Month: December 2013

Historian draws attention to black animation art

NPR has a report on Pamela Thomas who for the past 12 years has been collecting black animation art. She later began sharing the collection online with her Museum of UnCut Funk. A traveling show titled “Funky Turns 40: Black Character Revolution Exhibition” begins touring next month. A sidebar to the article discusses animator Leo […]

Phase 4 copies Disney’s Frozen

Smaller studios are are infamous for copying Disney’s successful animated features. These films are quickly released to DVD to ride in the wake of Disney’s name. Usually these studios are left to their own devices, but sometimes Disney finds issues to sue. Phase 4 Films changed the title of its 3D animated film from The […]

Disney says out with the old and in with the old?

Characters that Walt Disney himself worked on are still popular today and according to the Motley Fool 2015 will be the year of vintage Disney. The Fool brings to our attention the Descendants project, about the children of Disney heroes and villains in a high school. It is a single made-for-TV movie in live-action, but […]

Disney princesses may be better role models than some claim

Disney princesses take a lot of heat for being poor influences on little girls, because Disney associates them with fashion, make-up, etc. Some say it is easy to pick on the princess pantheon due to their dominance in media and merchandise, but the Voyages Extraordinaires blog published a (quite lengthy) critique on the Disney Princess line […]

Frozen takes box office crown…for now

Frozen lead the box office yesterday with a take of $10 million, Box Office Mojo is reporting. That puts it virtually neck-and-neck with The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which could still win the final weekend of the year when all is said and done. Whatever happens, Frozen is having a very impressive holiday break […]

Christmas Nut Job trailer now online

Merry Christmas! A holiday-themed trailer for The Nut Job is now online and can be seen on Collider. And for those who missed it, a yuletide preview for Disney’s Frozen is also available on YouTube. The Nut Job opens January 17th, while Frozen is now playing in theaters everywhere.

First Paddington poster revealed

Yahoo! Movies has the first poster for the upcoming Paddington, which isn’t set to hit theaters until a year from now. The website also reveals that, although previous reports have indicated that Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman would play Paddington’s “parents,” those roles will actually be filled by Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins. Firth, in […]

Animation Addicts Podcast #56: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Santa Hates Misfits

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Chelsea, Morgan and Mason dive into the Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer Christmas special by Rankin-Bass!

Turbo FAST now playing on Netflix

DreamWorks’ new TV series Turbo FAST debuts today exclusively on Netflix. GigaOm looks into the making of the show. Forbes has an in-depth piece about the strategy DreamWorks is employing. And the New York Times has a review.

Animated Oscar contenders

Deadline breaks down the Oscar race for Best Animated Feature. “This year, there are lots of indies entered, but expect the battle to continue among the titans, especially studios who are pouring money into campaigns for their box office behemoths. So when it comes to predicting a surefire winner, there just doesn’t seem to be […]

Frozen to crack Chinese market

The Wrap reports that Disney’s Frozen will reach the Chinese box office in 2014. The Chinese government regulates foreign films, only letting about 34 approved movies in per year. Getting one of those slots in the world’s second-largest movie market is a high priority for Hollywood filmmakers.

The Smurfs 2

The sequel is much like the first, but this time the focus is on Smurfette and her families. This is a primo example of kids films in the modern age, with lots of CGI as well as old-fashioned slapstick.

Holiday box office numbers: Is Walking With Dinosaurs already extinct?

Christmas started early at the box office this weekend, and movies performed more or less as they were expected to. Saving Mr. Banks got off to a decent start with $9 million, which may seem small on the surface, but it’s important to remember that the movie cost Disney only $30 million to make. The […]

Brrrrrr! Ice Age 5 coming in 2016

Because they just keep raking in plenty of cold, hard cash for the studio, 20th Century Fox has officially greenlit a long-rumored fifth Ice Age movie, ComingSoon.net is reporting. The movie is set to cool down movie theaters on July 15th, 2016, bumping Blue Sky’s previously announced Anubis back to March 23, 2018. Since it […]

An American Tail coming to Blu-Ray

Don Bluth’s An American Tail is finally getting the hi-def treatment, Blu-Ray.com is reporting. Unfortunately for fans, the release appears to be extremely light on bonus content, with a Somewhere Out There sing-along and a theatrical trailer being the only extras listed. The Blu-Ray comes out on March 4th.

