Ups and Downs

As the year draws to a close in a few days, I thought I'd look back on the good and the bad of this year in animation…

Coming off of a pretty strong 2012, was this year a good year for animation? If you ask me, it was very up and down. Heavy emphasis on very…

Mainstream American feature animation had quite an underwhelming year for the most part, either in the critical or box office department… Sometimes both. What's very notable about this year's batch of films is that it showed that adherence to a formula doesn't always produce good results.

2013's most successful animated films also happened to be the best-received: Monsters University, Despicable Me 2 and Frozen. The Croods, which got decent reviews, was also a hit in North America but did even better worldwide. Sony's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was a modest success at best, and it didn't cost too much to begin with. Epic also broke even, but overall it underperformed. Disney Animation, Pixar and Illumination won this year. Sony and Blue Sky did okay, DreamWorks had a big win with The Croods, but also had a good-sized loss with Turbo.

Frozen was another hit for Walt Disney Animation Studios' current winning streak, and it also was preceded by Mickey Mouse's first proper short subject 1995's Runaway Brain, the excellent Get A Horse! While I didn't gush over Frozen, its mix of Broadway songs, great character work on the two leads, sad moments, comedy, modern attitude and little doses of action really worked with many. Then again, I think The Lion King has quite a few flaws but people love it, and they loved this too. Props to Disney for making a film that really resonated with audiences, like they've been doing for, in my opinion, the past six years.

Monsters University, for me, was a fine film and much more consistent than Cars 2 and Brave, had a fine screenplay that balanced everything well and had very little flaws. Sure it was a lot more conventional than Pixar's usual films, but what mattered to me was Mike's character arc, the new faces and the storytelling. Lots of people liked it just fine, while others didn't. It's definitely on the more divisive side. But maybe once this "Pixar is on the decline" dust settles, this film and the one before it may get a fair re-evaluation.

I have not seen Despicable Me 2, so I can't say. Apparently, its crazy Minion hijinks and comedy worked with audiences of all ages. The critical reception was good, and I did think the first one was more than just enjoyable. Apparently Illumination succeeds in this department for now, because let me tell you, The Lorax was as bland and forgettable as they come!

There were no other real winners this year.

It seems like the family-friendly wacky comedy formula is finally beginning to wear thin. Audiences only went to see sequels/prequels to films they liked or loved (Monsters University, Despicable Me 2, Cloudy 2) or things that seemed interesting at the least. The Croods most likely caught on because of how weird it looked in the visual department, plus the aggressive marketing did make it look like fun. Frozen's last-minute good marketing emphasized story, characters and music, which got audiences of all ages into the theater on opening weekend.

Turbo's ads didn't do much for audiences, as it looked like a derivative "for kids only" film. Most reviews seemed to sing that tune as well, thus it had trouble when it opened. The Smurfs 2 only proves that the first film was something of a fad, and the first film also had all of summer to itself to make the amount of money it made. Free Birds was held back by very poor marketing, and the film itself got bad reviews and was soon overshadowed by Frozen. Unlike Turbo, it made its money back. Escape from Planet Earth wasn't going to be big to begin with, so it performed as expected. Planes did okay, but since it was for kids first, most adults and fans stayed at home.

This may be a turning point for American feature animation. Directors such as Chris Sanders, Kirk Wise and Henry Selick spoke about the problems of the American animation industry and the redundancy of many of the films. Meanwhile, our ever-so-understanding press bent over backwards and instead asked stupid questions like "Are there too many animated features?", "Is there an animation curse?"

Of course, people who don't give a damn about animation to begin with (they're still calling it a "genre"!) would ask such things, instead of considering the quality of the various animated features. All of them are computer animated, usually cost over $70 million to make, are family-friendly and happen to be comedic in tone. However, the best films do well because they happen to have substance or something that really ticks with the audience. It's something that can't emulated so easily, why did wacky caveman comedy The Croods do so well yet wacky turkey flick Free Birds didn't? It's really simple.

