Month: June 2008 – page 3

The world loses a great: Stan Winston (1946-2008)

Four-time Oscar winner Stan Winston, who created some of the most memorable visual effects in cinematic history, passed away yesterday at age 62 after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma. The effects master helped bring the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, the extraterrestrials from Aliens, the robots from Terminator and even Edward Scissorhands to the big […]

Wall-E at the Needle

An image of Wall-E checking out “the Seattle sights, developing a special – though not surprising interest in the city’s landmark Space Needle” has just been released by the Walt Disney Studios and can be viewed here:

Nicolas Cage, Nathan Lane join Astro Boy

Imagi announced today that Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Bill Nighy and Eugene Levy would be joining Freddie Highmore for the 2009 feature adaptation of Astro Boy, being directed by David Bowers (Flushed Away). Summit Entertainment will distribute the film worldwide except for Imagi‘s reserved territories of Japan, Hong Kong and China. Astro Boy […]

Kung Fu Panda continues to kick at the box office

The DreamWorks Animation hit grossed a healthy $14 million overseas over its second weekend in only 15 markets. Paramount’s go-slow release strategy has paid off so far with a foreign cume of $41.5 million so far, with the family pic expanding to China and Mexico next weekend. Panda only dropped one spot this weekend at […]

Fly Me To The Moon's success encouraging for the future of 3D

European exhibitor Kinepolis in Belgium, France and Spain have been keen to take on alternative 3-D films. They not only want to test the market but also ensure a steady 3-D product stream once they start promoting the format, says Variety. Fly Me to the Moon, a family animation conceived in 3-D by Belgium toon […]

Space Chimps backed up by out of this world promotional campaign

MediaPost offers a rundown of the various promotions in the works for Twentieth Century Fox’s July animated film Space Chimps, from partners like Dole to malls and theaters ads, video games, an online campaign and a chimp language translator found on the film’s official site that allows kids create messages in chimp-an-eez and send them […]

Very first images of Disney's Bolt

/Film finally offers us a first look at Disney’s CG follow-up to Meet the Robinsons, which has had a rocky production and the Mouse House kept under wraps until today. Miley Cyrus voices Penny, Bolt’s acting partner, in this anticipated 3D November release. Except a teaser trailer to be attached to Wall•E later this month.

Reviews leak and amazing buzz starts on Wall•E

Harry Knowles describes the new Pixar film as “arguably the best film Walt Disney has ever had its name on,” “one of the absolute best hard science fiction films made in my adult life,” and “an incredible work of speculative future mythology the likes of which, I’ve never seen… whilst also being wildly entertaining and […]

Wall-E set to clean up at the El Capitan

From June 27 to August 27 the Disney/Pixar sure-to-be-hit Wall-E will be screening at Disney’s own El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. An all new live stage show “Flights of Fantasy” featuring Disney characters past and present (most who have the ability to fly in one way or another) will precede each screening of the […]

Panda's 2D opening scene

The traditionally animated opening scene of Kung Fu Panda is available for your viewing pleasure on MSN Movies. This scene is one of the two in Panda which employs traditional animation, with more 2-D character animation being featured in the end credits. The opening sequence was created by James Baxter’s studio, also responsible for the […]

New Ponyo images

GhibliWorld has posted new images from Hayao Miyazaki’s upcoming film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. Ponyo opens in theatres across Japan on July 19.

Seann William Scott talks about Planet 51

Actor Seann William Scott revealed more details on the animated comedy Planet 51 in a recent interview with SCI FI Wire. “One of the first scenes is, like, you see everyone watching this movie, and it pulls back to reveal that they’re aliens. And so humans are aliens to them. And Dwayne Johnson’s character lands […]

More Wall•E featurettes and music

The Pixar Blog just posted three new vignettes which recently aired in Brazil. Also make sure to preview the excellent soundtrack over at Amazon MP3!

Pixar vs. DreamWorks

‘Renn Brown’ posted an interesting mini-essay on his blog over at CHUD about what he thinks the main difference is between the two animation giants.

Sony responds to Sit Down walkout

Sony responded yesterday to the walkout by the writers for Sony Pictures TV’s upcoming animated series for Fox Sit Down, Shut Up. The writers, who are members of the WGA, left the show Thursday, claiming that they were misled by Sony TV that they would be covered by the WGA, while the studio had made […]

Sita, Plympton's Angels win at Annecy

Nina Paley’s feminist musical Sita Sings the Blues and Bill Plympton’s blackly comic redemption tale Idiots & Angels pulled off a triumphant double at the 32nd Annecy International Animated Film Festival, winning best picture and a Special Mention respectively. Read the full list of winners here.

