animated-news

Reviews leak and amazing buzz starts on Wall•E

Harry Knowles describes the new Pixar film as “arguably the best film Walt Disney has ever had its name on,” “one of the absolute best hard science fiction films made in my adult life,” and “an incredible work of speculative future mythology the likes of which, I’ve never seen… whilst also being wildly entertaining and […]

Wall-E set to clean up at the El Capitan

From June 27 to August 27 the Disney/Pixar sure-to-be-hit Wall-E will be screening at Disney’s own El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. An all new live stage show “Flights of Fantasy” featuring Disney characters past and present (most who have the ability to fly in one way or another) will precede each screening of the […]

Panda's 2D opening scene

The traditionally animated opening scene of Kung Fu Panda is available for your viewing pleasure on MSN Movies. This scene is one of the two in Panda which employs traditional animation, with more 2-D character animation being featured in the end credits. The opening sequence was created by James Baxter’s studio, also responsible for the […]

New Ponyo images

GhibliWorld has posted new images from Hayao Miyazaki’s upcoming film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. Ponyo opens in theatres across Japan on July 19.

Seann William Scott talks about Planet 51

Actor Seann William Scott revealed more details on the animated comedy Planet 51 in a recent interview with SCI FI Wire. “One of the first scenes is, like, you see everyone watching this movie, and it pulls back to reveal that they’re aliens. And so humans are aliens to them. And Dwayne Johnson’s character lands […]

More Wall•E featurettes and music

The Pixar Blog just posted three new vignettes which recently aired in Brazil. Also make sure to preview the excellent soundtrack over at Amazon MP3!

Pixar vs. DreamWorks

‘Renn Brown’ posted an interesting mini-essay on his blog over at CHUD about what he thinks the main difference is between the two animation giants.

Sony responds to Sit Down walkout

Sony responded yesterday to the walkout by the writers for Sony Pictures TV’s upcoming animated series for Fox Sit Down, Shut Up. The writers, who are members of the WGA, left the show Thursday, claiming that they were misled by Sony TV that they would be covered by the WGA, while the studio had made […]

Sita, Plympton's Angels win at Annecy

Nina Paley’s feminist musical Sita Sings the Blues and Bill Plympton’s blackly comic redemption tale Idiots & Angels pulled off a triumphant double at the 32nd Annecy International Animated Film Festival, winning best picture and a Special Mention respectively. Read the full list of winners here.

The Simpsons Movie, Ratatouille and Bee Movie score at the Key Art Awards

The Simpsons Movie was one of the big winners last night at the 37th annual Key Art Awards, which honor the best movie posters, trailers and other marketing efforts. The Fox feature film won four awards, including honors for its theatrical cardboard “standees” and its Web site design. Meanwhile Bee Movie won for Best Family […]

Kung Fu Panda to reach $120M by Sunday

Kung Fu Panda dropped only 50% yesterday to gross an estimated $10M Friday from an expanded theater count of 4,136 en route for a strong $35M weekend. Nikki Finke warns that Saturday matinees will need to be big for the animated film to grab the #2 spot since M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening performed much […]

Kung Fu Panda heading into a strong second weekend

DreamWorks Animation’s latest hit is trailing the pace of 2006’s Cars and reached yesterday a very impressive $83 million at the U.S. box office. Kung Fu Panda is expected to only drop 35-40% this weekend with most kids finally out of school. Look for Po to sit on $120 million by Sunday.

Anna Faris and Andy Samberg to star in Sony's Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

The hilarious Anna Faris revealed to MTV News, while on the Albuquerque set of her new movie Observe & Report, that should be starring alongside Saturday Night Live‘s Andy Samberg in Sony Pictures Animation’s next feature film: “I’m doing an animated movie when I get back called Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. It’s a […]

More Pixar and Wall•E goodies

Upcoming Pixar notes that Marketplace posted a great interview, also available as an audio podcast, with author David Price about Pixar’s transformation from failing computer company to Hollywood darling. A new Wall•E featurette entitled A Space Journey In Sound can also be viewed at Rotten Tomatoes, and Variety explains why merchandise for the movie is […]

Cool Hanna-Barbera 3D stills

Amid at Cartoon Brew takes a nostalgic look at the wonderful View-master reels of classic Hanna-Barbera characters created back in 1960, unearthed by Bob Logan.

Actors' strike to affect The Simpsons?

