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Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” along with other early-to-mid-Nineties films like “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “Toy Story,” were all part of a breakthrough era in CGI filmmaking. What many people may not realize, however, is that the decision to create computer-animated dinosaurs wasn’t made until the film was well into production.
We heard rumors of layoffs at DreamWorks last week, but they weren’t confirmed by a reputable source until yesterday evening when the animator’s union, The Animation Guild, posted an item about it on their blog.
Margaret Loesch, a forty-year children’s TV veteran, has announced that she will step down as the founding president and CEO of the Hub Network when her contract expires at the end of this year.
The Annecy International Animated Film Festival, the world’s oldest and biggest animation festival, wrapped up its 38th edition on June 14th. Here is the complete list of winners.
In its second weekend, “How to Train your Dragon 2” eased 49% to an estimated $25.3 million. The drop was significantly greater than the 34% second-weekend decline of the original film in the series. Combined with the lower-than-expected opening weekend, the sequel is now all but guaranteed to finish below the original film’s $217.6 million domestic gross.
Pixar has announced their latest short film, “Lava,” directed by James Ford Murphy, a studio veteran who has animated on the company’s films since “A Bug’s Life.”
DreamWorks Animation has bought the rights to the 95-year-old feline cartoon icon Felix the Cat. The studio acquired the character by paying an undisclosed sum to Don Oriolo, whose father Joe helped revive Felix in the 1950s and later assumed ownership of the character.
Television execs seems to be stuck in a neverending nostalgia loop. In just the past week, reboots or spinoffs have been announced for “The Lion King,” “The Magic School Bus,” “The Powerpuff Girls”…and now, “Danger Mouse.” The iconic U.K. cartoon series, which was produced by British studio Cosgrove Hall from 1981 to 1992, is returning to the small screen next year with 52 eleven-minute episodes.
Genndy Tartakovsky’s “Popeye” reboot is officially a thing now. While the film doesn’t have a production greenlight yet, Sony’s licensing division has begun to promote the property with concept art at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas.
The Japan Image Council has opened its call for applications for the Animation Artist In Residence Tokyo 2015. If you’ve had a film that has screened in an international festival or exhibition, I strongly encourage you to apply. As a previous resident of the program, I frequently find myself thinking about my wonderful experience in the residency.
Cartoon Network is reviving “The Powerpuff Girls” as a regular series, the network announced on Monday.
In a sign of changing times, animated programming produced for both Netflix and YouTube has begun to earn a significant number of Emmy Award nominations, competing alongside traditional broadcast and cable series.
Twenty years ago, we had ‘urban’ Looney Tunes merchandise. Today, we have the characters being pasted on top of human bodies.
Last night Adult Swim premiered its first exclusively online animated series “King Star King.” A punk psychedelic space adventure about a He-Man-esque sci-fi figure who works in a waffle restaurant, the show was created by J.J. Villard, a former DreamWorks story artist (“Shrek the Third,” “Monsters Vs. Aliens”) who’s also known for his CalArts student films “Son of Satan” and “Chestnuts Icelolly.”
DreamWorks Animation’s “How to Train Your Dragon 2” opened in second place this weekend with an estimated $50 million. The film trailed the $60 million debut of another sequel, the R-rated “22 Jump Street,” directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who also directed “The LEGO Movie,” which opened to $69 million earlier this year.
Just in case you were worried that Netflix’s slate of upcoming animated programming was looking a little too Dreamworks heavy, the streaming site has announced plans to launch an updated version of the Scholastic Media educational series “The Magic School Bus.”
Based on Michael Bond’s 1958 children’s book “A Bear Called Paddington,” the live-action/CG hybrid “Paddington” tells the story of a Peruvian bear who finds himself living in London. The film will be released on November 28, 2014 in the Uk, followed by a Christmas Day release in the United States by the Weinstein Company/ Dimension Films.
Based on Michael Bond’s 1958 children’s book A Bear Called Paddington, the live-action/CG hybrid Paddington tells the story of a Peruvian bear who finds himself living in London. The film will be released on November 28, 2014 in the Uk, followed by a Christmas Day release in the United States by the Weinstein Company/ Dimension Films.
“It’s kind of like “The Lion King” meets “The Avengers,” says Nancy Kanter, general manager of Disney Junior, when describing their upcoming preschool series “The Lion Guard.”
DreamWorks Animation released a trailer today for “Home.” The Tim Johnson-directed film will be released on March 27, 2015.
Poor Garfield. In his heyday, he was amongst the most beloved characters on the funny pages, his plush likenesses fastened to car windows and his sarcastic barbs adorning office walls around the globe. Then, somewhere along the line, he underwent a pop-cultural re-evaluation. Jim Davis’ strip is now something of a pariah: just look at how “The Simpsons” paired it with “Love Is” as the kind of strip that Milhouse reads. What a comedown for a character once hip enough to be quoted in “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. But yet, the orange cat has been saved from cultural oblivion by a peculiar trend: the remixed “Garfield” strip.