... No. 2 on the weekend was "Shrek Forever After" in 3D, which took first place in 16 of its 17 new markets on the weekend, grossing $56.2 million overall from 7,022 venues in 47 territories. Foreign cume for the fourth and presumably final title in the "Shrek" franchise stands at $210 million so far, with openings due this week in four new markets, including Mexico and Belgium. ...
To date, Shrek Forever After has a worldwide cume of $443.7 million ...
Then there's that other 3-D animated film currently making the rounds.
... "Toy Story 3" ... took the weekend's third spot with $39.1 million derived from 6,992 venues in 39 territories. Overseas gross total for the animation threequel stands at $213.1 million extracted from a bit more than half of the international marketplace. ...
It would seem to be a foregone conclusion that both of these features are going to gross north of $500 million each from the planet's far-flung theatres.
TIME'S Richard Corliss explaining some of the creative origins of Despicable Me (with Steve Carell talking about it up above. I'll wager you didn't know it was a Disney movie, eh?):
... [Chris Meledandri] took Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, the Horton screenwriters, to expand on an idea by Spanish animator Sergio Pablos. Meledandri handed the directing chores to Blue Sky veteran Chris Renaud and the French animator Pierre Coffin. The movie was developed by this Spanish-Franco-American team.
That explains the movie's Euro feel: its lithe simplicity of line, its occasionally noirish palette, its pointy rather than round character shapes. ...
Almost every company that jumped into the hand-drawn feature game in the mid-nineties flamed out. Yet a decade and a half later, many plunge into CGI features and triumph ....
10:00-11:00 Marvel X-Men— Following Second Coming, Marvel's merry mutants are unable to catch a quick breather. As Curse of the Mutants begins, there's no telling what the vampires have in store for the X-Men...or is there? You've got questions & these people have answers! [... etcetera ...]
... [T]he Pixar wizards are so good they've managed to obscure the fact they've been making the same movie over and over again for the last 15 years.
To reveal this secret, I have obtained a copy of the top-secret Pixar plot generator ...
The San Francisco Chronicle offers a digital photo album of the Gods who reside up there at the crest of the American Olympus. They were all, it seems, at an extra-special annual event in the piney woods a few days ago:
Investment bank Allen & Co. is once again hosting its rich white guy media summit in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Attendees include Google cofounder Larry Page, News Corp king Rupert Murdoch, Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg, and whole bunch of other people who flew in on their own jets. ...
London's Cartoon Museum wants to remind Brits of their teevee cartoon heritage:
... [It] has just launched a show that celebrates classic British children’s animation. "Toy Tales" showcases some of Britain’s favourite animations over the last fifty years – from the Clangers, Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog and Bagpuss through Roobarb and Custard, Morph, Basil the Brush, the Snowman and Father Christmas to Wallace and Gromit, Fireman Sam and Peppa Pig. ...
Last of all, the L.A. Times pointed out a few days ago that though Shrek Forever After has been a bit of an under-achiever at home, the story is considerably different overseas:
... In France, it had the biggest ever opening for a DreamWorks film, slightly ahead of “Shrek the Third,” with $11.7 million. In Great Britain, it took in a healthy $13.1 million and it also had good starts in South Korea, Hong Kong and Austria. ...
Although it has a steep hill to climb to hit the $479 million and $476 million international grosses of the last two “Shrek” movies, “Forever After” still has a shot, particularly with potentially lucrative markets such as Italy, Japan, Mexico and Spain left to launch ...
Have a restful Sunday.
