editors
JERRY BECK (LA)
AMID AMIDI (NY)
Despicable Me teaser
July 15, 2009 12:05 am


Next summer, from a lot of people who brought you Horton Hears a Who (but not Blue Sky Studios), comes the first release from Illumination Entertainment – the new Universal Pictures animated feature film division. Here’s the first teaser trailer for Despicable Me.

(Thanks Iain Robbins)

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MattSullivan says:
07/15/09  1:00am

How….incredibly vague.

 
Bitter Animator says:
07/15/09  1:01am

Looks like it could be interesting. I really like the premise. It’s simple but the potential in both the stealing and the replacing of mammoth landmarks seems rather limitless in terms of the fun it could offer. Though the focus of the film isn’t given away in the trailer – will it be, as the title suggests, from the point of view of the thief? Or those trying to stop him?

If it is the former, that will be a turnaround on what I’d usually expect. That’s a good thing.

I loved the design of the bus.

Could be one to watch.

 
Ron says:
07/15/09  1:01am

Looks great. I can’t wait to see it!

 
Oh My F******g Gawd! says:
07/15/09  1:39am

Wow. I’m interested.

:-)

 
Aziz says:
07/15/09  2:07am

For those who are curious, the animation is outsourced at Mac Guff Ligne in Paris, France.

 
Mac says:
07/15/09  2:22am

This looks good. I can’t wait to learn more. Looks like this could be a really fun and unusual cartoon story. The characters and gags in this trailer made me laugh too.

 
gman says:
07/15/09  5:05am

looks fun!

 
doug holverson says:
07/15/09  5:08am

“Oh, there he goes….”

 
Antonio says:
07/15/09  5:10am

Altough we can’t see much of the story, I liked the designs and the animation, thought it was pretty good.

 
Iritscen says:
07/15/09  5:53am

Wow, I haven’t seen a CG movie trailer this appealing outside of Pixar’s works. Very interesting.

 
Andrew Lee says:
07/15/09  6:47am

HA! That looks like it has some potential!

 
Tres Swygert says:
07/15/09  6:55am

The character designs are nice for this film project. I hope that the plot is interesting to make it worth seeing.

 
Don says:
07/15/09  7:22am

Wow! This came out of left field. Great designs and fun story.

 
Daniel Caylor says:
07/15/09  7:29am

Looks really good. The animation surprised me.

 
Jessica Plummer says:
07/15/09  7:30am

I think I’m hooked! Not to mention a really well put together trailer…one that just shows enough but is not a hurling grab-bag of the tired and trite formulaic renditions over-narrated by the over-used “movie guy” voice.

Can’t wait to see more!

 
Valerie says:
07/15/09  7:59am

While watching the trailer, I thought this was going to be a Carmen Sandiego movie, despite having read the post. It looks great, regardless.

 
samuel says:
07/15/09  8:03am

Wow, neat style of animation! this is gonna be good :)

 
Rafa says:
07/15/09  8:16am

The thief silhouette looks like Tim Burton´s Penguin to me.

 
Erik says:
07/15/09  8:51am

Yeah, I saw either the Penguin or a very evil Tiny Tim

 
Dagan says:
07/15/09  9:42am

GREAT designs, I was loving ALL of them throughout the entire trailer.

The animation looks tight, acting is good, and some really sweet timing in there, too. :) Definitely looking forward to seeing more!

Was that a wee-bit of Flash animation at the end? (when the bad-guy’s silhouette laughs?) That took me by surprise.

Anyway, this looks really promising! Makes me want to learn CG even faster! ;)

 
red pill junkie says:
07/15/09  9:58am

Like Bitter Animator, the premise of this movie shows a lot of potential.

I’m definitely interested =)

 
Taber Dunipace says:
07/15/09  10:00am

I hope this turns out as cool as it’s looking now.
LOVED that bus design though.

 
FP says:
07/15/09  10:17am

Looks good, and fun – but all big-budget movie CG animation looks so much alike lately. Same lighting, same colors, same types of movement, same cloth sim and dynamics and other effects. Live-action films have more different “looks” than recent CG films.

And there’s another sort-of big-name cast that isn’t even identifiable without reading the credits. How much did that cost? Does hanging a semi-familiar name on a cartoon actually bring in more viewers?

 
Zach Smith says:
07/15/09  10:20am

The thief kind of gave me a Pink Panther vibe. Excitement over the big fat American Characters!

 
Rob says:
07/15/09  10:32am

Looks great. It’s a shame when the economy is this bad that we are producing Hollywood movies with French animators. Kind of sucks for the US animation community.

 
Brian Kidd says:
07/15/09  10:57am

That was surprisingly very funny. I still miss the days when animated films weren’t entirely voiced by people who aren’t professional voice actors, though. I spend the entire time picturing the actor instead of the character.

