The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that 14 films have been submitted for consideration in the Best Animated Feature category for the 81st Academy Awards: Bolt, Delgo, Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!, Dragon Hunters, Fly Me to the Moon, Igor, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, $9.99, The Sky […]

In a rare occurrence, two animated films open on the same day. First up is Warner Bros.’ Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The film opens in 3,452 theatres according to Box Office Mojo. Critics say the force is not strong with this one — it scores 18% on the Tomatometer, and an abysmal 5% counting […]

Three of the founders of Animated News & Views recently returned from California where they all met up for the very first time at Comic-Con International 2008. You can read their accounts of the meet-up, the convention itself, and their vacation-in-a-vacation at Disneyland in their report — filled with a ton of photos — over […]

At a private ceremony at Comic-Con, ASIFA-Hollywood announced the recipients of the Winsor McCay Awards – given for a lifetime of achievement in animation. John Lasseter, Mike Judge, and Nick Park will be honored with the award at the 2009 Annie Awards. Antran Manoogian, ASIFA-Hollywood president, said “Their career achievments and outstanding contributions to the […]

The nominees for the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards have been announced. Here are the animated entries: Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) • Creature Comforts America • King Of The Hill • Robot Chicken • SpongeBob SquarePants • The Simpsons Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming One Hour Or More) • Blue Harvest […]

Apparently gone unreported (as far as we can tell) since it’s release in November 2007, there is a bit of news about Pixar’s next film, Up, on the Blu-ray version of Ratatouille. In a scene where Remy is running through the walls of a building towards the rooftop he is chased by a dog, who […]

The Walt Disney Studios unveiled an ambitious slate of 10 new animated feature films from Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios to be released through the year 2012 at a New York press conference held today by Dick Cook, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, and John Lasseter, chief creative officer for Walt Disney and […]

The teaser trailer for Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs can now be viewed online in QuickTime high definition exclusively at AOL Moviefone . Ice Age 3 is set to hit theaters on July 1st, 2009, and stars the voice talents of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, and Queen Latifah.

Cartoon Network announced its programming line-up for 2008 at its annual Advertising Upfront Presentation in New York City today. Filmmaker George Lucas made a guest appearance and introduced a new clip reel from the upcoming animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The new series will help launch a new programming strategy for the network, […]

Full episodes of South Park are available to view for free online at the show’s official website according to AWN. The site includes video clips and every episode of the show. The video can be fast-forwarded and rewound, excluding the embedded commercials that can not be skipped. The beta site also includes an avatar maker, […]

Mark Evanier has posted an interesting story about a song he heard when he was eight years old. It was from a 78 RPM Little Golden Record that he won at a Disney event that featured two songs from One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The A side was the well known Cruella De Vil, and […]

GhibliWold has a look at a watercolor made by Hayao Miyazaki that shows the world of his upcoming film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. Naussica.net reports that according to the film’s production diary the number of the animation cels in Ponyo exceeds 160,000. That compares to about 148,000 for Howl’s Moving Castle, 140,000 […]

MOVIES (weekend box office from Box Office Mojo) 1. Horton Hears a Who! – $24.6 million ($86.0 million total) DVD (weekly sales from Nielsen VideoScan via The Hollywood Reporter) 1. Bee Movie 4. 101 Dalmations 6. Beowulf BROADWAY (weekly box office from Broadway.com) 2. The Lion King ($1,323,304) 3. The Little Mermaid ($1,186,297) 4. Mary […]

CGSociety has an excellent in-depth article where they talk to the the crew at Blue Sky Studios who worked on Horton Hears a Who! to find out what went into creating the unique look of the Who-world and its characters. The piece delves into the programming of the Seussian logic of exaggeration required to get […]

MSNBC reports that Japan has named an animated cat to be the country’s anime ambassador! Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura named Doraemon, a popular cartoon robot cat, to the post during an inauguration ceremony and said, “Doraemon, I hope you will travel around the world as an anime ambassador to deepen people’s understanding of Japan so […]

Alex Schwartz has been named head of development at DreamWorks Animation according to The Big Cartoon Database. Co-president of production Bill Damaschke said, “Alex is an exceptional and experienced executive with a proven track record. As we see the line between live action and animation continue to blur, we are eager to broaden our slate […]

Congratulations to animation historian Jerry Beck whose book The Hanna Barbera Treasury has been named a finalist in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards. The book is nominated in the “Popular Culture” category and faces competition from seven other entrants. Beck said, “This was a rare case where the finished book turned out exactly […]

Box Office Mojo reports that Fox/Blue Sky’s Horton Hears a Who! was a big hit with audiences in it’s debut weekend, easily taking the #1 spot with $45 million.

Fox/Blue Sky’s Horton Hears a Who! opens today in 3,954 theatres, according to Box Office Mojo. The film is winning over the critics, garnering an impressive 82% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. Their consensus is that the film “is both whimsical and heartwarming, and is the rare Dr. Seuss adaptation that stays true to the […]

Despite a baffling announcement yesterday that the studio was stuck with HD DVD despite the disc’s recent demise, it seems DreamWorks will be dropping the format according to High Def Digest. The HD DVD version of Bee Movie, which was set for release in less than two weeks, has been cancelled. Whether a Blu-ray version […]

Even though every other major Hollywood studio has come out in support of the Blu-ray high definition disc format Reuters is reporting that DreamWorks, for the time being, is sticking with HD DVD. This despite the fact that Toshiba, the primary hardware backer of the format, has all but killed it off. The Digital Bits […]

Brad Bird picked up his second Academy Award as Ratatouille took the prize for Best Animated Feature. It is the third time a Pixar film has won the award. Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman won Best Animated Short Film for their stop motion version of Peter and the Wolf. Best Visual Effects went to Michael […]

Toshiba, the major hardware backer of the HD DVD format, has announced that they “will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders”. The announcement signals an end to the high-definition optical disc war that has raged between HD DVD and rival Blu-ray for the past couple of years. Atsutoshi Nishida, President […]

Animated News and Views is currently running four different contests and giving away fourteen DVDs! Be sure to enter soon as several of the giveaways are about to close. • The Ten Commandments – Five winners will receive a copy of Genius Entertainment’s new CGI animated release. Last day to enter is February 5th. • […]

The nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards have been announced. Come tell us your thoughts in the Animated News & Views Forum. The nominees for Best Animated Feature Film are • Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud • Ratatouille – Brad Bird • Surf’s Up – Ash Brannon and Chris Buck The nominees […]