Add On: The Hollywood Reporter speculates about a Katzenberg-Murdoch meetup in Sun Valley:
... DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeff Katzenberg and Rupert Murdoch: We also spotted those two walking through Sun Valley together on Wednesday afternoon. Maybe just a friendly catch-up chat among moguls, but Wall Street has long wondered whether DWA may leave its current distribution deal with Paramount early. It runs through 2012, but DWA can end it with six months notice in 2011 -- meaning starting right around now. News Corp.'s Fox has its Blue Sky Studio, which currently turns out about one animated movie per year ("Ice Age," the upcoming "Rio"). Arguably, it could get a little crowded to add in a potential two DWA movies per year, but not undoable. Of course, Katzenberg has said he is happy with the Paramount relationship. So, maybe DWA just enjoys being popular and having us mention a public flirt with other distributors. And hey, looking popular could also help DWA get better terms with Paramount if they re-up ...
The Nikkster informs us that Universal and Chris Meladandri's Illumination Entertainment have themselves a hit:.
... Sources are telling me that early North American box office numbers show that Universal Pictures is going to enjoy something it hasn't had in a very long time: a big hit film. That's because rival studios say that weeks of great parent-kid family tracking for Despicable Me 3D today is translating into "amazing" attendance of $22 million for what could be a $55M-$60M weekend opening despite having two other 3D family films in the marketplace. ...
Universal's last animated feature Curious George ran up a total gross of $60 million after several weeks in the marketplace. DM appears to be doing almost as well in its opening weekend, and gives Hollywood its fourth cartoon hit in six months: Two from DreamWorks Animation, one from Pixar, and now one from Illumination Entertainment-Universal. ...
Add On: The Reporter weighs in with figures for Friday:
Universal's 3D animated feature "Despicable Me" -- a potential boxoffice champ this weekend -- proved pretty lovable for moviegoers in its first day of release on Friday.
The family comedy rung up a nifty $21.7 million during its first day in release. That topped the daily rankings and put "Despicable" on track for a much better than expected three-day opening of more than $50 million, with Saturday and Sunday matinees certain to bolster its weekend success. ...
Add On Too: Wowee yowee. For its opening weekend, Despicable Me collects way more than originally anticipated:
And while we're at it, there are two DreamWorks Animation Features still in release -- Shrek Forever After at $233.7 million, and How to Train Your Dragon at $216.9 million.
Seeing as this is my inaugural post on the Blog .. Hello all! I'm Steve Kaplan and I've taken the illustrious and honorable Labor Organizer position with our beloved Guild. I am interested in meeting as many of you readers and members as I can. Please drop me a note or stop by the Guild office and say "Hello".
As is expected in my first few weeks here as the Labor Organizer, I've reached out to the artists I've worked with and met in my travels over the past few years. I've encountered a lot of feedback on my new employment; much of which I will be sharing here to both enlighten the group and to gather opinions and reactions. The first topic I was interested in feedback on is the name of our organization.
More than I expected, I hear something like this from visual effects artists:
The Animation Guild will represent us? But, I'm not an animator. I am [modeler, rigger, texture artist, lighter, insert other vfx labor category here] Is there a VFX Guild?
To this, I always answer the same. "The Guild currently represents visual effects artists as well as traditional animation artists". I know too little about traditional animation to be able to list all the jobs and tasks that it holds. I can certainly expound on what it takes to get CG art from its beginning stages to the screen. I can safely say that both fields have artists whose job isn't to take an object and/or character and move it from one location to another in a series of frames. I can also say that among our membership are artists who perform those tasks for both traditional and CG animation.
Many people I've talked to also don't realize that our Guild changed its name from Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists back in 2002 for the same reason. As the title of the post implies, I agree with W. Shakespeare on this topic. However, I do see the advantage of a proper moniker. It helps identify our organization to the parties that should know of its existence. So, in the interest of better exposure to visual effects artists while not alienating our traditional animation artist brothers and sisters, what would be a good addition to our name? The Animation and Computer Graphics Guild (TACGC)? The Animation and Visual Effects Guild (TAVEG)? I'd love to hear your suggestions in the comments.
In your opinion and through your observations....why doesn't animation get the respect/recognition that live action gets across the board? ...
Because the vast majority of Academy voters are tied to the Live Action Village, and they tend to vote (as do many) in favor of fellow villagers.