Still, as those days will never come again, I should stop complaining.

I’ll definitely keep my ears open about this one. Looks promising.

 
Tom Heres says:
07/15/09  10:59am

What Rob said.

 
tgentry says:
07/15/09  11:13am

Doesn’t look too bad. The characters look like they are loan from a Pixar movie (which seems to be about the standard these days). The inflatable pyramid genuinely surprised me, hope the rest of the movie can do the same. Might be fun.

 
J. J. Hunsecker says:
07/15/09  11:50am

I love the character designs of the American tourists. I hope the rest of the film will be that visually pleasing and interesting.

 
Erik W says:
07/15/09  12:26pm

Cool! It looks funny!

 
Jason says:
07/15/09  12:28pm

Animated in France! Anyone here upset that none of this show was animated in the USA?! Thank you Universal. BTW, how does France get anything done on a 32 hour work week!

WHAT ROB SAID ….damn right!

 
Tim says:
07/15/09  12:41pm

Yeah, copy and paste what Rob said again. Looks well crafted, though.

-a (4-weeks-away-from-being-unemployed) animator

 
Craig Clark says:
07/15/09  12:44pm

Industry standard design and animation with a trailer that does not give away the plot. Looks like this story can only be done through animation. It had me hooked.

 
MJ says:
07/15/09  1:23pm

why do characters have to look like their personality?

 
some guy says:
07/15/09  2:04pm

that mom looked a awful lot like the mom from Family Dog. hair, hips, face…

lol @ MJ. in broad terms he does bring up a good point. The characters are “interesting” but no one is very specific to their characters… of course, that could be because we only see non important characters in this teaser.

plot could be interesting, but vague trailers don’t exactly equal “this will be different” considering the long march of same-ol-poop that animation is serving up these days. Monsters Vs. Aliens LOOKED interesting and they managed to turn that into a lame romantic comedy with all the monsters in supporting roles and the cool stuff brushed off to the side.

 
John S says:
07/15/09  2:07pm

Great designs, some fun animation and a twist that I did not see coming. I’m intrigued, but more than annoyed by the out-sourceing.

 
Rodrigo says:
07/15/09  3:08pm

Nah, did nothing for me. Design wise it looks like nothing new (very akin to Bolt), and jokes felt weird. Slow-mo gag for when the kid before he smashes into his dad? Maybe I need broader context.

The “Cloudy” teaser got me more worked up by far.

 
Dagan says:
07/15/09  3:10pm

ps-

Yes, I was extremely dissappointed that this wasn’t animated in the states. :(

(Sorry France, I still love ya) ;)

 
christy says:
07/15/09  3:18pm

wow! not to keep repeating stuff but -SOOOOO refreshing to see a trailer that makes me want to see/know more about a movie-unlike that GOD AWFUL gatchaman trailer with tired-ass phrases like ‘five shall rise’ blah blah-i read some dumb ass review of this trailer that said ‘its a shame the trailer tells us nothing about the story’. uh, i for one kind of like going into a movie not knowing the whole story! also, man-i usually dont like these 3-d movies-but this was really cute-reminded me of charming stop motion puppets from a holiday special or NBC or something more than the typical cgi fare…anyone know the story behind this? i looked the director up and found this:

After graduating from Syracuse University with an illustration degree, Chris Renaud began work as a graphic designer in the sports entertainment industry. He has created logo designs and mascot characters for NFL Properties, the NBA, and Foot Locker, among others. After working as a designer and illustrator for a variety of publications and agencies, Chris began drawing and writing comic books. Working for both Marvel Comics and DC Comics, his notable projects include co-creation of Marvel’s Starfleet Academy and the original storyline conception for Batman: Cataclysm, which resulted in increased sales and visibility for the renowned character.

As the production designer on the Disney Channels’ The Book of Pooh, Chris transitioned into the world of children’s television. Since that groundbreaking project, he has been able to design virtual sets and puppet characters for Bear in the Big Blue House, Lazy Town, Curious Pictures, Sony Animation, and many more. With the new show It’s a Big Big World, currently airing on PBS, Chris took the lead role in the visual development and design of every aspect of this Emmy-nominated children’s program.

Currently, Chris works for Blue Sky Studios as a story artist on such films as Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown, and the Dr. Seuss classic Horton Hears a Who, now in production. He also wrote and co-directed the animated short No Time For Nuts, which received an Annie Award and a 2007 Oscar nomination within the animated short films category.

 
Kyle Maloney says:
07/15/09  4:51pm

I don’t know why, but I get a Tiny Toons vibe with this trailer. I like.

