Last week, Jim Hill’s daily blog presented his review of the recent Licensing International Expo, held at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas. This is the annual show where t-shirt, candy, toy and a zillion other manufacturers look for “the next big thing” to put on their products before they get sold to the rest of us. And of course Hollywood studios are there in force, promoting their new upcoming movies and TV series to all the makers of tie-in merchandise. Among the interesting new items being presented: Dreamworks Animation was there advertising their new 3D Shrek spin-off movie that tells the origin of Puss in Boots; as well as Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom, the new sequel which features (along with the original voice cast) newcomer Gary Oldman as “a peacock who is far more than he seems”. 20th Century Fox was there advertising the 4th film in the Ice Age series, Continental Drift; as well as the upcoming “three-quel” for Alvin and the Chipmunks called Chip-Wrecked. Before that new Ice Age film though comes Rio, Blue Sky’s next 3D project coming out next April. (If you haven’t heard of it, the film is about a nerdy macaw who can’t fly — but who gets a chance to escape when he visits his species’ native Brazil. It stars the voices of Anne Hathaway, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Jamie Foxx, and Will-I-Am. Check out the trailer on YouTube.) Illumination Entertainment (the same house that animated this year’s film Despicable Me for Universal) is hard at work on an adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ environmental fable The Lorax, scheduled for release in March of 2012 (also from Universal). And of course (as we’ve reported before) this December Fox will be releasing Walden Media’s long-awaited third entry in the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And then, there’s the live-action Smurfs movie coming from Sony in 2011… but let’s not go there, shall we?
Movie News
Re-Booting Winnie the Pooh
Evidently picking up on the fact that their attempts to take the world of Winnie the Pooh and make it ‘hip and happening’ (hel-loooo My Friends Tigger and Pooh) didn’t quite achieve the heights they had hoped, the Walt Disney Company is going back to the drawing board — literally — with A.A. Milne’s famous franchise. To that end, Disney has announced that a brand-new 2D feature-length animated film, titled simply Winnie the Pooh, is scheduled for release in July of 2011. And Disney is bringing out the big guns for this project: Among the animators working on the film are Mark Henn (“Princess Tiana”) for Pooh, Andreas Deja (“Scar”) for Tigger, Glen Keane (“The Beast”) for Christopher Robin, and Tony Bancroft (“Pumbaa”) for Eeyore. Burny Mattinson, who was actually an animator on the original 1960’s Winnie the Pooh shorts, will serve as the film’s lead story artist. And here’s an amusing note: The songs for the new film were written by Robert Lopez, who wrote the lyrics for Avenue Q.
The Turtles are back again…
… with a bang and a boom?
It’s been announced that Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes (best known for a recent slew of horror-movie remakes like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th) will be creating a new live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Mr. Bay and his team of producers (Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, Galen Walker, and Scott Mednick) will begin seeking script-writers in June. No word yet on a planned-for release date, or even a possible director, but the project is to be released by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon.
New CGI Wolves
Can you tell who’s been under the weather for a few days? Well now…
Stumbled across a new CGI film to be hitting our shores this September. A 3D feature from India no less, created by Crest Animation Studios. Alpha and Omega is in English though, produced by Richard Rich (The Swan Princess), directed by Anthony Bell (The Boondocks) and Ben Gluck (Brother Bear 2), and released by Lionsgate. The story revolves around a pair of wolves living in the wild in Canada. Kate (voiced by Hayden Panettiere) is a responsible pack leader, while Humphrey (voiced by Justin Long) lives just for fun, frolic, and friends — alpha and omega, get it? Kate’s father has arranged for her to be mated to the alpha male of another pack in order to prevent an inter-pack war. That plan is put in jeopardy, though, when both Kate and Humphrey are captured by humans and transferred to Idaho as part of a wolf re-introduction program. Can they make it back to their pack in time to prevent war? The trailer for this new film is up on YouTube.
Upcoming Dreamworks Sequels and Spin-offs
DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg spoke with The Hollywood Reporter recently about current and future film projects. According to him, How to Train Your Dragon has reached that magical turning point where it will definitely have a sequel — currently scheduled for release in the summer of 2013. There is also a TV series, a virtual game environment, and a live stadium show similar to Walking with Dinosaurs (!) in the works. In addition there’s Scared Shrekless, a Halloween special coming this fall, to be followed by a Kung Fu Panda TV special sometime after Thanksgiving — but don’t, says Mr. Katzenberg, call it a Christmas special.