It used to be worse, screenwriter/producer Niven Busch once told me in the heyday of the Studio System.
"Management expected you to vote for your studio's films. And if you didn't, you weren't a good studio employee ..."
There's probably less of that kind of bloc voting than there once was, but to the larger question of animation features getting "more respect?" don't hold your breath, Mike.
The only difference during my lifetime has been that animation now makes the conglomerates piles of money, to the point where some big live-action players (Spielberg, Jackson, Verbinkski) dabble in it.
This has meant that the genre formerly known as "cartoons" is now allowed to sit at the adults' table, but really. Animation getting more of those little gold men in the mainstream movie categories?
Won't be happening. Because 'toons are still, at the end of the awards' season, the bastard step-children of the movie industry.
Despicable Me from Chris Meladandri's Illumination Entertainment opens later today.
Rotten Tomatoes currently gives the Universal release an 80%-plus fresh rating, although Ken Turan of the L.A. Times is less than ecstatic ...
... [W]atching "Despicable Me" can be something of a chore, especially when you factor in a penchant for what the MPAA ratings board characterizes as "rude humor." ....
The trailers I've seen of the movie have all been amusing. But whether DM takes off in the DreamWorks or Pixar manner with its European-flavored animation will be answered by the end of its opening weekend.
My friend the Wise Old Animation Producer told me two weeks ago, "If it takes in thirty-five or forty million, Universal and Meladandri will be ecstatic ..."
..."Despicable Me" looks like it will perform well compared with other recent animated films that aren't sequels and don't come from established studios like DreamWorks Animation or Pixar. "The Princess and the Frog" from Disney Animation Studios, which has been in a box office slump, opened to $24 million in December, while Sony Pictures Animation's "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" opened to $30 million in September. ...
... "DM" is set to open to about $35 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada, according to people who have seen pre-release audience polling ...
The big green ogre might not be as profitable as earlier incarnations, but Paramount/Viacom isn't complaining.
... PPI said Thursday it has powered past the billion dollar benchmark after a $42.6 million weekend for "Shrek Forever After" across a slew of territories including U.K./Ireland, France, Germany and Korea.
... The final film in the "Shrek" franchise has laughed up an international cume of $140 million to date.
PPI's coffers have also been boosted with a $262 million boxoffice cume to date for the release of DreamWorks Animation's "How To Train Your Dragon." That film is scheduled to roll out in Japan at the beginning of August. ...
Mr. Katzenberg has his detractors (many of them often showing up here), but when you pull off the hat trick of having two animated features in the Top Ten during the same week, you must be doing something right.
The Motion Picture Academy has its new rules for visual effects and animation.
“An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of greater than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.” ...
Uh, okay.
Motion capture, it's not animation. Check.
So, what about motion capture that an animator has reworked so that it flows and doesn't look, you know, "weird?" And does this mean that Snow White, who had a lot of 1930s style motion capture (also known as rotoscope) in her DNA, wouldn't qualify as an animated character?
How do we deal with a character who's 40% motion capture and 60% animation? (More importantly, how do we tally the percentages?)
A few years back, I sat in a meeting hall and listened to the director of Monster House explain how they began the film with motion capture, but reworked all the raw data and it ended up "about 60-70% animated."
So I guess my final question is, where is the dividing line?
Ms. Magazine apparently has issues with Toy Story 3.
Toy Story 3 opens on a woman-empowerment high, with Mrs. Potato-Head displaying mad train-robbing skills and cowgirl Jessie skillfully steering her faithful horse Bullseye in the ensuing chase. And that’s the end of that: From there on, the film displays the same careless sexism as its predecessors. ...
Pixar has not left its male-heterocentric scripts behind. Nor has it moved beyond the “everyone is white and middle class” suburban view of the world. Perhaps we should expect no more from Pixar, especially now that Disney, the animated instiller of gender and other norms (a great documentary on this is Mickey Mouse Monopoly),now owns the studio.
