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When the pandemic forced veteran Pixar and ‘Spider-Verse’ story artist Matt Jones to move his teaching online, he responded by writing an original anime-inspired horror feature and having his students storyboard the entire film. The finished YOKAi animatic, complete with voices, music, and sound effects, offers a fascinating model for how animation education can give students both practical studio experience and portfolio-ready work.
San Diego Comic-Con kicked off this week and brought with it major franchise news. Paramount+ released the first teaser for Avatar: Seven Havens, which introduces a new Avatar in a post-cataclysmic world where humanity views her as its destroyer. Meanwhile, 39 completed episodes of the long-shelved Star Wars Detours remain locked away, but a curated selection will finally screen at Los Angeles’ Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. More stories sure to come over the weekend and we’ll keep you posted.
Ketchup Entertainment released the final Coyote vs. Acme trailer, which goes a long way toward explaining why the once-shelved film generated so much industry enthusiasm; a federal judge temporarily halted Paramount Skydance’s proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery; and Skydance Animation’s Swapped became Netflix’s tenth-most-watched original movie ever, giving animation two simultaneous entries in the platform’s all-time top ten.
Finally, our latest Cartoon Brew Pick is Uri Lotan’s Oscar-shortlisted Black Slide, a beautifully animated and deeply personal short that turns a terrifying waterslide into a metaphor for childhood grief.
Check out these stories and more at cartoonbrew.com.
