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TAG FOR “Business”Cartoon Brew's home for up-to-the-minute, unedited announcements and press releases direct from industry sources.
January 9, 2011 11:24 am
No new animated films this week in the US. The quick fading Yogi Bear dropped from fourth to eighth place with an FINAL $6.6 million and a grand total of $75.4 million. Disney’s Tangled took an FINAL $5.1 million in its 7th weekend, good for tenth place. Its total now stands at $175.8 million. Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist earned an FINAL $34,400 from three theaters. Its three work total is an impressive $180,000. By contrast, Mamoru Hosoda’s Summer Wars took in $13,604 from 11 theaters, and its three-week total is a paltry $33,089. Paul and Sandra Fierlinger’s My Dog Tulip earned a FINAL $13,039 from 4 theaters for a total of $167,939. (Final numbers will be updated on Monday afternoon.) 18 Comments » posted in Business, Feature Film, My Dog Tulip, Summer Wars, Tangled, The Illusionist, Yogi Bear 
December 16, 2010 3:27 pm
Unite Here, a union for Disneyland Hotel employees, has started a No Toy Story 3 campaign to thwart the Disney/Pixar film’s bid for an Oscar. 71 Comments » posted in Business, Disney, toy story 3
November 20, 2010 8:09 am
NY filmmaker Signe Baumane (Teat Beat of Sex) is working on her first animated feature Rocks In My Pockets and documenting the progress on her blog. During the past month, she wrote an incredible seven-part series about a topic that nobody ever talks about publicly: fundraising and how an independent animator can afford to make films while living in New York. Bottomline: It’s not easy. Many filmmakers make films occasionally inbetween commercial film projects, whereas Signe takes a firm and principled stance that puts her independent filmmaking above all other activities. Her free-flowing and often funny articles touch on countless different subjects: applying for grants, why Kickstarter doesn’t work for her, accepting non-film art projects that support her filmmaking habit, and the difficulties of budgeting living expenses when one isn’t earning anything. Unfortunately, the posts aren’t categorized, but start in the October archive with Fundraising Story 1 and work your way up. Her writings provide a sobering and realistic perspective on the life of an independent filmmaker. (Thanks, Michael Sporn, for the tip) 11 Comments » posted in Business, Ideas/Commentary, Rocks In My Pockets, Signe Baumane
November 15, 2010 7:25 am
Over the weekend, The Animation Guild, Local 839 IATSE, which represents animation artists throughout Los Angeles, announced its election results. The new president is Bob Foster who has had an impressive forty-year career in the industry. I’d occasionally run into Bob when I lived in LA, and he always impressed me with his knowledge of animation and cartoon history. He’s as much a fan of the art form as he is someone who works in it, and that’s a commendable trait. Foster ran uncontested, and replaces computer animator Kevin Koch, who is stepping down as president after nine years. I don’t want to read into this too much, but it should be pointed out that most of the recent jobs listed on Koch’s online resume are non-union studios (Blue Sky Studios, Super 78 Studios, Snoot Entertainment, Medical CyberWorlds). While the union doesn’t prohibit its members from working at outside shops, it can’t be an inspiring message to rank-and-file members when its last president consistently worked outside during the past few years. Looking at it from a different perspective, however, Kevin’s career path simply reflects that of a modern animator. The union largely represents studios that create TV and feature animation, and as I wrote in the second half of this article, the fragmentation of the industry means that younger generations of artists can’t be expected to commit themselves to specific formats as in the past. How the union will adapt to reflect these changing realities of its membership remains to be seen. 16 Comments » posted in Business, Bob Foster, Kevin Koch, The Animation Guild
November 14, 2010 11:02 am