The films that underperformed consisted of Epic (made its budget back, but still did unimpressive business), Turbo and The Smurfs 2. Escape from Planet Earth and Free Birds were the sort of middle-of-the-road animated films of the year, a bit like Gnomeo & Juliet or Alpha and Omega. Low budget, not expected to be blockbusters, films that didn't make any mark but turned a profit.

This year, we didn't have anything that was really unique or against the norm. Monsters University, good as it was, was one of Pixar's quieter and less ambitious films. (They're saving the ambition for Inside Out, Good Dinosaur and the "Day of the Dead" film.) Frozen might've focused on two sisters and their relationship, but it was dressed in Disney conventions that we're familiar with, unlike last year's Wreck-It Ralph. Despicable Me 2 was… Well… Despicable Me 2. Fun? Probably. (I still haven't seen it.) But anything else? Was it Rango? Was it LAIKA-esque? Nope.

If last year could give us a small variety of animated films that didn't suggest "sameness", this year was the opposite. Everything else was either familiar or a sequel/prequel/spin-off. A year that included the likes of The Smurfs 2 and Planes no less. You know what would've been great? A wide release of a foreign feature, but let's face it, that rarely happens in North America. No big release for something like The Congress, or Metegol, or something from Japan. We're getting The Wind Rises next year thanks to Touchstone, GKIDS will give Ernest & Celestine a pretty decent-sized release. 2013 originally had the feature-length Phineas and Ferb movie and Henry Selick's The Shadow King. I think the year would've been a bit better had those two never been moved/postponed.

2013 was also a downer year in many respects, from the VFX industry woes to the constant layoffs. DreamWorks gave up to 350 employees the pink slip after Rise of the Guardians underperformed (by their expectations), many visual effects houses went bankrupt, protests ensued (remember the "green screen"), the Academy Awards even showed great disrespect to the people who did the effects for Life of Pi when they were on stage. Walt Disney Animation Studios had to lay off ten veteran animators because CEO Bob Iger was having the company's divisions lay people off.

Other woes included Pixar's decision to remove director Bob Peterson from The Good Dinosaur, resulting in some layoffs at the studio. They also shut down Pixar Canada, showing nearly 100 people the door because they wanted to move all of their resources under one roof. A shame, because Pixar Canada could've been what Disney Animation's Orlando unit was to the Burbank studio. The announcement of Finding Dory made more people upset than happy, and Brave winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature over Wreck-It Ralph led to a massive backlash. While the support for Disney Animation's triumphant video game adventure was nice and all, Brave perhaps got a little too much bashing, methinks. Booting Peterson off of his film - this is the fourth time in a row this director removal thing has happened at the studio - was met with anger and skepticism. Pixar has been a whipping post since the announcements of sequels and the release of Cars 2. This just made matters worse. 2013 really wasn't their year…

On the home media front, there has been disappointment. Disney foolishly believes that people will abandon physical media very soon, thus they have put out lazy Blu-rays of their animated classics, which either lacked bonus features or came with questionable, sometimes bad transfers. Warner Bros. (or more appropriately, their legal department) angered animation fans left and right with their censorship of the second volume of the Tom and Jerry Golden Collection (after years of releasing sets with potentially offensive content to general consumers, albeit with warnings), justifying it and driving WHV to postpone it indefinitely.

With this rush to go digital, what does it all mean for non-feature length animation? What does it mean for more obscure stuff?

But despite the doom and gloom, optimism prevails. You know why? Because it always does!

Walt Disney Animation Studios, despite the recent lay offs, is ready to go full steam ahead with a slate of films that'll open people up to what a Disney animated film can be. Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph were successful enough to support this ambitious new slate (which goes from now to 2018), and now Frozen is a bona-fide blockbuster! The sky's the limit, and honestly, this is something to get really excited about. Of course, the debbie-downers sniped at Disney for simply not telling us what was coming out on the various release dates, or were angry that none of the films are apparently not going to be done in hand-drawn animation. I say it was a wise choice to not reveal the titles.

Pixar is no different, they have films (a good number of which are entitled) scheduled for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Debbie-downers will argue, "Their recent films are weak! They're not the same!" How do you know how the next batch of films will turn out? Why is a studio all of a sudden going to cease making good films just because of some inevitable trip ups? People seem to forget that great artists are still human beings. Also, the oh-so-bad Pixar happened to delight many with its first-ever television special this year: Toy Story of TERROR! It got acclaim, it did extremely well in ratings and it's a great way to keep Disney happy without having to make another film. (Well I sure hope that'll be case! I'll take tons of specials and a show or two over a fourth movie.)

Fox loaded their guns, claiming release dates for DreamWorks, Blue Sky and Fox Animation Studios productions. What's the latest date they have? December 20, 2018. Thinking ahead for sure, and also showing that animation is here to stay. Sony Animation even went ahead and announced that the September 2016 and September 2017 spots were theirs. Illumination also seems to have matured, canceling projects that weren't working and moving some around. What a shocker, since DreamWorks and Sony have these slates that are loaded with in-development projects. Illumination surprisingly removed a few from the line-up, knowing that they wouldn't go through any time soon!

The studios are ramping up their slates, but like I said before, they better start upping the quality and trying new things. Or at least differentiate their work for the time being, before any experimentation kicks in.

We have other studios making the leap into the mainstream world, Dallas-based Reel FX being one of them. Hopefully what they're doing kicks off a trend: A bunch of small-scale studios enter the field and help change mainstream animation as we know it by taking crazy, wild risks. Aardman and LAIKA try as they might, but we might need more studios to help… And a bigger push from someone else. Columbia/Sony Animation hasn't done well with Aardman, Focus Features can only do so much for LAIKA being a small distributor. No one looks into foreign animation, we never get films like Rio 2096 or The Fake in wide release form. It's also hard when you're not being backed by a corporate empire or marketing machine as big as Disney's. Just look at DreamWorks, they've been having trouble because their films cost a lot and they rely on the revenues from feature films to stay afloat.

But the higher ups at DreamWorks are also shrewd, as they are now finding other ways to keep themselves going. They lucked into Netflix, planning to release hours and hours of original programming that's intended to bolster franchises and also move merchandise. It could also make up for losses, Turbo F.A.S.T. is a fine example. That could very well put the film and franchise in the black, though to be fair, DreamWorks announced the show a good while before the film came out.

As for the whole smaller scale animation thing? Well, now is the time for distributors to seriously consider the options out there and not screw around. They can slowly build momentum, and get foreign animation into "modest success" territory at the box office. We can't just have the Academy Awards' token "Best Animated Feature" category giving foreign animation a scrap of recognition. Change needs to take place soon, because audiences this year have spoken with their wallets.

Plus, this year, Kickstarter began launching many interesting animated films, Glen Keane started up his own studio and a small company like Reel FX secured distribution deals with Relativity Media and 20th Century Fox. This is pointing to a promising future for animation, one that should inevitably happen. The big budget world can't always be the bearer of big hits; many blockbuster live action films did poorly or outright tanked at the box office this year while a good number of small films did quite well, great even. Even Steven Spielberg himself talked of the ramifications of everything being big budget.

It's time to go small. Leave the biggies to the ones who can afford to make them. (i.e. Pixar, Disney, DreamWorks…)

Look at Free Birds, the computer animation in it was competent and it was produced for $35 million. That's around half of what the relatively cheap Despicable Me 2 cost to make! France's A Monster in Paris, from 2011, looks good despite the budget it was made on, but no matter, audiences can enjoy that just the same if the story is good. Audiences do like hand-drawn animation, contrary to what the oh-so-wise executives would like to think. Any animation is good with audiences, as long as it is good or marketing makes it look good.

This year saw the announcements of several projects that have a lot of promise. Reel FX is gearing up for The Book of Life, which looks to be a game-changer like Rango. Beasts of Burden and W.I.S.H. Police are next, and going by what's been revealed, they both have potential. Paul McCartney will enter the world feature animation with High in the Clouds, which should also be a game-changer. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are going for animated food with the raunchy Sausage Party, which could popularize feature-length adult-oriented animation or set adult-oriented animation ten years back. Sony is looking to adapt Ratchet & Clank into a movie, which could signal a new frontier for both animation and video game movie adaptations.

The big studios still have good stuff coming. Disney Animation's Big Hero 6 looks to expand on the out-of-the-box settings of Wreck-It Ralph, being a manga-tinged superhero story with many cool little elements. DreamWorks has some exciting stuff cooking, from the How To Train Your Dragon sequel to projects like Home, B.O.O., Mumbai Musical among several other neat-sound projects that are in development. We got news about films like Flawed Dogs and Larrikins moving forward (Noah Baumbach is directing the former!), showing that DreamWorks has a lot brewing under their roof. Blue Sky even has some interesting stuff coming, from Anubis to Ferdinand. Hopefully those will be well-made and well-written. Sony Animation shows some promise too, with projects like original story Kazorn & the Unicorn and Genndy Tartakovsky's Popeye. Illumination seems to have matured a bit, clearing their crowded slate of re-imaginings up a bit and actually being gung ho about original projects.

Away of the big screens came some good stuff. Television animation is doing alright (despite some annoyances, like Cartoon Network's bigwigs canceling a show because more female viewers were tuning in. Imagine that?), and we've got some cool new stuff airing. Kickstarter, again, has been working wonders for smaller animation that wouldn't normally get picked up. More and more experimental and off-the-wall stuff makes the waves online, and many sites highlight them, which is good. Also, Disney released the excellent Disney Animated app for iPad, which you should definitely get.

On a bittersweet note, Hayao Miyazaki returned with the controversial but critically acclaimed The Wind Rises, which will get a wide release in February thanks to Disney, but it's his swan song. Judging by the reviews, he ended his feature film directing career with a bang!

All in all, we got a lot of exciting announcements and leaked details… But also a lot of bad news, a lot of disheartening happenings and whatnot. It doesn't suggest end times for American mainstream animation, to me it suggests that change needs to take place, and soon…

Maybe this coming year, things will look up. 2012 was a fine year in animation, right? One not-so-great year can't hurt, plus 2014 offers excitement. The big studios, for the most part, seem to be giving us the good, interesting stuff this year. Hopefully many of the films turn out to be good, and not derivative or "been there done that". Maybe studios will start investing in smaller scale stuff. 2014 may be bring good things, given the lesson learned this year. Maybe… Maybe...

The Good Decision

Yesterday, I talked about how Pixar's decision to delay The Good Dinosaur was actually a good move. One that inspired confidence in me rather than fear. Now, I will expand on this...

In addition to the announcement of the delay, Ed Catmull once again spoke...

"Nobody ever remembers the fact that you slipped a film, but they will remember a bad film. Our conclusion was that we were going to give the film some more time."

There you have it. This tells me something... This tells me that the Brain Trust is well aware of the consequences brought on by the Cars 2 and Brave fiascoes. Of course, my theory about those films and what they went through is that the problems were rooted in the release schedule. In April 2008, Pixar confidently felt that Newt would be ready for summer 2011, The Bear and the Bow/Brave would be a fall 2011 release and Cars 2 would be the summer 2012 film. They announced these dates very early on, which may have put tremendous pressure on the filmmakers.