Elephantmen coming to the Big Screen
Richard Starkings has announced that his Elephantmen comic book series (home of Hip Flask) has been optioned by Zucker Productions for development as a feature-length film. No word yet on whether the project would be live action, CGI, or some combination of the two. Also, we’re not being told yet if Jerry Zucker (Ghost) will be directing or simply producing. We do know that Starkings will be creating the story treatment for the feature himself. If you’re not familiar with the world of Elephantmen, here’s a quick summary from the press release for the film project: “Elephantmen is an Eisner Award winning series first published in 2002 under Starkings’ Active Images imprint. In 2006 Image Comics approached Starkings to bring the book under their umbrella. The story of the Elephantmen takes place in Los Angeles in the not too distant future — in a world where human/animal hybrids were created to fight a war between Africa and China. Scarred by their experiences in war and seeking to somehow find their own humanity, the Elephantmen are now scattered throughout the world amongst the humans they were created to kill. Elephantmen is a brilliant commentary on racism, miscegenation, global warming, stem cell research and warfare. Created and written by Starkings, the series features artwork by Ladrönn, Moritat, and Boo Cook.“
The Power of the Viewing Public…
We can’t put this any better, so we’re lifting this verbatim from Box Office Guru:
“The big story this weekend came in third place [behind Date Night and Clash of the Titans — ye ed-otter] where the 3D animated film How To Train Your Dragon witnessed a remarkably low 13% decline in its third round for an estimated $25.4M gross boosting the 17-day total to a terrific $133.9M. Short-sighted film industry watchers and impatient Wall Street investors prematurely dismissed Dragon and DreamWorks Animation after its less-than-stellar opening weekend two weeks ago. The company’s stock dropped 8% on the first trading day after the debut with analysts lowering their estimates for the final domestic take to just $152M. Dragon will now crush that mark next weekend and looks on course to break the $200M barrier too becoming the second biggest 3D toon of all-time behind just the $293M of Up. Beating Pixar’s Oscar winner may not be possible, but outgrossing other competitors like Monsters vs. Aliens, Ice Age 3, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs makes Dragon a powerful performer. The PG-rated film was indeed slow out of the gate, but amazing word-of-mouth coupled with school holidays for spring have made Dragon the must-see film for kids and parents. Competition for families and 3D screens remains extremely light for the next five weeks so the Viking pic’s strong run should continue. Reaching $250M cannot be ruled out at this point given the road ahead since Dragon will be able to earn at least five times its opening figure, if not more.”
In other words, keep spreading that amazing word-of-mouth, people!
Marmaduke Strikes!
Happy Easter (yes belated) and welcome to spring, everyone!
The march of CGI-enhanced talking animals continues. This time it’s Marmaduke, that famously over-sized Great Dane from the long-running newspaper strip by Brad Anderson, comes to the big screen this coming June. But this time, Marmaduke talks — with the voice of Owen Wilson, no less. Also in the voice cast are George Lopez (playing a cat this time — fickle!), Fergie (as a collie who catches Marmaduke’s eye), Kiefer Sutherland (as a purebred rottweiler who gives our mutt-ish hero grief), Ron Perlman, Emma Stone, Tom Wilson, and Damon Wayans Jr. Quite a cast. The film was directed by Tom Dey, and is being released by 20th Century Fox. You can check out the trailer on YouTube and elsewhere on the net.
Godzilla Returns in 2012
This will either excite you are make you groan: Legendary Pictures has finally sealed a deal with Toho Company to create a brand-new American Godzilla feature film, schedule for release in 2012. No word yet on a director, writer, human star, or monstrous co-stars for this new film. Some may recall the last time (shudder) that Godzilla emerged from American movie studios under the command of director Roland Emmerich (2012, Independence Day) and writer Dean Devlin (Independence Day, Stargate). At the time the fan response world wide was… less than enthusiastic (and less than pretty). This time around, the folks at Legendary are swearing that they are all Godzilla geeks and that they “get” the appeal of The Big G and his movies. We shall certainly see. You can check out the official Legendary Pictures press release at Rotten Tomatoes.
