The Globes' Best

The best animated feature is ... How to Train Your Dragon II.

And director Dean DeBlois thanks the out-going Bill Damaschke and incoming Bonnie Arnold (by happy coincidence the producer of the feature). As Jeffrey K. looks on.

Well-deserved win.

Add On: Mr DeBlois talks about HTTYD2:

...What was your process in constructing this successful sequel?

It comes from a general allergy to sequels and the sense that they often feel so unnecessary and lack the integrity of the original. I pitched the idea of a trilogy with a larger architecture to it, where threads that were set up in the first film would be carried forward in the second and paid off in a very finite way come third. ...

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World Box Office

Animated movies continue to rake in coin.

Foreign Weekend Box Office -- (World Totals)

Night at the Museum -- $46,200,000 -- ($248,123,488)

The Hobbit -- $21,800,000 -- ($781,817,487)

Into the Woods -- $7,600,000 -- ($120,571,929

Exodus: Gods and Kings -- $15,000,000 -- ($231,752,105)

Big Hero 6 -- $12,600,000 -- ($408,958,958)

Unbroken -- $5,700,000 -- ($115,602,305)

Penguins of Madagascar -- $9,000,000 -- ($287,777,626)

Paddington -- %6,500,000 -- ($120,000,000)

As an entertainment journal notes:

... Big Hero 6 has become the 8th Walt Disney Animation Studios’ title to cross the $400M threshold at the global box office, with $214M domestically and $195M internationally for a total $408.96M. ...

Fox’s Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb unearthed $26.72M in its first China week. The final installment of the franchise opened in the Middle Kingdom last Sunday and played on 3,887 screens reaching the No. 1 spot and outpacing the last Night At The Museum by 287%. ...

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies entrenched for another $21.8M in 65 markets this frame. The international total is now $545.3M with China yet to go. ...

Paddington has already had successful runs in different overseas markets and now unspools stateside.

PoM has had solid openings overseas, and the pic should have global earnings over $300 million by the end of next weekend, and a couple of weeks after? It should pass Rise of the Guardians' $307 million total. Sadly, Penguins hasn't been a barn-burner in the U.S. and Canada; this, also sadly, is impacting the worldwide accumulation, but what can you do?

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At the Autry

Gene's Museum once again hosted the Animation Guild's holiday (post-holiday?) party on Friday night. ...

Downstairs and upstairs spaces, early on.

Somewhere between nine hundred and twelve hundred people showed up for the festivities, and as usual at these events, guild members (and friends) partied in the galleries, in the central hallways, and out in the large exterior courtyard, visiting with old friends and catching up.

We were uptight about a rainstorm sweeping in. Happily, no water from the sky spattered the Animation Guild's annual party. ...

A view of the lower party space from the museum's central stairway ...

Hulett and President Emeritus Tom Sito at the Autry's front entrance ...

Tom thought this shot was Kubriquesque. The photographer, executive board member Bronnie Barry, thought it was what happens when no flash is used.

So why do we have a "holiday party" on January 9th? Mostly to avoid the Christmas and New Year's crush. And it gives everybody something to look forward to after the holly, lights and tinsel get taken down.


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Box Office of America

Liam Neeson owns this three-day stretch.

Box Office -- January 9-11

1). Taken 3 (Fox), 3,594 theaters /$14.7M Fri. / 3-Day: $38.6M /Total cume: $38.6M/ Wk 1
*includes $1.6M Thursday sneak previews

2). Selma (Par), 2,179 theaters (+2,157) / $3.8M Fri. (1,595%)/ 3-Day: $11.75M(+1,758%)/Total cume: $14M / Wk 3

3). Unbroken (UNI), 3,301 theaters (+111) / $2.495M Fri. (-66%)/ 3-Day: $8.23M(-55%)/Total cume: $101.6M / Wk 3

4). The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (WB), 3,402 theaters (-473)/$2.38M (-71%)Fri./ 3-Day: $8.61M (-60%) /Total cume: $235.7M/ Wk 4

