News Archive for Josh Armstrong

Watership Down coming to Criterion Collection’s iTunes channel
Big Hero 6 Japanese trailer highlights film’s emotional core
Mondo to release Batman: The Animated Series music on vinyl
Animated episode of Hot In Cleveland to air July 30
First image from Justice League: Throne Of Atlantis debuts
Revenue for China’s animation industry rises to $14 billion
Sony announces stop-motion/live-action Superbago
Big Hero 6‘s Baymax stars in new online video
DreamWorks Animation readying Dinotrux series for Netflix
Star Wars: Rebels‘ Chopper gets real-life counterpart
Planes ripoff Wings gets sequel, Sky Force Heroes
New “Heroes” featurette for Planes: Fire & Rescue
Exclusive! Legends Of Oz producer talks franchise’s future after box office disappoints

Legends Of Oz: Dorothy’s Return got off to a rough start last weekend: The movie collected a mere $3.7 million from 2,575 theaters, the worst opening ever for an animated movie in more than 2,500 theaters. The small opening followed a low-key marketing campaign from Clarius Entertainment – distributing their first feature – and negative […]

Wizart’s Snow Queen 2 gets new poster, images

Courtesy of Wizart Animation, Animated Views has the first look at the latest poster for The Snow Queen 2. Directed by Alexey Tsitsilin, the sequel will be released in Russia, where Wizart is based, this December, shortly before its international release. A U.S. date has yet to be announced. Snow Queen 2 is produced by […]

Postman Pat: The Movie trailer arrives

Postman Pat is making a special delivery: the trailer for his first computer animated feature. In Postman Pat: The Movie, the beloved British postal worker becomes famous when performing on a televised talent show – thanks to singing vocals by Ronan Keating – and is replaced by the evil Patbot 3000 to deliver mail throughout […]

Lava – Pixar’s newest short revealed?

One particular highlight of seeing a Pixar film in theaters is catching the short that precedes it. Now the newest theatrical short from the animation powerhouse may have been discovered: Lava. Scheduled for 2015, the short is listed among Pixar’s upcoming projects in the LinkedIn.com profile of animator Shaun Seong-Young Kim. Time will tell whether […]

Snowman and the Snowdog nominated for Children’s BAFTA

The Snowman and the Snowdog has been announced as among the animation nominees for the British Academy Children’s Awards. The short film was created to honor the 30th anniversary of its Oscar-nominated predecessor, The Snowman, which won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Children’s Programme in 1983. For its own BAFTA, The Snowman and the […]

Marvel Comics to release Muppets Omnibus

USA Today reports that Marvel Comics will publish The Muppets Omnibus, a hardcover collection of four series – originally released by Boom! Studios – by cartoonist Roger Langridge. The featured series include The Muppet Show, The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson, The Muppet Show Comic Book and The Muppets. The Muppets […]

Planes Blu-ray artwork unveiled

Blu-ray.com has the artwork for the standard and 3D Blu-ray packages for DisneyToons’ Planes. The covers are similar to the film’s theatrical posters, although the character Rochelle is no longer shown. Bonus features for the sets have yet to be announced. With a domestic gross of $59.6 million thus far, Planes will arrive in stores […]

Disney to close Toontown, Pixie Hollow

On the heels of Disney Infinity arriving in stores, Disney has announced more news concerning its interactive unit: On September 19, it will close its 10-year-old Toontown virtual world. In addition, the company will close Pirates of the Caribbean Online and Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow, to focus more on Club Penguin and mobile gaming. Bloomberg.com […]

Despicable Me 2, Ninja Turtles top summer toy sales

While animation may have suffered at the box office this summer, The Hollywood Reporter notes that it thrived in the toy aisles of retail stores. Thinkway Toys’ line of Despicable Me 2 merchandise – the Fart Gun being a particular highlight – sold out in the UK before the movie even hit theaters. And with […]

Planes to land on Blu-ray December 10

According to Blu-ray.com, Planes will arrive in stores on December 10. Amazon.com has the DisneyToon title available to pre-order in two-disc and three-disc packages, although bonus features are unknown at this time. Thus far, Planes has collected $49.6 million domestically, set to pass its reported production budget of $50 million this weekend.

Preview Frozen: The Junior Novelization

Random House has placed the first 21 pages of Frozen: The Junior Novelization, penned by Sarah Nathan and Sela Roman, online. It is unknown how closely the adaptation follows the latest feature from Walt Disney Animation Studios, particularly since the book replaces songs with dialogue. Nonetheless, the preview offers a glimpse of the opening scenes […]

Too many animated movies? The debate continues…

“Are Hollywood studios cranking out too many animated films?” asks The Los Angeles Times, in a new piece observing the under-performance of recent animated films like DreamWorks’ Turbo and DisneyToons’ Planes. The article comes on the heels of a similar piece by Forbes. “Everybody has been able to survive so far, but as more films […]

Recapping this summer’s animated movies

This summer saw a record number of animated movies hit theaters: Blue Sky’s Epic, Pixar’s Monsters University, Illumination’s Despicable Me 2, DreamWorks’ Turbo, Sony’s The Smurfs 2 and DisneyToons’ Planes. While Despicable Me 2 rose to become the year’s second-biggest film, Forbes observes that most of the animated releases performed below expectations, with Turbo, The […]