 screens in 59 markets. The offshore cume is now $537.8M. ...

With animation of all stripes killing at the world box office, it's not real surprising that the market for experienced talent is tightening.

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