5). Into The Woods (DIS), 2,833 theaters (+295) / $2.36M Fri. (-68%)/ 3-Day:$8.68M (-54%)/Total cume:$103.8M / Wk 3

6). The Imitation Game (TWC), 1,566 theaters (+812) / $2.025M Fri.(-31%) / 3-Day: $7.04M (-9%)/Total cume: $40.3M / Wk 7

7). The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (Relativity), 2,602 theaters / $1.782M Fri. (-77%)/ 3-Day:$5.4M (-64%)/ Total cume: $22.9M / Wk 2

8). Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb (FOX), 3,371 theaters (-431) / $1.59M Fri. (-73%) / 3-Day: $7.33M(-49%)/Total cume: $100.2 / Wk 4

9). Annie (Sony), 2,856 theaters (-310) / $1.02M Fri. (-78%)/ 3-Day: $4.34M (-61%)/ Total cume: $78.8M / Wk 4

10). The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (LGF),2,063 theaters (-442) / $1M Fri. (-66%)/ 3-Day:$3.78M (-50%)/Total cume: $329.6M/ Wk 8

Big Hero 6 has slipped out of the Top Ten to #11, and will likely end with a total accumulation of $218 million by the end of Sunday.

Penguins of Madagascar at #13 will probably reach $80 million at the end of the weekend. And Boxtrolls (#34), still in 131 theaters, will hit $51 million in the next few days.


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DreamWorks Animation Downgrade

Stock analysts continue to believe DWA is in for rough sledding.

Zacks lowered shares of Dreamworks Animation Skg (NYSE:DWA) from a neutral rating to an underperform rating in a report released on Friday. Zacks currently has $20.00 price objective on the stock.

Zacks’ analyst wrote, “DreamWorks performed encouragingly in the third quarter of 2014 reporting higher-than-expected revenues as well as earnings. The company’s third-quarter 2014 earnings (excluding special items) of $0.10 per share handsomely beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.04. Higher-than-expected revenues led to the earnings beat. Despite such an impressive show, the company’s movie business is still battling high volatility. Mounting marketing costs, limited number of film releases, stiff competition from large production houses and overdependence on its Feature Film business continue to act as headwinds for the company. ...

The studio has the same challenges that it's owned from the beginning: When the bulk of your revenue is dependent on each film being a hit, and one or more films under-perform (as some invariably will), the stock will ricochet around a lot.

This is why Jeffrey is keen to sell DWA to a larger entity. DreamWorks won't have to live and die on it slate of films. But it's good that the company continues to diversify with more merchandising, television, and amusement parks. They're all smart moves to make, and it's good to be making them.

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Rod Taylor, RIP

He was primarily an in-front-of-the-camera actor, but he had the lead voice role in one of Disney's finest animated features.

Rod Taylor, the Australian-born actor who starred in George Pal's adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" and in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," then decades later made a memorable swan-song appearance as Winston Churchill in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," died Wednesday. He was 84. ...

Taylor made his feature starring debut in 1960 sci-fier "The Time Machine" portraying a fictionalized Wells, who invents a time machine in Victorian England and travels to the distant future. The next year he voiced the lead canine, Pongo, in Disney's "101 Dalmatians". ...

Mr. Taylor was no any kind of a "name" when he was cast as Daddy Dalmation. He'd been a supporting actor in movies and television during the fifties, and was a thirty-year-old thespian looking for his big break. He found it with The Time Machine, but it's Dalmations from '61 that is a more iconic film.

Mr. Taylor was never a super-star, but he had a long and prolific career. In a profession where brief bankability ... or no bankability at all ... is the norm, the fact that he worked for sixty years is impressive.

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Renewal

Comedy Central might take away, but Fox is in a giving mood.

... On Thursday, Fox announced that the Emmy-winning animated series Bob's Burgers will return for a sixth season. Season six will consist of an additional 22 episodes. The renewal marks the first major pickup for Fox under network chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman. ...