Moving Cars 2 from its original summer 2012 date to summer 2011 most likely put a lot of pressure on original director Brad Lewis, so much so that the film probably was a giant mess by the time John Lasseter took over as director in fall 2010. I think that project was a salvaged one, big time. Not that it says anything negative about Brad Lewis' abilities as a director, I just think that cutting the time given to him took a toll on him and his project. If anything, Cars 2 could have been much, much worse. You heard next to nothing about Newt between summer 2008 and February 2010, when it was reported to be "dead" by a commenter on the TAG blog only for its shelving to be officially confirmed by Pixar in May of that year. I don't think it had anything to do with Rio similarities, that film was in trouble for a while - Rio coming out just didn't help. Brave's director change made more people say that Pixar was on the decline, and Brenda Chapman's comments added to that. But is her dissatisfaction with Pixar's work ethic all just sour grapes? Insinuating that Pixar does the same old story over and over makes me question her, I didn't hear such talk from Jan Pinkava or Brad Lewis. Bob Peterson seems to be taking his ousting from his project pretty well, I'd say. Or were the Brain Trust truly unfair to Chapman? No clear cut answer here, as both sides are contradicted. (I'm not getting into that again.)

Then you got the sequels, but that's a moot point because Toy Story 3, Monsters University and Finding Dory had to be made - no two ways about it. Circle 7, anyone? Plus, Andrew Stanton himself confirmed that Disney did some nudging, but Stanton essentially said, "We tell them that we'll do it when we are ready." This is why you didn't see a Nemo sequel 3 years ago, and why you won't see one for another 3 years. Cars 2? Bob Iger probably coaxed John Lasseter into making another one, but again, that's my own little conspiracy theory. It's a coincidence that these director changes occurred when all these sequels were coming, because three of the four sequels had to be made, the fourth was obviously greenlit for the green paper, and Pixar wanted to take their time on the main three that they had to do. Toy Story 3 is considered a masterpiece, and Monsters University got better reception overall than Cars 2 and Brave... As if sequels/prequels are such a bad thing...

About Monsters University... The only big complaints I see about the film basically say "It was too safe." I heard no criticisms of the story or comic relief or whatever, just "It was safe/dull/bland/lacking/vanilla/etc." The consensus seems to be, "It's Pixar's best since Toy Story 3, but it's not all that great."

That didn't go through a director change either, as the story was pretty consistent and smooth. Cars 2 and Brave's stories aren't bad, they just have some problems, Cars 2 especially. Monsters University was always a summer 2013 release too, it wasn't announced back in 2008 or 2009. By the time it was announced during the spring of 2010, it was probably already in good shape. The November 2012 date was probably just picked by Disney to hype it up, after all it was first announced as "Monsters, Inc. 2" back then. Looks like Dan Scanlon had time to craft a solid story, because he had a lot of time to do it and he had no officially announced release date on his back.

Not to mention, nothing is ever set in stone in the world of animation. A film could be well into production when the people behind it realize that there are problems. Sometimes a last-minute fix or two can work, just look at Toy Story 2! Many Disney films apply as well, and probably countless other animated films from other studios. Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois didn't have much time to retool a very problematic How To Train Your Dragon over at DreamWorks, but they gave the project their all and saved it from becoming a possible disaster. Sony Animation's Hotel Transylvania went through six different directors and took six years to finally complete. Heck, the world of live action films is no stranger to this!

But the two-in-a-row director musical chairs debacles at Pixar inspired a lot of skepticism in fans and many other people, and when it seemed like The Good Dinosaur would restore the studio's "former glory" (in their eyes), Pixar surprised us yet again. This time, it was a veteran who was being removed from his project... Not a relative newcomer or someone who hasn't been there for a long, long while. Even I got very worried, but now there's hope...

I personally believe that John Lasseter and the Brain Trust are more than concerned about what just happened between the fall of 2010 and the summer of 2012...

The Cars universe is very near and dear to John Lasseter, it's such a personal endeavor for him... And he thought he saved the sequel from turning out to be a complete disaster, only to see the finished film get fired at with scorn and absolute disapproval - to the point where people gave up being fans of Pixar. Lasseter defended his film, using "audiences loved it" as an excuse... If anything, that suggests that the criticism really hurt Lasseter's feelings and he wouldn't be willing to address the film's problems. Listen to commentary on the Cars 2 Blu-ray; he clearly loves this universe and is very passionate about it.

He's also been rather quiet about Brave and even Monsters University. You don't sense much enthusiasm from the Brain Trust towards those films, the way they were enthusiastic about films like Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 didn't seem to be there. I think they've realized that removing the directors and not delaying the films in order to salvage them was a series of bad moves. The critical reception of the last three films, the general "Pixar is declining" mood coming from the ever-so-nice press and the overall backlash didn't pass by them. I think they are aware that they inspired so much worry, skepticism and even anger.

This all explains to me why The Good Dinosaur was ultimately delayed by a year and a half... Pixar truly wants a quality production here, and they'll do whatever it takes to ensure that the film is great. Ed Catmull more than sums it up in his statements. The Brain Trust and Lasseter aren't the heartless creativity-killing bastards that everyone is making them out to be, or so it seems for now. Should The Good Dinosaur turn out to be a bad film, then I say we should question what the Brain Trust is doing - not necessarily yell "They were evil!"

Pixar delayed it knowing that they wouldn't have something ready for audiences next summer, they were willing to break the one-film-a-calendar-year tradition to save this film from being below par. Catmull points out that people will remember a "bad" film (although many will say "But Cars 2 was bad! Catmull is just sugarcoating things!")...

If anything, this situation is a combination of the Ratatouille pre-production woes and the release schedule causing problems...

There was a time when you had to wait for Pixar films, you did not have the privilege of getting a new film from the Emeryville studio every year. I became a big fan of Pixar at the age of 10 back in fall 2002, after numerous repeat viewings of my Monsters, Inc. DVD and immersing myself in the set's two discs worth of bonus features. When Finding Nemo came out (I was in fifth grade at the time) and I saw the release date for The Incredibles at the end of the teaser, I was basically thinking, "Wow... That's a long wait. I'll be in seventh grade by then!" When Cars was delayed from November 2005 to June 2006 - a month after the trailer debuted no less! - I was pretty upset about that. I remember thinking, "Awwww, that's way too long!"

Flash-forward to today. Pixar releases one film every summer, and plans on releasing two in a calendar year every once in a while in addition to one every year. That's a big feat. DreamWorks releases 2-3 films every year, but to be honest, I don't think all of their films are of high quality. For every How To Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda 2 leaving me satisfied, there's a Megamind or Croods that fails to impress me.

Andrew Stanton spoke up about this new scheduling problem a few moths ago...

"We can’t have the amount of labor it takes to do these movies at the same time because it becomes unsustainable economically, but it means if one director has a problem, everybody’s connected to the same bed sheet. You pull one end and it makes wrinkles in the other one. It’s a new problem."

He hit the nail on the head. A Brain Trust member no less! In addition to that, he mentioned that hefty $200 million budgets and the ramping up of the schedule puts "strains" on the studio's resources.

I mentioned this earlier in the month, the whole "one-a-year" thing can create problems and Stanton more than sums up what I thought: It was the problematic schedule all along, not the Hawaiian Shirt Man being some egotistical devil or the Brain Trust being control freaks. Again, look at Walt Disney Animation Studios' last five films...

Cars 2 and Brave could've been beyond messy due to the release dates approaching so soon, and the director changes were a result of the Brain Trust acting fast. Consider it like panic mode for them: "The film is in trouble and the release date is almost here! It's got to be fixed!" Again, Cars 2 had the unfortunate date switch happen when the film was still in development. Brave had to be finished in less than two years. The new director of The Good Dinosaur has more than two years to fix the film, and with no film coming out next year, there will be more concentration from everyone else involved. I'm more than glad that Pixar delayed this film.

Now you may ask, "Now that they have time, why is Peterson not back on board?"

Again, Jan Pinkava... Pinkava just wasn't fit for directing his personal project, Ratatouille. It was chock full of issues and it just wasn't working. Brad Bird had to save it, but in the process, he made a modern masterpiece and one that's called the pinnacle of Pixar's storytelling prowess. Perhaps Bob Peterson just couldn't make this film work, much like how Pinkava couldn't make Ratatouille work. Brad Lewis and Brenda Chapman, from the way I see it now, couldn't work wonders within such a tight schedule. If Cars 2's release date was undetermined for a long while, it probably would've been a pretty strong film, ditto Brave. Pixar can't assign dates to films anymore, but rather let them and their creators breathe... And when one is truly ready, then ink a release date for it.