While the repercussions of the writers’ strike on the animation industry were relatively limited since animation is handled by a different guild, an actors’ strike would be a totally different story; no acting or publicity would be allowed for the duration of the strike meaning no new recording sessions for shows like The Simpsons, the […]

Preview of new Toy Story Mania ride tomorrow night

Upcoming Pixar alerts fans that the John Goodman-hosted showing of Monster’s Inc. on ABC 7 tomorrow night at 8:00/7:00pm Central will include an exclusive sneak peek at the new attraction, Toy Story Mania.

Free shipping on Wall•E merchandise

DisneyShopping.com opened today the online Wall•E boutique and offers free shipping on all items this weekend only. Simply apply the code “walleship” when checking out.

Voice acting workshops at Anime Expo

This year, Anime Expo® has teamed with Bang Zoom!® Entertainment to offer free voice acting workshops at Anime Expo 2008. In celebration of Bang Zoom! Entertainment’s new DVD release of ADVENTURES IN VOICE ACTING™-Volume One there are scheduled one hour free classes that will give participants a taste of voice acting with insiders’ tips, general […]

New podcast interview with Ken Duncan

Clay Kaytis posted part 2 of yet another fantastic interview on his Animation Podcast website, this time with veteran animator Ken Duncan. Ken’s credits include All Dogs Go to Heaven, Aladdin, Hercules, Shark Tale, TMNT and he is currently serving as supervising animator on the Tim Burton-produced feature adaptation of Shane Acker’s 9. Make sure […]

Deleted scenes from The Jungle Book 2

Got You Beat and Braver, the two deleted sequences from the 2003 Jungle Book theatrical sequel getting a Special Edition DVD release next Tuesday, are online at the film’s official site under the “Video” section. Save your pennies if you already have the Jungle Book 2 DVD: the only new feature on this Special Edition […]

New Wall•E posters

A slew of new Wall•E posters have appeared on Empire’s website. There are four one-sheets featured on the page, each portraying the film’s title character interacting with various pieces of garbage. Wall•E hits theaters on June 27th.

The world's biggest drawing

Filemon Trevino accomplished his lifelong dream of entering the Guinness Book of World Records thanks to a quarter-mile-long pencil drawing now certified as the world’s largest. The Mexican artist said he spent 6,000 hours and used 800 pencils to complete his representation of the heart and circulatory system, with symbols including doves, geometric shapes and […]

What to expect from Disney's BD Live Features

Disney hosted a press demonstration of its new BD Live features earlier this week, which will be launched with the Blu-Ray release of the Sleeping Beauty‘s 50th Anniversary Edition disc. Movieweb offers several stills from the demo along with a detailed rundown. While the new features do sound impressive, sadly they will only be available […]

Reese Witherspoon's role to be the lead in DreamWorks' Monsters vs. Aliens

The actress recently dropped a tidbit to Reuters about her part as Susan Murphy, aka Ginormica, in DreamWorks’ March 2009 stereoscopic feature: “[It] will be a real achievement for myself in that it’s the first female lead of an animated film from a major animation studio in quite a while. I just work with studios […]

Disney animation exhibit coming next year to New Orleans

NOLA reveals that Bullard said the New Orleans Museum of Art blockbuster will host an exhibit of cartoon illustration next year called Dreams Do Come True: Classic Fairy Tales from Disney Studios, and set to coincide with the release of Disney’s New Orleans-based The Princess and the Frog.

First look at Where the Wild Things Are

MTV offers an exciting first look at Spike Jonze’s troubled adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are which will incorporate voice performance, live-action puppetry and computer animation. The film, which Warner Bros. will release theatrically on October 16, 2009, features the talent of Catherine Keener, Benicio Del Toro, Forest Whitaker, and Catherine O’Hara.

More on Weta's special effects in Prince Caspian

In anticipation of the New Zealand opening of the second Narnia film, the Dominion Post takes a closer look at the special effects for the film created by local studio Weta.

DreamWorks Animation share downgraded from neutral to sell

DreamWorks Animation SKG was downgraded today to sell from neutral at UBS Investment Research, which said the current share price implies domestic box office receipts for future films above the historical average. The share price, driven up by enthusiasm over Kung Fu Panda implies the company will average domestic box office receipts of $202 million […]

Walt Disney performs magic tricks

Head over to MovieWeb for a vintage clip of Walt Disney doing some magic of his own. This clip is included on the 45th Anniversary Edition DVD of The Sword in the Stone which will be available next Tuesday and also features a Music Magic: The Sherman Brothers featurette along with two classic Disney shorts: […]