As another entertainment journal notes:

Despite largely flying under the radar, getting fraction of the attention fellow Fox animated series The Simpsons and Family Guy are getting, Bob’s Burgers has quietly reached a milestone very few broadcast series achieve — a sixth season. ...

Bob’s Burgers has not been a ratings hit of the size of The Simpsons and Family Guy but has developed a loyal following despite frequent time slot moves. This past fall, it held 100% of its season premiere rating in Week 2. The series also has been a critical darling, recently landing an Annie and and two WGA nominations, and has been a favorite of Fox and 20th Century Fox TV brass. ...

The BB writers and artistic staff work in Bento's Burbank studio. Congratulations to everyone involved! Top to bottom, the crew works hard ... and deserves its success.

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Charlie II

Not enough that artists get gunned down:

... [W]hile glorifying [the French magazine] Charlie Hebdo, outlets are simultaneously thumbing their noses at the cartooning industry.

Outlets quickly aggregated and storified the responses of cartoonists, usually by embedding tweets, without contacting artists to obtain rights. (Two notable exceptions: Medium’s The Nib and Fusion’s Graphic Culture are only publishing work with permission, and they're both paying for what they publish.)

It’s a natural evolution of the digital media landscape, where explainers and roundups are king. This process is also unethical. Cartoonists, especially those who work in the journalism space, are often on the front lines of cultural conflict. They receive threats of physical harm and are often freelancers. They often make very little money for hours of hard work. ...

Full disclosure here, I haven't checked to see if Erin Polgreen's representations above are correct. But assuming they are, this pretty much fits the historical norm. Down through time, cartoonists have often been abused and exploited. And even when they are paid, they're usually underpaid. The killings just take the abuse to a new, horrifying level.

Add On: This might be what Erin P. is talking about. Hopefully, the Wall Street Journal has cleared and paid for the cartoons.

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The BYU Shorts

Jeff, the all time super ultra mega fighter turbo champion, takes great pleasure crushing the opposition beneath his sandals like so many discarded potato chips. After many long days searching the internet he finds, at last, a worthy foe.

Brigham Young University has had a going animation program for a while now, and they've put up a batch of shorts at the well-loved Vimeo. You can see it here, along with the remaining dozen.

Owned will (likely) have resonance with males in what's now called "the key demographic". Click here to read entire post

Moving Past Animation

Richard Bazley is like a lot of animation talents I've known. A love of drawing propelled him first to commercials, then to a smash animation/live-action feature produced by Steven Spielberg, and after that to Los Angeles and the hand-drawn, long-form entertainments Pocahontas, Hercules and Iron Giant.



Richard worked as a supervising animator for both Disney and Warner Bros., but found (as others did) that changing technology required new skills. He learned Maya for Osmosis Jones, and those skills carried him through a string of live-action and CG features.

Today, Mr. Bazley focuses on live-action projects, with occasional forays into animation. The shifting currents of the cartoon business have carried him a long way from the sunlit shores of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Pocahontas.

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Brickleberry Ends

Comedy Central series wraps after three seasons.

Brickleberry, executive produced by Comedy Central star Daniel Tosh, was an unlikely success when it debuted in 2012, airing behind Tosh’s highly rated Tosh.0 on Tuesdays. Its strength has been young male viewers, with the toon winning its slot among men 18-24 for the first two seasons. Brickleberry’s third, and now final, season ended its run on November 18.

Brickleberry, created/executive produced by Waco O’Guin and Roger Black, revolved around a group of dysfunctional park rangers at a second-tier national park. Brickleberry, executive produced by Comedy Central star Daniel Tosh, was an unlikely success when it debuted in 2012, airing behind Tosh’s highly rated Tosh.0 on Tuesdays. Its strength has been young male viewers, with the toon winning its slot among men 18-24 for the first two seasons. Brickleberry’s third, and now final, season ended its run on November 18.

Brickleberry, created/executive produced by Waco O’Guin and Roger Black, revolved around a group of dysfunctional park rangers at a second-tier national park. ... The series was produced by Fox 21 TV Studios, with Bento Box executing the animation.