Poor unenlightened me. I know that Pixar's upper reaches are pretty much a boys' club, but I sat through the whole damn movie and never picked up on any of this.
The subtleties of the male-hetero-centric script flew right over my under-powered cranial cavity ....
And then I read Danielle Bean at the National Catholic Register, who thought that Ms. was ... uh ... full of it.
I have to say: Did we watch the same movie? Gimme a break, Ms.
Here’s Wilson’s “evidence” of Pixar misogyny, along with my commentary:
Andy’s mother is a nag.
No, she’s not. She’s a busy, loving mom wrestling with the complicated emotions involved with letting go of her son as he heads off to college. She gives her kids a lot of direction, just like every good mom I know.
Only one out of the seven new characters is female.
This count actually misses the most important and sweetest new female character—Bonnie. She’s a wise, fun, and loving female protagonist. If Pixar made a “Toy Story 4” starring Bonnie, I would pay to see it. ...
There is, of course, the small point that every Pixar feature is male-driven (both on and behind the screen), but you could say the same for most major live-action films. Hollywood was finally shamed into giving an Oscar to a female director after eighty-two years, but the reality is:
Men run most of the industry.
Men call most of the creative shots.
And things aren't likely to change very much anytime soon.
Happily, Pixar is finally giving Brenda Chapman the opportunity to be Emeryville's first woman director, but Jeffrey Katzenberg broke the gender barrier over a decade ago with Prince of Egypt, Spirit and Shrek.
Cartoonland is still, as it has been since Farmer Alfalfa and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a boy-driven enterprise.
My morning was spent at Warner Bros. Animation, down the street at the Warner Ranch.
The place is busier than it's been in a couple of years (have I mentioned this previously?) There are so many shows and artists that WBA now occupies four different buildings -- two of them actual multi-story structures, the others collections of double-wide trailers.
I had a long talk with a board artist on one of the super hero shows who admitted:
"I pulled some late nighters on my first two scripts for Blank, but I like to see my wife and my kid, so I'm not doing that now. I've gotten more adjusted and comfortable with the characters and show, and I figured out ways to get more efficient and save time. My director thought the last board I did was my best, but it was the one I spent less time on.
"When you work fourteen-hour days, six or seven days a week, you work a lot slower and the quality of the work goes down. I also work faster by drawing the boards in Photo Shop and importing them into Toon Boom ..."
The high point of my morning was getting a look at the three new Coyote and Road Runner shorts that animation veteran Matt O'Callaghan has directed.
They are each three minutes long, designed as eye candy to be placed in front of three different "family oriented" features. And they are terrific. They are also ...
[Spoiler Ahead]
... well-realized reboots of the old shorts, wherein the coyote chases the bird in new and interesting ways, and meets disaster each time.
(Now you know the plots. Sue me.)
I sat in Mr. Callaghan's office and watched one cartoon in 3-D, and the other cartoons in non 3-D. They are done up in artful CGI and saturated colors, and the updates and high techery decorating the productions work real well. (The cartoons were animated by Reel Effects in Texas.)
I think they are going to compete nicely with, or maybe overshadow, the Warners' features they accompany. We'll see.
Maybe it isn't my imagination about more cartoon action on the teevee side. Because new players are jumping into the mix.
Production powerhouse Reveille is getting into the TV animation business ...
The producer of such shows as NBC's "The Biggest Loser" ... has entered into a first-look deal with Mechem Media ... Reveille will work with Mechem to create animated fare in the signature style of Hanna-Barbera ... First on the slate is a comedy titled "The Gloomers," about the unluckiest family in the world who happen to live next door to the luckiest family in the world. ...
Yesterday a story artist said to me: "This business goes in cycles. I don't mind the ups, but you really have to be creative to power through the downs. But what the hell can you do besides wait it out?"