For the second weekend in a row, DreamWorks Animation’s Megamind finished atop the North American box office with a final take of $29.1 million. Its total gross now stands at $88.8 million. The drop from last weekend was a respectable 36.7%; comparatively, How to Train Your Dragon had a second weekend decline of 33.7% and Shrek Forever After declined 38.9% in its second frame. On the other end of the animation spectrum, Paul and Sandra Fierlinger’s My Dog Tulip earned $4,250 from three theaters. The film has grossed $113,000 after eleven weekends, pushing it past many recent limited animation releases like Fear(s) of the Dark, $9.99, and Tales from Earthsea. Also, Nine Nation Animation, a collection of indie shorts that we wrote about earlier, earned $3,489 from two theaters, raising its total earnings to $12,973. 25 Comments » posted in Business, Feature Film, Megamind, My Dog Tulip, Nine Nation Animation
November 5, 2010 4:12 am
Megamind opens in US theaters today, but the film already premiered in Russia last week. The DreamWorks feature posted a healthy $6.9 million opening in Russia and was the country’s number one film at the box office. Earlier DreamWorks features also fared well this year—How to Train Your Dragon launched with $7.3 million and Shrek Forever After with $19.7 million. Russians are apparently hungry for CG animation of any kind, and notably, they’re getting to see the big Hollywood releases before their American debuts. Open Season 3, which won’t appear in the US until next year, opened theatrically in Russia two weeks ago, and it too was the number one film at the box office, taking in $2.3 million. I swear, it’s like some bizarro universe where every animated film does well. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole opened at number one with $3.4 million, Despicable Me at number two with $3.3 million, and Alpha and Omega also at number two with $1.6 million. In fact, just about the only computer animated feature the Russians haven’t liked this year is Toy Story 3, which opened with $2.3 million and finished its box office run with a weak $6.6 million—or less than the opening weekend of Megamind. In case you’re curious, here’s the Russian poster for Open Season 3:
(Box office data from Box Office Mojo) 53 Comments » posted in Business, Feature Film, Megamind, Open Season 3
November 5, 2010 3:02 am
Remember the link we posted last June to a New York Times article proclaiming the Disney Channel’s Phineas and Ferb as the next SpongeBob. Well, Disney publicists aren’t giving up. They convinced the business rag Fast Company to publish a longer article written by Adam Bluestein with virtually identical talking points trumpeting the popularity of Phineas and Ferb. While the NY Times mentioned the word “SpongeBob” EIGHT times in their write-up, Fast Company mentions him ELEVEN times and even added a SpongeBob infographic just in case you’re not sufficiently clear what show Disney wants you to think Phineas and Ferb is like. UPDATE: Phineas and Ferb co-creator Dan Povenmire posted in the comments. He wants to make clear that any SpongeBob references are instigated by the authors of the articles and that Disney publicists don’t reference that show. Here is Povenmire’s full comment:
52 Comments » posted in Business, TV, Phineas and Ferb
October 8, 2010 11:42 am
High-profile children’s entertainment licensor Kenn Viselman (Teletubbies, Thomas the Tank Engine), who refers to himself as the Madonna of the toy business, is launching a new preschool program called Millipede and he’s looking for content from children’s producers. The submission form contract has raised some eyebrows from people who have emailed us about it, and I’m curious whether others out there would feel comfortable submitting to Viselman’s show. There’s a lot of legalese in there, so I attempted to translate it into human-readable language. Here’s what I came up with: Before you submit anything to Kenn, you have to acknowledge that your property is not unique and that Kenn may have already had the same idea. You also have to acknowledge that you won’t file a lawsuit if he ends up producing something that looks exactly like your own work. If he likes your idea, and hasn’t already thought of it himself, he’ll offer you a deal within his “standard parameters.” If you end up having any dispute with Kenn, you can’t take him to court. Instead, you have to agree that a random dude named Skip will resolve your problems (seriously, I’m not making this up folks). I’m sure some of the terms are industry-standard for submission releases, but even if that’s the case, I find the entire process off-putting and one-sided, especially considering that Kenn’s the one looking for material. Here’s a longish article about the guy from a 2003 issue of Inc. magazine. |
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