USA Today has your first look at a new image from DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming How to Train Your Dragon 2. The article also details many aspects of the sequel’s plot, mainly focusing on Cate Blanchet’s character, Valka, a hermit who has devoted her life to keeping dragons away from people. “Her years of isolation and dealing […]

Despicable Me 2, The Croods, The Wind Rises, Monsters University, and Frozen are the five films nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Critics Choice Awards this year. Frozen and Despicable Me 2 both also scored nominations for Best Original Song, while the nominations for Best Visual Effects were Gravity, Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, […]

A new trailer for The Nut Job is online at iTunes. The story “follows the travails of Surly (voiced by Will Arnett), a mischievous squirrel, and his rat friend Buddy, who plan a nut store heist of outrageous proportions and unwittingly find themselves embroiled in a much more complicated and hilarious adventure”. It opens on […]

The Croods director Chris Sanders talks with Deadline about the film, including the film’s theme about family, the original plot, the difficulties in keeping up with star Nicolas Cage’s schedule, his CG learning curve, and much more. “For me, working on this film must be what it feels like to build either a 747 or […]

Lawrence of Arabia’s Peter O’Toole has passed away, The Guardian is reporting. Nominated for eight Academy Awards over the course of his career–but sadly never winning any–, O’Toole was also known to animation fans as the voice of food critic Anton Ego in Ratatouille. In addition, O’Toole was also heard in The Nutcracker Prince and as […]

Bloomberg Businessweek ran down the numbers for animated movies this year and concluded that this was a profitable year for studios. Frozen is projected to make $250 million and the article lists other earnings: • Despicable Me 2 at $367 million • Monsters University at $268 million • The Croods at $187 million Despite the […]

An L.A. Times interview brings together five of this year’s top animation directors — Frozen’s Jennifer Lee, Despicable Me 2’s Chris Renaud, The Croods’ Chris Sanders, Monsters University’s Dan Scanlon, and Epic’s Chris Wedge — to discuss topics such as “the challenges of female characters, the effect of celebrity voice actors, and the changing economics […]

Christopher Finch’s new book The CG Story: Computer Generated Animation and Special Effects, “which peels the curtain back on CG pioneers like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and Pixar founders John Lasseter and Ed Catmull and their respective contributions to film”, gets an exclusive excerpt this week at Deadline. The extended sample details “the […]

NPR has more on the 90th anniversary of Disney Animation. In an audio interview with John Lasseter (with some printed excerpts as well) he discusses many topics including: the creation of Mickey Mouse, the impact of Snow White, his own first interaction with Disney as a teenager, leaving Disney for Pixar, the recent Disney revitalization, […]

Rio 2’s new trailer premiered today with details about the movie’s story. Blu, Jewel, and their three chicks discover they are not the only blue macaws left in the world. They journey to the Amazon with their friends to find the flock, finding not only their own kind but Jewel’s father and ex-boyfriend. Nigel, the […]

Anne Frank has been the subject of film, plays, and television since her diary chronicling her years hiding from the Nazis was published in 1947. Animation Magazine reports that the young girl’s life will be made into an animated film. Ari Folman will direct the film and he is a respected Israeli filmmaker, having recently […]

Disney fans are going to go crazy over this news from Inside the Magic: the Mouse House is developing a new Disney channel original movie starring the children of their most evil characters. Descendants, the article notes, is Disney’s attempt to reproduce Monster High’s success. Monster High is a popular toy and movie line following […]

Did you spot Rapunzel in Disney’s Frozen? Collider has a short list of hidden Easter eggs found in the film, including Mickey Mouse, a Wreck-It Ralph reference, and more. Frozen is now playing in theaters.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced this year’s nominees for the Golden Globe Awards. The nominees for Best Animated Feature are The Croods, Despicable Me 2, and Frozen. The Wind Rises got a nod in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Frozen was the only animated film to receive any other nominations. It was […]

With The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug now in theatres, Joe Letteri, the Oscar-winning co-creator of Gollum on screen, writes for the journal Nature about the evolution of computer animation. “Computer animation is a natural extension of hand-drawn methods developed during the early-twentieth-century golden age of ‘cel’ animation ushered in by Walt Disney, in which […]

Babble takes readers on a tour of the Walt Disney Studios Lot. “Jeffrey Epstein, spokesperson for D23, the official Disney Fan Club, showed us around the lot giving us the history and fun facts that you might not have known”.

The LA Times highlights that Disney Animation Studios will be celebrating ninety years in existence by basking in Frozen’s continuing success. There will also be an invitation only event at the Disney Legends Plaza in Walt Disney Studios. Special guests include John Lasseter, Frozen director Chris Buck, Ed Catmull, and more Disney talent from voice […]

A theatrical trailer for the upcoming Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return is now online and can be seen on Collider. Four new character posters for the film can also be viewed at the IMP Awards. From Summertime Entertainment and directed by Daniel St. Pierre and Will Finn, the film is the first in a potential […]

A teaser trailer for the live-action remake of Kiki’s Delivery Service is now online and can be seen on Nerd Reactor. The film is a Japanese release, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the preview is not in English. The movie is set for release in Japan on March 1st, but it’s unlikely […]

Bleeding Cool sits down with Frozen producer Peter Del Vecho and discusses not only the role he played in this film, but how exactly the Disney system works from the inside — the typical day of a producer, ratings, scheduling, the Disney brand and legacy, and more.

The Boston Society of Film Critics named Hayao Miyazaki‘s The Wind Rises as Best Animated Feature — but not without controversy, according to IndieWire. Before the vote Village Voice critic Inkoo Kang read aloud a statement calling out the film for being “morally egregious” in ignoring the atrocities committed during the war by the Japanese […]

The Hollywood Reporter looks at the “Tricky Tug-of-War” John Lasseter is in the middle of in running both Disney Animation and Pixar. “Borrowing a page from Pixar, Lasseter is hands-on at WDAS. He gives extensive notes, pores over story reels and even does the first reading with actors and directors. Initially, Pixar animators worried that […]

Following its record-breaking Thanksgiving opening, Frozen had another strong weekend, this time edging out The Hunger Games: Catching Fire to become the number one movie in America with a take of $31 million, Collider is reporting. That brings the film’s total to $134 million. The movie will face competition next week when the highly anticipated […]