Walking With Dinosaurs opens

20th Century Fox’s Walking With Dinosaurs opens today in theaters nationwide, albeit with respectively less fanfare than The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Saving Mr. Banks. The adaptation of the BBC miniseries–which was also adapted into a well-received stage show–hasn’t been faring well with critics, scoring a “freshness” rating of only 24% on Rotten […]

Rotoscopers YouTube: Saving Mr. Banks review

Join Rotoscopers host Morgan Stradling as she shares her thoughts on Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks.

Animation Addicts Podcast #54: Mary Poppins – Jack of All Accents

Morgan and Mason are joined by Rotoscopers writer Blake Taylor, as they discuss Blake’s favorite film Mary Poppins, as well as the upcoming Saving Mr. Banks.

Saving Mr. Banks opens

Saving Mr. Banks opens wide today in 2,110 theaters according to Box Office Mojo. The film is doing well with the critics, earning an 80% at Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus review of the movie is: “Aggressively likable and sentimental to a fault, Saving Mr. Banks pays tribute to the Disney legacy with excellent performances […]

How To Train Your Dragon 2 trailer online

JoBlo has the full trailer for DreamWorks’ upcoming film How To Train Your Dragon 2. “It’s been five years since Hiccup and Toothless successfully united dragons and vikings on the island of Berk… When one of their adventures leads to the discovery of a secret ice cave that is home to hundreds of new wild […]

Frozen soundtrack breaks into Billboard Top Ten

The soundtrack for Disney’s film Frozen has joined a rare club — it’s beome just the 10th soundtrack from an animated film to crack Billboard’s Top Ten list. The last film to accomplish the feat was Cars in 2006. Meanwhile, Idina Menzel’s version of Let It Go is climbing the singles chart. It’s upo to […]

Seibert innovating with online animation channel

The L.A. Times profiles Fred Seibert, who produced or gave a leg up to shows such as Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, The Powerpuff Girls, The Fairly OddParents, and Adventure Time. His latest focus is online video where his company, Frederator Studios, runs Cartoon Hangover, one of the fastest-growing channels on YouTube. “The Internet is ushering […]

Making Mr. Banks

Two articles detailing Disney’s involvement in the film Saving Mr. Banks hit the web this week. The Hollywood Reporter looks at it from the point of view of the writers who worried the studio might kill the project or bury it so it couldn’t be made elsewhere. The Wrap has more from Disney’s perspective, who […]

De Micco and Sanders master class highlights

IGN recently attended an “Animation Master Class” featuring The Croods directors Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders and animation historian John Canemaker. The filmmakers “used the class to walk a group of NYU animation students through the creation of their awards-nominated cartoon.” You can watch a highlight reel of the class here:

Powerpuff Girls return

Variety reports that Cartoon Network is bringing back the Powerpuff Girls for a special episode on January 20th. The episode will reunite the original voice cast and include special guest Ringo Starr. Titled Dance Pantsed, the special “follows Mojo Jojo as he kidnaps a mathematician, an opera singer and a badger to steal Chemical X […]

The Wind Rises gets its English voice cast

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt are officially the two leads for the English-language dub of The Wind Rises, Screen Rant is reporting.  Other members of the voice cast include John Krasinski, Martin Short, Stanley Tucci, Mandy Patinkin, William H. Macy, Werner Herzog, Mae Whitman, and Elijah Wood, among others. The Wind Rises comes to the states […]

Oscar’s song shortlist includes 11 animated tunes

Seventy-five songs from 2013 films have been shortlisted for nominations in the Original Song category at the Oscars, according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Those from animated movies are: Shine Your Way from The Croods Happy from Despicable Me 2 Gonna Be Alright from Epic Rise Up from Epic What Matters […]

Disney breaks their box office record

With Iron Man 3’s billion dollar take leading the way, Disney has broken its company records for best domestic, international, and worldwide box office according to Variety. Along with Iron Man, Monsters University brought in over $700 million worldwide, the latest Thor sequel took in over $600 million, Oz almost reached $500 million, and Frozen […]

Disney, Despicable Me 2 earn iTunes honors

The Disney Animated app was named the iPad App of the Year by Apple in their Best of 2013 Editor’s Choice iTunes Rankings. “This enchanting tour of Disney’s legendary film vault awes with a bounty of animated sequences, interactive character models, and a spellbinding presentation”. Despicable Me 2 was chosen as the Best Animated Movie. […]

Family Guy (already) brings back Brian

Well, that didn’t take long. Only weeks after Family Guy “killed off” Brian the dog–to the outrage of fans on the internet everywhere–, the show has brought the beloved pooch back from the dead, Yahoo! TV says in a recap of last night’s episode. Although some might think the death was “undone” as a response to […]