The book cover illustration above by Rachell Sumpter is responsible for one of the more intriguing animated feature announcements I’ve heard in a while. Director/producer Jonathan Demme has optioned the rights to the Dave Eggers novel Zeitoun, and inspired by its cover, he’s decided to make it as an animated film. Demme told The New York Times:

“I was staring at the book and there’s this wonderful line drawing on the cover, the character of Zeitoun in his canoe, paddling through a submerged neighborhood. And I suddenly imagined, What if we could do an animated film and visualize the experiences of the Zeitoun family and all of New Orleans?”

Eggers’s story is in the thoughtful vein of recent features like $9.99, Perspepolis and Waltz with Bashir, and has little to do with the conventional animated fare being churned out by the major studios. It is a true-life account of an Arab-American man, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, and his harrowing experiences in New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina. Demme says that he is currently “deep, deep, deep into researching” how he’s going to produce the animation for the film, and that he wants to stick with a hand-drawn style.

And now a personal note to Jonathan Demme: Mr. Demme, if you’re reading this, I beg you not to use cheap Flash/AfterEffects-style animation. Don’t Waltz with Bashir this film, and compromise the personal impact of the story with mechanical movement. Maintain the integrity and vitality of the graphic illustration that initially drew you to the project, and bring it to life with the nuance and lushness that only traditional hand-drawn animation can provide. Look at the works of Koji Yamamura, Frédéric Back, and Sylvain Chomet to understand the unique storytelling possibilities of the animation medium. Prove to the world that not every live-action director has a clumsy, heavy-footed, Bob Zemeckis-like approach to the art form.

(Thanks, TStevens, for the story link)

Since 2007, Vanessa Morrison has been President of Fox Animation Studios. Morrison started as an intern at 20th Century Fox fifteen years ago and climbed the ranks, eventually overseeing the live action Fat Albert and Garfield movies and the live-action-computer animated hybrid Alvin and the Chipmunks. Today she works with Blue Sky Studios and filmmakers like Wes Anderson to bring their animated features to the screen.

Each week, the L.A. Times profiles a different Southern California executive in their Weekend Business section. Yesterday, the Sunday Times ran this piece about who she is.

Imagi, an animation studio that thought it could compete with the big boys, has suffered a major blow after the abysmal opening of Astro Boy which debuted in 6th place with barely over $7 million. UPDATE: The actual opening weekend box office gross for Astro Boy was $6.7 million.

Hong Kong-based Imagi entered the animation industry with grand ideas, but little production know-how and the uninspiring idea of applying TV production models to CG animated features by preparing the pre-production in the US and animating the films in Asia where labor is cheap (well, cheaper, since Astro Boy still cost a ridiculous $65 million). The company’s first film, TMNT, debuted modestly with $54 million in 2007. Astro Boy will have difficulty matching even half of that figure.

Even more embarrassing, Astro Boy is a big flop in its home country of Japan, where it barely made it into the top ten on its opening weekend, and dropped out of the top 10 in its second week. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that when you attempt to Westernize a distinctly foreign product, you end up alienating everybody. The more important lesson is that just because you’re basing a film around an existing property doesn’t guarantee a hit. The other part of the equation is that you also have to make a good film that people actually want to see. Then again, it also helps if the property you’re remaking isn’t an obscure mid-century relic that no normal human being under the age of 35 (and definitely no teenager) has heard of.

As readers may recall, Imagi was experiencing major financial difficulties late last year, which resulted in the loss of many of their top talents in the LA studio. They were given a temporary reprieve after Chinese investors stepped in at the last minute. The tradeoff, according to The Hollywood Reporter, was that the company had to revamp its production slate (Tusker was dropped), and begin searching for a “hero concept of Chinese origin” to produce as an upcoming feature. (Their next feature, Gatchaman, was already well into production, and is still slated to follow Astro Boy.) The Chinese are keeping Imagi on financial life support for the time being, but it’s becoming obvious that they lack the vision and passion for animation that results in films that audiences will pay to watch.

Flying into 3,014 U.S. theaters this weekend, the kiddie-skewing Astro Boy movie could gross anywhere from $10 million to… who knows? If you’ve screened it, tell us what you thought. The comments section below is open only to those who have actually seen the film.

UPDATE: The actual opening weekend box office gross for Astro Boy was $6.7 million.

This trailer has been out for a while, but I just have to ask: Does anyone in Hollywood have the cajones to tell Zemeckis to just STOP?

Robert Zemeckis has made several of my all-time favorite films, but this motion-capture madness must end. He’s doing Yellow Submarine next. Are any of our readers looking forward to this Christmas Carol? Does anyone think it looks good?

…you have no excuse. You can watch it this coming Saturday October 17th, if you have a satellitte dish, on LINK TV, DIRECTV Channel 375 and DISH Network Channel 9410 at 7:30am Eastern/4:30am Pacific.

Or you can watch Sita Sings the Blues in its entirety right now on LINK TV’s website. Or check Nina Paley’s page for downloads, festival screenings and future broadcast playdates.

(Thanks, Lee Burack)

Animator David Nethery pointed me toward this intriguing 2D animated feature coming from Denmark, The Apple & the Worm, directed by Anders Morgenthaler (Princess). It was apparently made totally paperless, drawn on Wacom Cintiq tablets, using TVP Animation software. If any of our bilingual readers can translate the trailer’s introductory dialogue, please send us a comment.

The poster and still images are posted here and a very good article about the film and the director is up at Denmark Film Institute.

Drawing by Pete Oswald

Last weekend, Sony’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs surprised everybody by grossing $24.6 million and staying atop the North American box office for a second week in a row. More impressively, the film declined only 19% from its opening weekend, putting it behind just Taken and Coraline for the smallest drop of any new movie in 2009.

A number of artists who worked on the film have been posting stuff from it on their blogs. Here are a few links:

Pete Oswald, character design: Post 1, Post 2

Armand Serrano, visual development: Post 1, Post 2

Kris Pearn, storyboard - Post

Chris Mitchell, visual development - Post

Dave Gibson, animator - Post

Jeremy Bernstein, animator - Post

Or if all this clicking is too much, just pick up a copy of The Art and Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs .