Meet Huevocartoon, The First Mexican Animated Feature That’ll Get A U.S. Release

One of Mexico’s biggest homegrown cartoon franchises, Huevocartoon, will become the first Mexican animated feature to receive wide theatrical distribution in the United States.

Produced for $5.3 million, Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos (A Rooster With Many Eggs) will premiere stateside September 4, just in time for Labor Day weekend, in approximately four hundred theaters.

The film is directed by Gabriel and Rodolfo Riva Palacio, who also happen to be brothers, and it is produced by their Guadalajara-based studio Huevocartoon Producciones. The film will first premiere on August 21 in their native Mexico through Pantelion Films, a joint venture between Lionsgate Films and Grupo Televisa, prepping the launch pad for the American rollout, also being handled by Pantelion.

A Rooster With Many Eggs is Los Bros Riva Palacio’s third tongue-in-cheek feature film about Toto, Willy, and their various chicken and egg pals — as well as the mute bacon strip, Tocino — but the first to be computer animated. Their first full-length hand-drawn effort, Una Pelicula de Huevos (A Film about Eggs, 2006), grew out of their Flash-animated webseries Huevocartoon, which launched in 2001. A sophomore hand-drawn feature, Otra Pelicula de Huevos y un Pollo (Another Film about Eggs and a Chicken), followed in 2009.

Of their new CGI effort, an egg-static Gabriel told EFE, “It’s a dream come true” to be able to debut it in Hollywood. People won’t believe we made it on such a small budget, above all because of the quality.” Nevertheless, he’s not under the illusion that they’re going to be competing with the American majors anytime soon. “This is our first movie that begins to compete on the international market, but to go up against DreamWorks and Pixar we still need a lot more money, talent, time, training and studies.”

All of Los Bros Riva Palacio’s cartoons in their cracked egg franchise have proven popular in Mexico, where the characters are backed by a licensing and merchandising campaign. That built-in fan base could help make A Rooster With Many Eggs a modest cross-over success at the U.S. box office, and pave the way for other Mexican cartoons looking to premiere northward.