Archives for January, 2008
Bee Movie DVD cover revealed
The cover of DreamWorks Animation’s Bee Movie has been revealed today. The movie will be released as a single-disc DVD, a double-disc “special” edition and on HD DVD on March 11th. Featuring the voices of Jerry Seinfeld, and Renée Zellweger, the movie did reasonably well at the box office; pulling in a domestic total of $125,595,476 and a foreign total of $142,152,051 for a combined $267,747,527 worldwide on a budget of $150,000,000.
Click the image below to see the full size DVD cover:
First image of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog
Disney has released the first image of their upcoming 2D film, The Princess and the Frog. The film will tell the story of Maddy, Disney’s first black princess, and will return to the traditional “Let’s break into song!” style from such films as The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. The Princess and the Frog arrives in theaters in late 2009.
Ratatouille wins Golden Globe Award
The 65th annual Golden Globes winners were announced Sunday at a news conference held by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in Beverly Hills, California. The winner in the Best Animated Film category was Ratatouille. It was up against Bee Movie and The Simpsons Movie… not much of a competition. Now it’s time to look forward to the Oscars where Ratatouille will hopefully win as well. It truly deserves it.
And in non-animated news, No Country for Old Men won for Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem and Best Screenplay: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. If you haven’t seen this movie, please do yourself a great favor and head to your local theater. It truly is a great movie.
Tom Hanks talks Toy Story 3
As you may or may not know (you would if you read The Animation Blog everyday), Toy Story 3 is currently in development and scheduled for a June, 2009 release.
Many wondered if Tom Hanks and Tim Allen would return to voice Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Rest easy, now that Tom Hanks has confirmed that he will be back.
“I’ll do anything they want me to do, they’re like mad scientists,” said Tom Hanks during an interview with Jonathan Ross on his Friday night show.
No official confirmation from Tim Allen has been issued but we can pretty much assume that he will return. It wouldn’t be Toy Story 3 without him.
Via InTheNews
Disney President, Robert Iger, paid $27 million in 2007
According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Walt Disney Company President and Chief Executive Robert Iger received a total compensation in fiscal 2007 of $27.7 million. He was paid a $2 million base salary, plus a $13.7 million bonus. If that wasn’t enough, he also received $7.9 million in stock awards and $2.2 million in option awards.
I really don’t understand why any person would ever get paid that much money. Sure, he may “run things” — but the people who actually create the Disney products should get paid more, not some executive. Give your animators raises, give the people working at Disneyland raises.
It just seems so wrong that he gets paid that much money to run Disney, while the President of the United States gets paid $400,000 annually. Now, isn’t there something wrong with that picture?
Via Reuters
Brad Bird on writing Ratatouille
The Hollywood Reporter has a very cool feature up on their site that features the screenwriters for the Golden Globe nominated films, which includes Ratatouille. Here is what Brad Bird had to say:
“I came way late into the project. When I became involved, (Pixar) had the character design, they had the premise and they had two of the most important sets ‘built’ in the computer. But they were at a crisis point. Everyone loved the idea and the way it was looking, but the story was not at the point it needed to be. I had a year and a half to write a whole new script, do a brand-new set of reels, recast the movie, record all the sound, cut the sound to a new storyboard, design 22 of the 25 sets and get it all done. These things usually take four to five years.
It was a hard script to write, and I had to write it quickly because we had committed to a start date for the animation; I had to have parts of the script ready to go before the rest was finalized. The basic story stayed the same: It was about a rat named Remy who wanted to be a cook. But I changed a lot of things. I killed off Gusteau, the main character Remy was trying to please — then made him come back as part of his imagination.
I reworked it structurally a lot and added a few characters. Then I took my story outline and wrote a brand-new screenplay and did a whole new soundtrack and a set of story reels. I don’t think it is in any significant way different to write a screenplay for an animated film than a live-action one. What’s different is that I know what animators can do and I try to write scenes that I myself would want to animate.
I used to be an animator and know what it is like to be assigned these deathly scenes where you have to inject a lot of shtick to make them interesting to watch. What makes (an animation screenplay) work is having a heightened sensibility that is a little bit caricatured. Many people view that as a negative because caricature is meant to suggest over-the-top. But I view the word caricature in a much more positive sense. Good caricature simplifies things down to the essence.”
Cartoon Network starts new year off strong
Cartoon Network started 2008 with strong ratings, thanks to its new Transformers Animated series which premiered Saturday, Jan. 5 at 10:30 am. The Saturday morning “Dynamite Action Squad” block of cartoons (9:00am-12:00pm) also included a new episode of Pokemon: Diamond & Pearl.
This lead to Cartoon Network’s ranking of #1 in its time period versus all broadcast and cable competition with boys 6-11 and boys 2-11.
Kids 6-11 grew by 14%, and ratings by 13%
Kids 2-11 improved by 29%, and ratings by 33%
Boys 6-11 expanded by 28%, and ratings by 27% — #1 in its time period on all TV
Boys 2-11 catapulted by 55%, and ratings by 54% — #1 in its time period on all TV
Via AWN
Visual Effects Society Awards nominees announced
The nominees for the 6th Annual VES Awards, scheduled to take place on February 10 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End leads with seven nominations, followed by Transformers with five. Steven Speilberg will also receive the VES Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of the impact he has had on visual effects.
Two sequences in Ratatouille are up for Outstanding Effects in an Animated Motion Picture. The sequences will go up against scenes from Beowulf, Shrek the Third and Surf’s Up.
Surf’s Up has two characters—Cody and Chicken Joe—nominated for Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Motion Picture. King Harold from Shrek the Third, Beowulf, and Colette from Ratatouille are also in the running.
There are many more categories. Too many to list. If you would like, you can view the entire list of nominees at www.vesawards.com
Ratatouille wins Critics Choice Award
Last night, the 13th annual Critics’ Choice Awards aired on TV. No surprise here, Ratatouille won the awards for best animated feature. Below is the complete list of winners in case you’re wondering:
Best Picture: “No Country for Old Men”
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “There Will Be Blood”
Best Actress: Julie Christie, “Away From Her”
Best Supporting actor: Javier Bardem, “No Country for Old Men”
Best Supporting actress: Amy Ryan, “Gone Baby Gone”
Best Acting ensemble: “Hairspray”
Best Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, “No Country for Old Men”
Best Writer: Diablo Cody, “Juno”
Best Animated feature: “Ratatouille”
Best Young actor: Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, “The Kite Runner”
Best Young actress: Nikki Blonsky, “Hairspray”
Best Comedy movie: “Juno”
Best Family film (live action): “Enchanted”
Best Picture made for television: “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”
Best Foreign language film: “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
Best Song: “Falling Slowly,” Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, “Once”
Best Composer: Jonny Greenwood, “There Will Be Blood”
Best Documentary feature: “Sicko”
Joel Siegel award: Don Cheadle
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