TAG's goal is two-fold: to help people weather the bad times, and to organize the new non-signator studios.
Today I worked through Cartoon Network (up against the brow of the Verdugo Mountains) and Disney Television Animation at Frank Wells.
At both places, artists told me they could see that the t.v. animation business is growing and getting busier. The Mouse has Fish Hooks, Inspector Oso, Phineas and Ferb, Jake and the Neverland Pirates plus additional episodes of Mickey' Clubhouse to keep staff busy, Cartoon Network has a half dozen projects, and Warners employs sizable crews on various series and direct-to-video features.
Compared to, say, twenty-four months ago, the conglomerates' studios are veritable beehives. But that's not all ...
There is also Diz Co.'s recent acquisition of Marvel, and the happy prospect of more comic book properties finding their way to animated glory.
"Marvel is very bullish on animation and has fully funded its third 52-episode series," [Eric Rollman, President of Marvel Animation], says. "In the past, we never did that and the great thing about being part of the Disney family is that the company is made up of animators. They respect it and understand that it's animation that drives consumer products, and so our strategic business is the same." ...
"We're a 360-degree entertainment company and we're concentrating on what Marvel does best, which is managing our brands. We understand our characters and have several thousand in the universe that in some way interconnect. So to build these integrated universes but at the time keep them separate is something of an art form ..."
Some years back, when Marvel was starting to roll out direct-to-video animated features, TAG organized the artists working on them, and I got to know Eric Rollman at the time we held the NLRB vote and then -- a short while later -- contract negotiations.
Sadly, Eric let me know that Marvel was operating on a shoe-string and they "just didn't have any money" for better salaries and benefits. More sadly, we were never able to reach agreement on a contract, and the crew was reluctant to strike.
But that was then, and this is now.
Marvel isn't a struggling comic book company anymore, but a subsidiary of the Mighty Mouse. So everything's good. And we look forward to working with Eric R. and the Marvel Group in the future. Nothing could please us more.
Setting aside the worldwide love of blood-suckers, our friendly neighborhood ogre did quite well for himself.
... No. 2 on the weekend was DreamWorks Animation's "Shrek Forever After" in 3D, which opened in nine territories and took the number one spot in all of them. Leading the fresh markets were the U.K. ($13.5 million from 539 venues) and France ($11.7 million from 952 locations, a record opening for a DreamWorks title in the market) with the 3D animated movie defying hot weather conditions in each territory.
The film opened No. 1 (via C.J. Entertainment) in Korea at 630 spots drawing $6.3 million. Overall weekend take for the latest "Shrek" was $42.6 million extracted from 4,484 venues in 25 markets. Foreign cume now stands at $137 million. ...
Which means that the latest Shrek has now accumulated $ 359 million around the world ...
And the other animated entry?
Third on the weekend was Pixar/Disney's "Toy Story 3," which grossed $25.5 million from 5,001 screens in 34 territories, with Latin American markets providing $89.3 million or 60% of the film's total overseas take. Mexico alone has provided a market cume of $44.7 million ...
After being released in only 37% of the total international marketplace, the animation threequel in 3D rolled up a total foreign tally of $150.8 million. Worldwide, "Toy Story 3" has accumulated $439.8 million, making it Disney's twelfth biggest animation release ever. ...
A couple clicks down, somebody makes a statement I hear from time to time. I was going to answer it in comments, but I've opted to do a tutorial here ...
Commenter: ... It's common that Animation Artists are working 10-14 hour days without overtime at union shops because the union has no balls.
Me: Since you apparently live in dark ignorance (whoever you are), allow me to throw light on this subject ...
Over the years, I've had various union artists complain to me about working overtime without pay. To each one I've said:
"I will file a grievance today. Just say the word."
Almost all have said no.
And unfortunately, here's the way it works: TAG can initiate a grievance for unpaid overtime without an artist's cooperation, but TAG can't win it.
Here's why.
