According to the IMDB Studio Briefing, the study “Economics of Motion Pictures 2006,” from Monterey, CA-based Kagan Research, has found animated movies to be the most profitable film genre between 2000 and 2004. On average, the movies each earned a gross profit of $194.5 million.

Latino Review has a new image from Monster House. Columbia Pictures’ computer animated comedy will open in theaters on July 21, 2006.

Jeffrey Katzenberg has revealed a new venture between DreamWorks Animation and Hewlett-Packard: the Halo room, indicates StarTribune.com. Costing $550,000 to create, each Halo room includes four high-definition plasma screens, along with lighting, camera angles, wall-color, acoustics and furniture tailored to make two Halo systems feel like a single room, when linked together. In response to […]

With NBC5.com’s @ The Movies, Ray Harryhausen, the master of stop-motion animation special effects, shares his thoughts on the recently released Harryhausen Gift Set, which features the films 20 Million Miles to Earth, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and It Came From Beneath the Sea.

CG Society and the CMP Game Group-owned Game Developers Conference have announced a new competition for computer graphics artwork, the Graphic Impact Annual Animation Competition, reports Gamasutra. This year’s theme for the contest is “the Pivotal Moment,” with rules stating, “You must create an image, animation and story depicting a pivotal moment between antagonist and […]

Cover artwork has arrived at DVD Active for each of the three upcoming DVD volumes of The Real Ghostbusters: Spooky Spirits, Creatures of the Night, and Slimefighters.

DVDtoons has the press release for the DVDs of The Batman: The Complete First Season and Teen Titans: The Complete First Season, along with back cover artwork for the latter of the two.

Another “For Your Consideration” poster promoting Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride has appeared at Oscar Watch. This time, the award categories being pushed include: Best Animated Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song, and Best Sound Editing.

From Ultimate Disney comes word of two new bonus features being included for the Howl’s Moving Castle two-disc DVD. Aside from the usual “Behind the Microphone” English voice cast featurette, storyboards, trailers, and television spots, the DVD will have an interview with Pete Doctor, director of Howl’s English dubbing, and the featurette “Hello, Mr. Lasseter,” […]

Under the theme “What animated characters would look like if they were real people,” Fark.com offers a unique gallery of pictures posing some of history’s most famous cartoon faces in real-life form.

Animation appears to be playing a key role in Disney’s award show push, as its latest “For Your Consideration” website, provided under the Buena Vista Pictures banner, contains spots for The Chronicles of Narnia, Chicken Little, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie. Full songs from Narnia (“Wunderkind” and “Can’t Take It In”), Chicken Little […]

Releasing a plethora of praise, Coming Soon reviews the Toy Story 2 Special Edition DVD, due for release on December 26th. Providing scores of 10/10 for the film itself and 9/10 for the DVD’s extras, the site summarizes its thoughts on the package with, “Overall, if you’re a Pixar or Toy Story fan, this is […]

Hollywood.com indicates that publicist Ivy ‘Supersonic’ Silberstein still insists she created the character of Scrat, the loveable acorn-adoring animal from Fox/Blue Sky’s Ice Age movies. Continuing her fight for recognition, Silberstein has plastered posters over New York City and Los Angeles, asking folks to visit Scrat.com for her side of the story.

According to The Mercury, via The Big Cartoon Database, Warner Bros. and the government of the Australian state of Tasmania are having “closed-door talks” this week, in an effort to bring hope to the endangered Tasmanian devil. The conversations concern an agreement that could bring publicity and funding for research of the facial tumor threatening […]

On February 28, 2006, The Real Ghostbusters will arrive in stores. However, the animated series will be released in DVD volumes of random episodes, rather than season sets. DVDtoons has the episode listings for those volumes, featuring: Volume 1: Catch Me If You Can (“Night Game,” “Lost and Foundry,” “Bird of Kildarby,” and “Killerwatt”), Volume […]

Around 250 original pictures from such Disney classics as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Fantasia have been discovered at a warehouse in Chiba University, reports Kyodo News, via Yahoo! Asia. Including celluloid and background images, along with sketches, the pictures were donated by the Walt Disney Co. to the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, after […]

Coming soon to your cell phone may be animated avatars that accurately lip-synch, if 3Dmsg, a division of speech technology leader Sensory, has its way. Utilizing the company’s homegrown animation and voice-recognition technologies, the avatars will contain lips that move with the same precision as that of a real person’s, when pronouncing phonemes or parts […]

Latino Review displays a promotional image from Garfield 2, arriving in theaters on June 23, 2006.

IGN FilmForce was in attendance at this year’s Jump Festival, Japan’s annual gala of previews from videogame, manga and anime companies. Found at the festival were another demo and trailer for the anticipated video game Kingdom Hearts II, the presentation of which FilmForce summarizes.

A new article at BackStage reveals that while the pair failed to make it to the list of seven movies eligible for the Best Visual Effects Oscar, both Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit were among the final fifteen films once considered for the award.

According to Moviehole, Elizabeth Hurley is “in talks” to join her Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery co-star Mike Myers for Shrek 3. The popular ogre’s second sequel will hit theaters on May 18, 2007.

Jim Hill Media points to website names registered by Disney not too long ago, supposing some of the things the Mouse House may have in its future. Projects found in the mix involve: a Tron sequel, the Little Mermaid Broadway show, Le Muppet Show, and the mysterious Adventures of Barf Bag.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, via the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, talk has begun once more that Disney may purchase Pixar. Other ideas being considered are that Disney might buy a minority stake of Pixar, or that Pixar could grant Disney participation in the performance of its future movies in exchange for sequel rights to its […]

In a recent report, the U.S. Institute of Medicine stated that television has been found to strongly influence what children younger than 12 years old eat. Responding to that finding, the panel of scientists recommended that animated characters should promote only healthy food, pointing to the use of characters to push Happy Meals and cookies […]

“Will digital effects ruin Hollywood?” – that is the question asked by Edward Jay Epstein. In his article “The Schizoid Split in Movies,” available at Slate, Epstein ponders whether directors are spending so much time dealing with special effects that they fail to fulfill the film’s live action needs. Likewise, Epstein considers that working with […]

DVDActive has a large version of the cover artwork for the Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit DVD, coming to stores on February 7th. Bonus material for the DVD has yet to be announced.

Cover art for The Land Before Time: 2 Big Dino-Riffic Adventures has been added to DVDActive. Also listed at the site are the DVD set’s bonus features, including: three sing-along songs, “How Do I Find Things?” features, “Ducky’s Deep Sea Discovery,” a “Stars of The Land Before Time IX: Journey to Big Water” feature, and […]

Regarding the new animated series Wolverine and the X-Men, Jason Netter of Kickstart Entertainment remarks to Comics2Film, “We’re just ramping up the writing and the artistic development.” Furthermore, he adds, “Full production will start early next year.” With Netter serving as the series’ producer, Greg Johnson, writer of Marvel’s DTV movies Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate Avengers […]

The official website for the Toy Story 2 Special Edition DVD is now open. Features of the site include info about the DVD, a photo gallery, the film’s trailer, downloads, games, and activities. The Toy Story 2 Special Edition DVD will hit stores on December 26th. Thanks to Justin Williams at the Animated-News Forum for […]

The Venice, California-based Exodus Film Group announced Wednesday that veteran licensing executive Bruce Auerbach has been named president of the company’s new consumer products division, reports The Big Cartoon Database. Reporting to Exodus president John D. Eraklis, Auerbach will manage all licensing and merchandising efforts, including those of Exodus’ animation slate, containing such upcoming flicks […]