A couple of months ago, a Bento Box staffer* told me the series was pretty much over:

... Fox is trying to move the show to another network, but nobody holds out a lot of hope that will happen. I think it's over. ...

I was sworn to secrecy, and promised to keep my yap shut and typing fingers quiet, which I did. I break minor animation stories from time to time, but not when I'm to asked not to. I'm a union rep, not a news person. (Mostly.)

* I earlier referenced a supervisor, which was in ERROR. It was a Brickleberry person NOT a supervisor.

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The Attack on Cartoonists

... today in Paris:

Masked gunmen attacked the Paris offices of satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, killing 12 people before fleeing.

French security forces launched a major manhunt in the capital after the gunmen fled the scene of the attack, The Guardian reported. Police are searching for two brothers from the Paris region and another man from the northern French city of Reims in connection with the attack, a police source told Reuters.

The attackers stormed Charlie Hebdo's Paris newsroom during an editorial meeting and began firing indiscriminately, police and prosecutors said. Witnesses told police that the gunmen shouted "we have avenged the prophet," according to Agence France-Presse. Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Corinne Rey said the gunmen spoke to her in fluent French and claimed to represent al Qaeda. The gunmen called out some of the victims' names, she told Reuters.

A video, apparently filmed by an onlooker outside the office, shows two gunmen dressed in black, firing automatic weapons down the street and shouting "Allahu Akbar." ...

French media named four CH cartoonists among the dead: Stepahne Charbonniere, Cabu, Georges Wolinksi, and Bernard Verlhac.

So you know where TAG stands on this:

No human being who exercises the God-given right of free expression should be murdered for expressing an opinion or viewpoint that another part of humanity dislikes or even finds repugnant. The killing of French cartoonists and magazine staffers today was both cowardly and disgusting, and the Animation Guild stands with the French people in denouncing this act, and sends its heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the victims.”

-- The Animation Guild, Local 839, IATSE

Add On: Deadline has published the statements of entertainment unions (including the Animation Guild) regarding the murders of French cartoonists.

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Amazon, Content Provider

An attorney reminded me this morning how Microsoft's stab at doing original programs didn't achieve lift off. Not so for this internet giant.

Amazon's first pilot season of 2015 will premiere on Thursday, Jan. 15, in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, it was announced Tuesday.

The slate of 13 shows includes ... four animated shows and two live-action programs. The animated shows include Buddy: Tech Detective (created in part by Fraggle Rock, The Magic School Bus and Angelina Ballerina writer Jocelyn Stevenson); Sara Solves It, an animated musical from Curious George and Arthur executive producer Carol Greenwald and Blue's Clues and Wishenpoof! writer Angela C. Santomero with animation production handled by DHX (Inspector Gadget); and Nikeo and the Sword of Light, based on the motion graphic comic by Imaginism Studios, which worked on character and concept designs for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and Men in Black 3. ...

The last couple of years has seen an explosion of small-screen cartoons. Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. and Viacom are all creating more product. Hasbro continues in the game, and while DreamWorks Animation is cutting back on feature staff and feature output, it is going pedal-to-the-metal with half-hour television (and will be for the next few years).

Amazon is now in the race, competing with Netflix and others. This is a good thing, because you can never have too much animation production.

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Class Action

It gets stickier for Sony.

A former software engineer at [Sony Pictures] has filed the latest class-action lawsuit over the hack, claiming that his personal information “may have been compromised as a result of the security breach.” Anastasio Garcia Rodriguez, who worked at Sony Pictures from February 2011 to May 2013, claims the info obtained by the hackers “includes at a minimum his Social Security number, immigration information and visa, and passport information.” ...

First thought: It will be challenging for plaintiffs to convince a jury that Sony “failed to exercise reasonable care in the adoption, implementation, and maintenance of IT security procedures, infrastructure, personnel, and protocols”.

There's going to be a raft of experts testifying that Sony was prudent, but the Korean government used extraordinary measures to get Sony's data (and what the hell is a company supposed to do?).