The Simpsons Movie, Ratatouille and Bee Movie score at the Key Art Awards

The Simpsons Movie was one of the big winners last night at the 37th annual Key Art Awards, which honor the best movie posters, trailers and other marketing efforts. The Fox feature film won four awards, including honors for its theatrical cardboard “standees” and its Web site design. Meanwhile Bee Movie won for Best Family […]

Kung Fu Panda to reach $120M by Sunday

Kung Fu Panda dropped only 50% yesterday to gross an estimated $10M Friday from an expanded theater count of 4,136 en route for a strong $35M weekend. Nikki Finke warns that Saturday matinees will need to be big for the animated film to grab the #2 spot since M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening performed much […]

Kung Fu Panda heading into a strong second weekend

DreamWorks Animation’s latest hit is trailing the pace of 2006’s Cars and reached yesterday a very impressive $83 million at the U.S. box office. Kung Fu Panda is expected to only drop 35-40% this weekend with most kids finally out of school. Look for Po to sit on $120 million by Sunday.

Anna Faris and Andy Samberg to star in Sony's Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

The hilarious Anna Faris revealed to MTV News, while on the Albuquerque set of her new movie Observe & Report, that should be starring alongside Saturday Night Live‘s Andy Samberg in Sony Pictures Animation’s next feature film: “I’m doing an animated movie when I get back called Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. It’s a […]

More Pixar and Wall•E goodies

Upcoming Pixar notes that Marketplace posted a great interview, also available as an audio podcast, with author David Price about Pixar’s transformation from failing computer company to Hollywood darling. A new Wall•E featurette entitled A Space Journey In Sound can also be viewed at Rotten Tomatoes, and Variety explains why merchandise for the movie is […]

Cool Hanna-Barbera 3D stills

Amid at Cartoon Brew takes a nostalgic look at the wonderful View-master reels of classic Hanna-Barbera characters created back in 1960, unearthed by Bob Logan.

Actors' strike to affect The Simpsons?

While the repercussions of the writers’ strike on the animation industry were relatively limited since animation is handled by a different guild, an actors’ strike would be a totally different story; no acting or publicity would be allowed for the duration of the strike meaning no new recording sessions for shows like The Simpsons, the […]

Preview of new Toy Story Mania ride tomorrow night

Upcoming Pixar alerts fans that the John Goodman-hosted showing of Monster’s Inc. on ABC 7 tomorrow night at 8:00/7:00pm Central will include an exclusive sneak peek at the new attraction, Toy Story Mania.

Free shipping on Wall•E merchandise

DisneyShopping.com opened today the online Wall•E boutique and offers free shipping on all items this weekend only. Simply apply the code “walleship” when checking out.

Voice acting workshops at Anime Expo

This year, Anime Expo® has teamed with Bang Zoom!® Entertainment to offer free voice acting workshops at Anime Expo 2008. In celebration of Bang Zoom! Entertainment’s new DVD release of ADVENTURES IN VOICE ACTING™-Volume One there are scheduled one hour free classes that will give participants a taste of voice acting with insiders’ tips, general […]

The Muppets return, with icons of the Seventies

We have one DVD review to close up the week, as I take a look at The Muppet Show: Season Three. If you pine for the 1970s, then you should get a kick out of this season, featuring as it does such icons as Sylvester Stallone, Raquel Welch, Jean Stapleton, and many more. The Muppet […]

New podcast interview with Ken Duncan

Clay Kaytis posted part 2 of yet another fantastic interview on his Animation Podcast website, this time with veteran animator Ken Duncan. Ken’s credits include All Dogs Go to Heaven, Aladdin, Hercules, Shark Tale, TMNT and he is currently serving as supervising animator on the Tim Burton-produced feature adaptation of Shane Acker’s 9. Make sure […]

Deleted scenes from The Jungle Book 2

Got You Beat and Braver, the two deleted sequences from the 2003 Jungle Book theatrical sequel getting a Special Edition DVD release next Tuesday, are online at the film’s official site under the “Video” section. Save your pennies if you already have the Jungle Book 2 DVD: the only new feature on this Special Edition […]

New Wall•E posters

A slew of new Wall•E posters have appeared on Empire’s website. There are four one-sheets featured on the page, each portraying the film’s title character interacting with various pieces of garbage. Wall•E hits theaters on June 27th.