Variety reports that Oscar winner John Kahrs, of Paperman fame, has been chosen to direct Paramount Pictures’ Shedd. “Tripper Clancy is writing the script, which is based on an original idea from Paramount’s Film Group president Adam Goodman, who oversees the animation division. The studio is keeping the logline under wraps.”

The Nut Job had a surprisingly strong opening weekend bringing in $20.6, good for third place according to Box Office Mojo. Thats good news for Open Road Films since, as BOM mentions,”The Lego Movie doesn’t open until February 7th, meaning The Nut Job has another two weekends to play to families. The movie should ultimately […]

The Nut Job, the first animated offering from Open Road Films, opens today in a weekend leading 3,427 theatres according to Box Office Mojo. The film is being hammered by the critics, with a measly 12% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Their critical consensus: “Hampered by an unlikable central character and source material stretched too thin […]

The nominees for the 86th Academy Awards have been announced this week. American Hustle and Gravity led all films with ten each. BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – The Croods – Despicable Me 2 – Ernest and Celestine – Frozen – The Wind Rises BEST ANIMATED SHORT – Feral – Get a Horse! – Mr. Hublot – […]

DreamWorks Animation has released a new trailer for their upcoming film Mr. Peabody and Sherman. And Rope of Silicon has a little information about the attached Rocky & Bullwinkle short film: “The short was directed by Gary Trousdale (Beauty and the Beast) and features the voice work of June Foray (the original voice of Rocket […]

Cartoon Brew has the full list of the nominees for the Visual Effects Society Awards. Gravity led all films with eight nominations while The Croods, Epic, and Frozen led the animation titles with four each. Also of special note is the nod for Sandra Bullock’s character from Gravity, Ryan Stone, in the Outstanding Animated Character […]

With Academy Award nominations set to be announced Thursday, “Showbiz Awards” site GoldDerby takes a look at the chances of Frozen. On the odds of getting a Best Picture nomination: “Perhaps the movie’s biggest detriment to playing in the big leagues is the Academy’s long-held penchant for overlooking animated films… over the past 85 years […]

Frozen picked up the prize for Best Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globes. Directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee thanked the “fans who have taken Frozen into their hearts” and John Lasseter and Ed Catmuill “who became our fearless leaders eight years ago… this [award] is because of you”. The other nominees were The […]

The Hollywood Reporter notes that seven of the top ten films in Japan during 2013 were animated. “A lack of the big local and Hollywood live-action franchises that have won over audiences in recent years… let the cartoons reign supreme in 2013, and left Hollywood struggling for market share”.

Variety reports that DreamWorks Animation and YouTube are teaming up in an “unusual collaboration” to produce an original daily series titled YouTube Nation. The show “is expected to provide a daily highlight reel of what content is trending on the Google-owned platform based on its own proprietary data in a syndicated newsmagazine-style format.”

Smithsonian Magazine’s website takes a look at how the real P.L. Travers fared against Walt Disney as “historian Amy Henderson searches for the spoonfuls of sugar-coated truth in the new film Saving Mr. Banks“.

Awards season is in full swing. And the latest trophy was given to Despicable Me 2 which won the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Family Film this week. It was chosen over fellow nominees Monsters University, Oz the Great and Powerful, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, and The Smurfs 2. The next major award show […]

Deadline looks at the success of Disney’s Frozen and the prospects of it eventually reaching Broadway. With the film still currently #1 at the box office and on the album charts, the studio is of course not focused there at the moment. According to Deadline, a top Disney official said “there’s been no discussion on […]

The BBC notes that singer-songwriter Peter Andre has written on his website about a song he has created, titled Kid, and performs for DreamWorks upcoming film Mr. Peabody and Sherman. “I saw an early cut of the film and loved it – it’s a must-see for the entire family. It is great to be working […]

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has announced the nominees for their annual awards. Despicable Me 2, Frozen, and Monster’s University were nominated for Best Animated Film. Gravity, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Iron Man 3, Pacific Rim, and Star Trek Into Darkness are up for Best Special Visual Effects. Everything I […]

CSMonitor.com looks into how Frozen outlasted films that were released at the same time, like The Hobbit and Hunger Games sequels, to still be on top of the box office after seven weeks. One of the top reasons they cite is the movie’s “brilliantly terrible marketing”, or “the false under-sell”, “in short, the film was […]

TV Guide reports that a new documentary about voice-over artists, titled I Know That Voice, has hit VOD platforms and iTunes this week. Producer and Annie Award winning actor John DiMaggio says he signed on to the film because “I want my peers to get a little bit of recognition. These are some of the […]

Frozen has retaken the top spot at the box office this past weekend with $20.7 million, according to the AP. “It’s extremely rare for a film to lead the box office in its seventh weekend, a feat accomplished by the likes of Avatar… It’s rarer still for a film to retake the box-office lead so […]

The Hollywood Reporter says that Bolt co-writer/director Chris Williams has been brought on as a co-director for Big Hero 6 alongside Don Hall. Tangled and Treasure Planet’s Roy Conli has been brought on as a producer. The film is scheduled to be released November 7, 2014.

The St. Albert Gazette recently interviewed a hometown Disney animator named Brian Ferguson. In part one he discusses his early career. In part two he talks about the transition between hand-drawn animation and computer generated from the perspective of an animator who has been with the Mouse House since the early 1990s.

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 […]

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.

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 […]

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.