If this lawsuit reaches class-action status, and a jury hears it, I'm not convinced the plaintiffs will necessarily prevail. It might not be an easy leap over the "reasonable care" barrier.

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Japanese Blockbuster

To nobody's surprise.

Disney’s “Big Hero 6” climbed atop the Japanese box office for the peak New Year’s holiday period. Released in Japan on Dec. 20, the picture recorded $5.6 million on 505,000 admissions on Jan. 3-4 .

By Jan. 4, its 16th day on release, its cumulative total had risen to $34.6 million on 3.36 million admissions, the second fastest box office pace for a Disney animation, after “Frozen.”

Given the setting, protagonist and subject matter, this isn't a surprise.

Walt's place has itself one more winner.

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Prez Emeritus Tom Sito's "Month in Animation History"

As he does each month, Mr. Sito (animation veteran and college professor) gives us the happenings that occurred in Cartoonland (and lands adjacent) during January. ...



Jan 3, 1977 - Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne file papers to form the Apple Computer Company. Within two weeks, Ron Wayne sold his third of the company to Jobs and Woz for $800. He thought he’d get stuck with the bills when their little company went belly-up.

Jan 4, 1946 – Terrytoons’ The Talking Magpies debuts; the first Heckle and Jeckyl cartoon.

Jan 4, 1956 - Walt Disney has lunch with his old competitor Max Fleischer, now retired.

Jan 5, 1896 - Josef Pulitzers’ New York World begins printing the Sunday Yellow Kid comic strip with a yellow color on his shirt. (The strip gave the name to the sensationalist tabloid press 'Yellow Journalism".)

Jan 6, 1945 - First Pepe Le Pew cartoon Odorable Kitty premieres. When the Warner’s producer who replaced Leon Schlesinger, Eddie Selzer, hears the plans to do a short about a skunk he thunders: "Absolutely Not! Nobody will like a cartoon skunk!" Chuck Jones recalled: "As soon as he said no, I knew we just had to do it." Selzer's final opinion: "Nobody'll laugh at that sh*t!" The short won an Oscar.

Jan 6, 1962 - Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent premieres. This was the animated version of his popular puppet show. “So Long Kids, Wind Up Your Lids, We’ll look for You Real Soooooon.”

Jan 7, 1894 - The Sneeze, the first motion picture film to be copyrighted by Thomas Edison and his engineer W.K.L. Dickson, premieres.

Jan 7, 1929 - With the approval of Edgar Rice Burroughs, artist Hal Foster starts drawing the Tarzan comic strip.

Jan 9, 1914 - John Randolph Bray files patents on the principles of film animation: cycles, arcs, keys and inbetweens. He even tries to sue Winsor McCay, who had already been using them for years. When Bray died in 1977 at age 107, Animator Michael Sporn called young animator Tom Sito and said “Well, I guess we’re all allowed to animate now. It’s in public domain!”

Jan 9, 1939 – Walt Disney hires Top Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin. He quits after two fruitless years, and leaves so angry he writes a children’s book called the "Bear that Wasn’t" about his experiences. (An early vice president of the Screen Cartoonists Guild, he also joined the Mouse House to help unionize the studio. After a stint at Screen Gems, in 1945 Frank Tashlin went to Paramount’s live-action division and became the director of the Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis comedies.)

Jan 12, 1995 - Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen announce the name of their new partnership will be DreamWorks SKG.

Jan 12, 2004 - Disney closes down their Orlando animation studio.

Jan. 13, 1930 - The Mickey Mouse comic strip first appears in US newspapers. Walt Disney himself writes them, Ub Iwerks pencils and Winn Smith inks.

Jan. 13, 1979 - Russian animator Yuriy Noshteyn’s’ Tale of Tales premieres.

Jan 14, 1964 - Hanna & Barbera's The Magilla Gorilla Show premieres.

