animated-news

Family Guy (already) brings back Brian

Well, that didn’t take long. Only weeks after Family Guy “killed off” Brian the dog–to the outrage of fans on the internet everywhere–, the show has brought the beloved pooch back from the dead, Yahoo! TV says in a recap of last night’s episode. Although some might think the death was “undone” as a response to […]

New How to Train Your Dragon 2 image

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 […]

Critic’s Choice Awards nominations come in

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, […]

New Nut Job trailer

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 […]

Sanders discusses The Croods

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 […]

Legendary actor Peter O’Toole passes away

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 […]

Animation spirits riding high, but is darkness around the corner?

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 […]

Five 2013 animation directors sit down together for discussion

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 […]

Book excerpt from The CG Story

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 […]

Lasseter discusses Disney 90th birthday

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, […]

New Rio 2 trailer

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 […]

Holocaust victim Anne Frank gets her own animated picture

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 villain’s reproduce and their kids get a movie!

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 […]

Easter eggs from Frozen revealed

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.

Golden Globe nominees for 2013 films revealed

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 […]

Gollum creator Letteri talks evolution of computer animation

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 […]

Walt Disney Studios lot tour

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”.

Disney celebrates ninety years of animation

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 […]

UPDATED: Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return gets a theatrical trailer

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 […]

Live-action Kiki’s Delivery Service teaser trailer released

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 […]

Saving Mr. Banks roundup

Saving Mr. Banks opens next week in the United States, but it’s already made its debut overseas. The Mirror has photos from the premiere, including some of the stars of the original film, Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. Stars of the current film are out promoting the film. Tom Hanks discusses taking on Walt […]

Frozen producer talks about producing

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.

Rimes music video created with stop motion on an iPhone

The Hollywood Reporter digs into the creation of LeAnn Rimes’ new music video for the song Gasoline and Matches. The video, created by Ian Padgham, uses stop-motion animation and all 8,000 frames were shot using an iPhone. “Padgham says that anyone could use the same virtually free technology to make their own stop-motion animation nowadays. […]

The Wind Rises takes award despite “morally egregious” claim

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 […]

Lasseter’s Disney and Pixar tug-of-war

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 […]

Frozen catches fire at the box office

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 […]

Eisner pays compliment to Disney’s Get A Horse

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner complimented Disney on its latest short Get A Horse and their success with Frozen, which some are calling an instant classic. He tweeted his praise for the short, as mentioned by Cartoon Brew, proclaiming that it is “the best film of the year.” In a follow-up tweet he congratulated Disney […]

New motion capture movie Tarzan 3D trailer premieres

While Russia and Germany are already getting their share of the new Tarzan 3D on the silver screen, English-speaking audiences must make do with a UK trailer. Tarzan 3D is made by Constantin Films and stars Kellan Lutz as the voice and performance capture actor for Tarzan. Screenrant tell us that the original story was […]

The Miyazaki Pippi Longstocking film that never was

Studio Ghibli unearthed some treasures from their archives: concept art for a Pippi Longstocking movie. ComicsAlliance tells us that back in 1971, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata approached Astrid Lindgren to adapt her famous children’s books into a movie. They painted watercolor storyboards and presented them to Lindgren, but after meeting with the animation team […]

Is Kaguya-hime appropriate for a global audience?

No one can deny that Isao Takahata’s The Legend of Princess Kaguya has beautiful animation, but ANN found a piece by Newsweek journalist Akihiko Reizei that suggests some scenes are not made for a global audience. Reizei believes it would be a good idea to release an “international” version, where scenes–i.e. breast-feeding and nudity–would be […]