When I get into the arbitration hearing, I will be alone. And the arbitrator (the judge and jury) will say to me "Where's the grievant?"
And I will have to answer "He refused to come."
And the arbitrator will say "This isn't good. We need his testimony."
And my response will be "I know we do. But he's not here to give it. He didn't want the company to know who he was, so he won't be testifying."
To which the arbitrator will respond: "Okay then. I guess we're done. Being as how there's no evidence regarding the unpaid o.t., I find for the company."
So we clear now? Without the testimony -- or equivalent evidence -- regarding the uncompensated overtime, it's a tough grievance to win.
It's a contractual holiday, I've been catching up on my recreational sleeping, so here's some new Disney art (cribbed from other corners of the internets) of the oncoming CGI feature formerly known as Rapunzel.
I've had people tell me (as Floyd Norman has mentioned here in comments) that the Tangled preview hasn't gotten huge responses from theatre audiences.
Well, the trailer amused me (though I cringed at Rapunzel's line: "Best. Day. Ever!" It's beyond cliche and why the hell do we need it?)
I think the picture will perform well, despite the long development time and despite some of the brickbats that have been chucked at it. For my money, it combines the best of CG with the best of early nineties Diseny hand-drawn features. (My caveat: I haven't a clue how the story plays ... or even exactly what the story is.)
Insiders tell me the story is good; insiders tell me the story is "so-so." But I don't think insiders are necessarily the best judges. They're too damn close to the product to see the thing objectively, and they often change their opinions over time.
"Girls Drawin' Girls" presents "Sugar & Spice," an art show celebrating the release of their third volume of collected pin-up art titled "Girls Drawin Girls: Sugar & Spice, Volume III."
The evening will feature original pin-up artwork on display and for sale, burlesque performances by the ladies of Victory Variety Hour, figure drawing models provided by Gallery Girls, and tunes by DJ Marlowe. Refreshments will be provided. A $5 donation is requested at the door to help go towards the evenings' performers.
Artwork on display will feature pin-up pieces from Volume III, as well as original artwork by some of the most talented ladies working in animation, film and graphic design today!
In addition to copies of "Girls Drawin Girls: Sugar & Spice, Vol III" being sold, Girls Drawin Girls will be selling their past books, "Girls Drawin Girls; A Girl in Time, Vol I" and "Once Upon a Girl, Vol II," art prints and other pin-up themed merchandise.
About Girls Drawin Girls:
Girls Drawin Girls was founded in 2006 by Simpsons veteran Melody Severns and storyboard artist Anne Walker as a way to showcase women artists working in the male-dominated industry of animation. Together, they felt it was time for these talented women to demonstrate their creative abilities and artistic interpretations of female sexuality by re-defining the art of the pin-up.
Since its conception, the group has published three volumes of pin-up art and grown to over 90 active members who work professionally in various entertainment industries.
The group provides collaborative projects for its artists (such as book collections, group art shows, and opportunities to participate in charity art events such as the Pasadena Chalk Festival), in addition to promoting each member's individual artistic endeavors through cross-promotion and marketing prints, original artwork and other art-related merchandise.
About Gallery 839:
Gallery 839 is overseen by The Animation Guild (TAG 839). Located in the Union's office headquarters building, Gallery 839 focuses on the work of artists in the animation industry, highlighting their fine art backgrounds apart from their day-to-day jobs in animation.
Gallery 839 hosts monthly shows of TAG members' personal art, with a gala opening reception the first or second Friday of each month. The main goal for these shows is to help give TAG members a venue to show their personal artistry. The talent of the Animation Guild's membership runs deep and wide, and the purpose of Gallery 839 is to share that talent with both the membership and the rest of the community.
TAG 839 Headquarters/ Gallery 839
1105 N. Hollywood Way
Burbank, CA 91505
For sales or inquiries, please contact Girls Drawin Girls at (818) 434-6900.
Here's the way t.v. animation development happens*:
1) Scripts for a cartoon series are written and handed off to in-house board artists.