Jan. 15, 1936 - THE DGA FORMS - Several Hollywood directors including Lewis Milestone, Ruben Mamoulian and William Wellman meet at King Vidor’s house and pledge $100 dollars each to form the Screen Director’s Guild, later the Director’s Guild of America. It was a risky thing to do, previous attempts to form a directors union were broken up with threats of perpetual blacklisting. Final recognition and contracts were signed by President Frank Capra in 1940. One provision insisted in the contract was the director’s credit be the final name in the opening titles before the movie began. And so it remains.

Jan 16, 1954 - THE WAR ON COMICS- Senator Estes Kevfauver chairs a U.S. Senate subcommittee to study juvenile delinquency. They conclude that one of the contributing factors to adolescent moral decay was four-color comic books. The probe is sparked by the publication of a book called The Seduction of the Innocent. It charges (among other things) that Batman & Robin are gay because when not fighting crime, Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson lounge around all day in silk pajamas with no women! Despite testimony by Walt Kelly, Milt Caniff, Al Capp and Bill Gaines 350 comic book companies, including the EC "Tales from the Crypt" label, are driven out of business. The strict comics-code is established. The comic book industry, which has been selling one million books a month, never regains that level of prosperity in the US again.

Jan 17, 1929 - Popeye first appears in the "Thimble Theater" comic strip.

Jan 17, 1949 - The Goldbergs, a radio comedy show about a Jewish family in the Bronx, moves to television and becomes the first true TV sitcom. The show ends when star Jean Muir is accused by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee of being a Communist.

Jan 18, 1952 - The Animation Guild Local 839, IATSE is chartered. Originally named the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists, charter signatory members include Disney legends Milt Kahl, Les Clark, John Hench and Ken Anderson.

Jan 20, 1938 - Pioneer animator Emile Cohl dies while headed for the Paris premiere of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Cohl is so poor that the electricity in his flat had been turned off, and candles had ignited his beard.

Jan. 21, 1992 - Disney's Beauty and the Beast becomes the first animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

Jan 24, 1961 - Warner Bros. voice actor Mel Blanc suffers an auto crash at the Dead Man’s Curve section of Sunset Blvd near UCLA. He lingers in a coma for several weeks. The way the doctor brings him around is to say: “Hey Bugs Bunny! How are we today?” Blanc replies in character:” Ehhh … fine, doc!”

Jan 25, 1961 - Walt Disney’s 101 Dalmatians premieres.

Jan 26, 1934 - Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn buys the rights to L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to develop into a movie.

Jan 27, 1926 - Englishman John Logie Baird demonstrates his televisor system- the first true television image.

Jan 28, 1930 – WARNER BROS. CARTOON - Leon Schlesinger, the head of Pacific Art and Title, signs a deal with several unemployed Disney animators. Schlesinger had connections with the Warner Bros. since he helped them get funding for The Jazz Singer. The home of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and more ... is born.

Jan 29, 1959 - Disney's Sleeping Beauty opens. The Disney animation staff reaches its highest number to finish the production. After the film, the studio undergoes a massive layoff dropping from 551 to just 121. People employed since the 1930s are pink-slipped. Two painters commit suicide. Staff levels don't return to the late '50s level until 1990.

Jan 30, 1963 - MIT Grad student Ivan Sutherland published his thesis project: Sketchpad, the first animation software. He created it on a declassified Cold War computer originally used to track Soviet missiles. For the first time, a computer can draw lines instead of just crunching numbers.

Jan 30 1961 – Hanna-Barbera's The Yogi Bear Show premieres.

Jan. 31, 1999 - Seth McFarlane’s Family Guy premieres. (And gets canceled after a couple of years before being relaunched after becoming a hit on Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" ... also selling a hell of a lot of DVDs. -- Hulett)

Jan. birthdates: B. “Hap” Kliban, J.R.R. Tolkein, Hayao Miyazaki, John Lasseter, Gustav Doré, James Stewart Blackton, Genndy Tartakovsky, Wilfred Jackson, Phil Mendez, Dave Pruiksma, TinTin, Charles Adams, Roy E. Disney, Pres Romanillos, John Sibley, Jack London, Hal Roach, Max Sennett, Jules Feiffer, Ross Bagdasarian Sr., Frank Miller

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Spirit of Melendez

Blue Sky Studios published a new Peanuts trailer ...