 
Red Diabla says:
07/15/09  5:02pm

I think the character designs are fun. And how great is it to see a trailer that doesn’t give away every aspect of the film’s plot(*coughDisneycough*)?!

Gawd knows how much less the film would’ve cost if they didn’t have those “big names” doing voices.

I hope that a film company will soon be able to do a film without wasting half its budget on “names” for the voices that won’t stand out in a positive way to viewers. Then animation might become a little more affordable to do. Wouldn’t THAT be something?!

 
AaronSch says:
07/15/09  5:28pm

This film looks way too derivative of Pixar but with no finesse. I’ve now seen one too many negative stereotypes of the so-called “Ugly Americans.”

 
Jip says:
07/15/09  6:34pm

“Wow, I haven’t seen a CG movie trailer this appealing outside of Pixar’s works. Very interesting.”

I can actually say.. I’ve never seen a CG movie trailer this appealing out AND inside of Pixar’s work!
Yeah.. shoot me.. I haven’t liked any of Pixar’s trailers:) And I don’t really like their films all that much either :p

This however looks kind of refreshing! The jokes actually made me smile for once.. And the thing with the pyramid makes me want to see more.. !!
I also like how it doesn’t try look too real.. Which is a problem with most CG films…

 
Brown says:
07/15/09  10:51pm

This trailer is very funny and the animation looked solid. Agree with the above comments about the comedy timing – really great. I think the cast is a good thing — basically every funny actor I like is in it!! Jermaine from “Flight of the Conchords” is the man.

 
Horace says:
07/15/09  10:54pm

Billy Batz says:
“pixar wanna be’s”

Not a bad thing to “wanna be”, if you ask me.

 
Horace says:
07/15/09  10:55pm

Jemaine. Not, JeRmaine.

 
Aaron says:
07/15/09  11:08pm

Does anyone besides me think the design is based in Ronald Searle? I mention that as a compliment. Maybe they outsourced the animation to avoid Hollywood cliche acting.

 
Daniel M. says:
07/16/09  12:18am

What’s with this “pixar wannabe” crap? Why can’t a movie actually look like it enjoys itself? Pixar isn’t the only one who can make fun and well designed movies when given the chance.

What gets me the most is the inclusion of guns. Could this be a PG-13, big budget animated movie? More importantly, a PG-13, big budget animated movie that actually LOOKS entertaining? I know I’m getting my hopes up, but damn, this will be one sweet trend.

 
Danny Shea says:
07/16/09  6:36am

Mark my words, this film will not be PG-13. Not gonna happen.

 
Corey says:
07/16/09  7:43am

Looks fun!

 
Kelly Tindall says:
07/16/09  8:09am

Holy moley, a teaser trailer that… actually… teases.

I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those that didn’t start with a bouncing lamp logo…

 
Chris J. says:
07/16/09  8:27am

Loved the designs and especially loved the 15 fps look the animation had. Good timing on the animation as well. I hope its as fun as this trailer makes it look.

 
Ariel says:
07/16/09  9:22am

Looks like alot of fun! Hope it does well..

 
Martin says:
07/16/09  12:54pm

Interesting… I wonder if it will be a success or not? Time will tell!

 
Chris Sobieniak says:
07/16/09  9:10pm

It’s interesting that after we came this far in our CGI technology, we still have to rely on the age-old outsourcing to get by as usual. I can understand back when people were arguing that question for decades with hand-drawn productions, but it’s sad if wages are that out of the question to get anyone domestically-speaking to work on a film like this.

Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing how this might turn out if it has a story I might be interested in.

 
Kyle Maloney says:
07/17/09  12:25am

Why are people comparing this to Pixar’s stuff? they have done a grand total of 2 films staring humans.

and yeah, as mentioned, being a Pixar wanna be isnt a bad thing, as long as they copy what makes them great, not the superficial things that you see at first glance, like say creating a world you can make puns about with the characters and having a randy newman style sound track.

 
Matt Morris says:
07/17/09  2:40am

What got me most interested in this is that Pierre Coffin is co-director. Always wanted to see a feature from him as I loved his short films so much. Looks good so far!

 
Roberto says:
07/17/09  4:31pm

I’m not the biggest fan of the designs. They really look a little like Family Dog (that’s good) but this style seems to work better in 2D, in fact some of the characters are a little ugly in 3D.

The teaser itself is more odd than funny, but I like the concept. It’s not that any gag in the teaser is hilarious but the whole concept behind it’s imaginative and funny-as-a-concept. It kind of reminds me of the Lilo and Stitch teasers that didn’t tell much about the story, and that turned out to be a very good movie. Let’s hope for the best for this one.

I would also like to see the villain as the main character, this would be more interesting than seeing the good guys trying to catch him.

 
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