2) Boards come back. New animation exec says: "These things are too costly. ... I know! Let's freelance them out!"
3) Boards are freelanced out. Come back. General reaction is "These things look like shit!" (Of course they do. The freelancers are doing the boards quick and dirty so they can make enough money to maintain their "going rates.")
4) An exec says: "Let's hire some in-house board revisionists to clean up these shitty boards." So revisionists are brought on staff to improve the shitty boards.
5) Another exec suggests bringing board artists in the studio "to improve quality." Management agrees this is a fine idea and so hires in-house board artists.
6) The consensus soon is: "Heey. The production boards are improved!" A little time goes by and a new executive says: ""These things cost too much!" ...
Rinse and repeat.
* With the spread of the ubiquitous Cintiq, this pattern is changing. Now in-house production board artists are starting to build and time their own digital animatic story reels (along with partially animating them.)
The New York Times details how a heavy-duty kids cable network is moving to your neighborhood AMC.
... The reboot of Nickelodeon Movies came over the weekend with “The Last Airbender,” about a boy who can control air, fire, earth and water and embarks on a quest to save the world. Johnny Depp — the biggest family star around — is the headline name for the animated “Rango,” set for release on March 4. After that is a splashy new “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” produced by Michael Bay, the director of the “Transformers” movies. ...
For all the majors now, the movie and t.v. biz is about extending and maximizing "brands." Making a good movie is fine, but really beside the point:
The model is Walt Disney Studios, which has successfully moved Disney Channel programming like “Hannah Montana” to the big screen. Adam Goodman, president of the Paramount Film Group, said he wanted to stretch the Nickelodeon brand to include racier content — just as Disney did with PG-13-rated movies like “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.”
... (One example of what Paramount is trying to avoid: “The Princess and the Frog,” the Disney animated movie that fizzled at the box office in part because of cool interest from older children and adults.) ...
Once upon a time, what we would call "the major film studios" had specific house styles that reflected the tastes, points-of-few and creative chops of their founders. Disney product would never have been mistaken for Warner Bros. cartoons or -- for that matter -- the kinds of entertainment that the Fleischer brothers turned out.
But in the age of the conglomerate, all of those things have blown away like topsoil in a hurricane. Now it's about building franchises and cross-pollinating different corporate divisions. About maximizing profits.
The days of making a ninety- minute feature for the sake of that animated feature are ... long over. Please don't hold your breath waiting for them to come back.
Ilene Woods, who provided the speaking and singing voice for the title character in Walt Disney's classic 1950 animated feature " Cinderella," has died. She was 81.
Woods, a Calabasas resident, died of causes related to Alzheimer's disease Thursday at a nursing and rehabilitation center in Canoga Park ...
Hayao Miyazaki wrote the script for the film based on Norton’s novel. Directing is 36-year old Hiromasa Yonebayashi, who served as a key animator on Miyazaki’s classics Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away. He’s the youngest feature director in Studio Ghibli history.
Walt Disney Co said on Thursday it has acquired startup iPhone app developer Tapulous, as the company continues its push into mobile games. ...
Tapulous struck gold with the music game "Tap Tap Revenue," which was one of the early hits on Apple's iPhone.
Tapulous says it has more than 35 million users, and "Tap Tap Revenge" has been played more than 1 billion times. The company also makes games for the iPad ....
Some Southern California art/animation schools go belly up, and lawsuits follow.
LOS ANGELES - The owners of Southern California art and design schools were sued for fraud Tuesday by dozens of immigrant families who claim they were lured into paying tuition for courses that were never completed because the company folded. ...
The suit alleges that from 2005 to 2009, the couple took some $1.5 million in tuition from 77 families for admission to their Montecito Fine Arts Inc. schools in suburban Monrovia, Arcadia and Brea. ...