And what strikes me is how well it captures the Bill Melendez approach to the Schulz characters, even as it wraps its arms around CG images.

The universe of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy has always lent it self well to half-hour story-telling, so it'll be intriguing to see how the long-form works on the big screen, coupled with CGI.

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Foreign Box Office

From our friends at Rentrak and elsewhere. You got your CG live-action features, you got your cartoons.

Foreign Weekend Box Office -- (World Totals)

Hobbit 3 -- $52,500,000 -- ($722,866,968)

Night at Museum 3 -- $26,000,000 -- ($182,125,652)

Exodus: Gods/Kings -- $31,500,000 -- ($203,724,102)

Penguins de Madagascar -- $23,000,000 -- ($271,590,971)

Big Hero 6 (but actually #1) -- $20,200,000 -- ($378,668,220)

Paddington -- $12,500,000 -- ($105,000,000)

The journals of movie-making tell us:

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies continued to wage war on the international box office with $52.5M in its 4th frame. Showing at 13,900 dates in 65 markets, the Orcs, Elves and Dwarves have now amassed $502.1M. ... Exodus: Gods And Kings grossed $31.57M from 51 markets — besting last frame’s $30.9M performance. That’s largely down to six new markets which included Russia. ...

Night At The Museum, Secret Of The Tomb, picked up 26M from 6,680 screens in 56 markets in its 3rd history lesson. That’s a healthily small holiday drop from last week’s $31.2M. ... Penguins Of Madagascar spied their way to another $23.1M this market, in yet another example of how extended release patterns benefit these DreamWorks Animation titles. ... Big Hero 6 opened in Taiwan this weekend where it posted $1.9M, the second highest all-time debut weekend for an animated release and biggest ever for a Disney Animation studio title. ...

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Some Rise ...

... while others step down.

DreamWorks Animation announced today that it has appointed two veteran producers, Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria, as co-presidents of feature animation. In their new roles, Arnold and Soria, respectively the lead producers behind the studio’s How to Train Your Dragon and Madagascar franchises, will oversee creative development and production for DreamWorks Animation’s theatrical releases. Between them, they have produced eight films at DreamWorks that have grossed more than $3.5 billion globally. As part of this transition, chief creative officer Bill Damaschke will step down from his position. ...

Left unsaid in the press release is whether Mr. Damaschke will remain with the company, but I would tend to think not. When you're the head creative person (not counting J. Katzenberg) and the recent slate of pictures has failed to perform up to expectations, someone must be slipped the axe ... and then, to demonstrate good form, that someone needs to exit quietly.

And that's usually the person at or near the top of the pyramid. I imagine, in due course, that Mr. Damschke will be announcing future plans.

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Just Leave It the F*ck Alone

Your 401(k) thought for the day: When we shifted from Mass Mutual to Vanguard last summer, most everybody's money got moved into Vanguard Retirement Funds, which provide wide diversification over different classes of assets.

But the trick isn't dumping your money into balanced portfolio, it's not screwing around with it after the dough lands there.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett is known for advising others to hold a conservative portfolio.

"My advice to the trustee could not be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund," he wrote to shareholders of his company Berkshire Hathaway earlier this year.

New data from investment adviser SigFig leads to a similar conclusion.

After analyzing portfolios held by 325,000 users, the robo-adviser found something interesting: The most successful investors in the group were also the least active. ...

But it's not just the SigFig research. There is also this from Financial Advisor Mike O'Shaughnessy:

"Fidelity had done a study as to which accounts had done the best at Fidelity. And what they found was ... they were the accounts of people who forgot they had an account at Fidelity."

So I guess the best advice we could give you: Put your money in a balanced, low-cost mutual fund, then blank out on having it there for twenty or thirty years.

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