The lawsuit alleges fraud, negligent misrepresentation and violation of state laws. It seeks unspecified damages and asks the court to rescind the school contracts and permanently bar the couple from unfair business practices.
The suit claims the couple took prepaid tuition even though they knew the campuses were in financial trouble. The schools went bankrupt last year ...
(There is, unfortunately, too much of this kind of stuff going on.)
... Without [the dog] there my eye gets "stuck" in that area where the dog used to be, it can't quite make the transition over to the stagecoach, and my eye starts to slide out the bottom of the painting. And without the dog the picture becomes too symmetrical to me...now the top of the picture is an empty blank area and so is the bottom ....
Despicable Me is the next animated feature out of the gate, and leading voice Steve Carrell talks about it.
Q: In most of the characters you play, we see you as this great deadpan comedian who’s so good at playing it straight and making it funny. Is this a different side of your sense of humor we get to see where you do a crazy voice and go wild?
Steve Carell: It’s fun to go wild and it’s interesting when you’re trying to create a character in animation. It’s really a communal effort. It’s not like I would just come in with a singular idea and start doing it. I saw the artwork. I talked to the directors and the writers and got a sense for what they wanted. And then, what’s great about it is that you do have the license to just go for it and you trust that the editors and the directors will put in what’s necessary. I felt like my job description on this was to just give as wide a range as possible – do things small or smallish and then sort of blow the doors off on other takes because you never know what they’re going to need in any given moment in terms of the narrative of the movie ....
DC Comics is already doing a second print run after more than 60,000 copies were snapped up. There will be 100,000 in all for the issue. Downloads of the free issue preview for Wonder Woman #600 though DC Comic's one-week-old digital publishing app have been "phenomenal"
We'll end as we began, with a DreamWorker. Jeffrey Katzenberg recalls for Business Week the non-joy of getting canned:
Sixteen years ago, Michael Eisner called me into his office and fired me. ...
Disney (DIS) put out a press release. When I got back to my office an hour later, I got three calls. The first was from Bill Gates. The second was from Tom Murphy, CEO of CapCities/ABC. The third was from Steven Spielberg and Bob Zemeckis, who were vacationing together in Jamaica. They called to congratulate me on getting fired. They thought it was hilarious. ...
As rockets go off and family canines cower under beds, we find two animated features rolling along in the Top Domestic Ten. As the Nikkster reports:
3. Starting its third week is Disney's Toy Story 3 with $10.5 Friday from 4,028 plays. That's probably a 3D-aided $48M for the 4-day holiday weekend to pass $300M. The pic's cume after 18 days should reach a whopping $306M.
9. Shrek Forever After 3D (DWA/Par) Week 7 [957 Theaters] Friday $1.4M, Est 4-Day Holiday $4M, Est Cume $235 ...
The latest teeny bop vampire movie will be dominating this weekend. But two animated features raking in millions isn't bad. (Shrek currently has a multiple of its opening weekend of around 3.3. Toy Story's opening clearly took a chunk out of S4's domestic gross.)
Add On: The New York Times tells us the winners of the Gala Holiday Box Office:
“The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” drew an estimated $161 million out of North American theaters in its first five days of release, a spectacular if not quite record-breaking result. ... “The Last Airbender,” which opened Thursday on Paramount’s Nickelodeon Movies banner, was a solid No. 2 for the weekend with about $40.7 million for a domestic total of about $53.2 million. ... “Toy Story 3” ... was third with about $30.2 million for a new total of $289 million
“Grown Ups” (Sony Pictures Entertainment) was fourth with about $18.5 million for a new domestic total of $77.1 million. ... “Knight and Day,” ... was fifth with about $10.2 million ...
The thoughts and observations of the leaders of The Animation Guild (TAG), Local 839 IATSE. Jason MacLeod is the Business Representative, KC Johnson is the President. Mike Sauer is Assistant to the Business Representative.
This weblog reflects their individual personal opinions and does not necessarily represent the official position of the Animation Guild.
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