I understand that competition is wild, and first pick is a big deal, but... Disney and Pixar proved earlier this year that you can pick a bunch of release dates for films, but not tell anyone what exact films are hitting theaters on those dates. If I didn't read up on Blue Sky Disney prior to this year's D23 Expo, I'd have no idea that Zootopia was going to be the March 2016 release. I'd have no idea that the November 2016 and March 2018 films would be Giants and Moana. If I knew about the latter two films, I wouldn't know exactly when they'd be coming out. Remember, Bleeding Cool's Brendon Connelly implied in an article that Giants could very well arrive at movie theaters long after 2016... But we all know it's definitely the fall 2016 release for now thanks to Blue Sky Disney and the information that Honor Hunter gets.

So in the future, Pixar should just pick dates and not say what's coming out on those dates. Teddy Newton's film for example - don't say it's slated for fall 2017 two or more years before it's expected to hit theaters! Same goes for Mark Andrews' untitled project and Dia De Los Muertos! Disney Animation isn't outright saying that Giants is coming in November 2016, heck they're not even saying that Zootopia is the March 2016 release! By not setting the dates in stone, you're not pressuring your creative teams with ticking clocks. It all brings me to a specific line from Toy Story 2... I bet you can guess what it is...

That's right... "You can't rush art!"

In the end, I think Pixar just learned a lesson. It's life, people make mistakes and learn from them - Pixar is no different. The people there are not gods of perfection or anything of the sort, and they know that. Let what happened from the fall of 2010 to the summer of 2012 be the mistakes, and these few weeks being the "learning" phase. The resulting films released from 2011 to 2013 forms the sort of punishment (okay, that may sound harsh - but you get the idea, Pixar doesn't need to be "punished") for what they did, and now they're attempting to do better next time around. And if you ask me, that's welcome.

At the same time, I can accept the fact that not every Pixar film is going to be perfect. I'm totally fine with a string of greats and a string of not-so-great films. I'm no longer in shock, because we got two films that had problems and a film that was not spectacular plus... They're only human and they can't make every film great or perfect. It's reality, Walt Disney's animation unit went through the same kind of phases where the films weren't up to snuff and no one seems to bat an eye.

Just think about it too... Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur are both coming out in the same calendar year... What if both are bonafide critical hits? What if both are considered excellent by critics and audiences? I can just hear it now... "Pixar, what a comeback!" "They picked themselves up out of that slump!" "Looks like John Lasseter isn't so bad after all!" The tides will turn fast, really fast. People will be praising them out the wazoo and covering up their snide comments they made during the last few years. I bet it'll happen, and I'd gladly eat crow if it doesn't.

Almost as if Pixar is well aware of the backlash and the reaction to their last three films, and they're up to something... They're making sure that they make a big splash in 2015...

Lessons

Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo - as reported by The Wrap the other day - recently stated that The Lone Ranger taught the company a valuable lesson... One that should've been taught to them many moons ago... (The same goes for every other big studio.)

What lesson is that you might ask? Don't spend so much money on a non-franchise tentpole film!!!

I've rambled about this before, but I'm glad it's finally dawning on these people that something like The Lone Ranger didn't need to cost $215 million to make, let alone $250 million - as originally planned. Perhaps other big studios ought to realize this as well. How in the world did Universal's derided R.I.P.D. cost $130 million while something like Super 8 cost $50 million and looked just as good, if not better? Gravity is another fine example of what you can do with a reasonable budget and look just as fine as some $200 million blockbuster.

I just wish that Disney thought about this over three years ago; maybe something like John Carter wouldn't have cost anywhere close to $200 million. Perhaps they would've scored a more profitable success with Jerry Bruckheimer's failed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and actually start a franchise of sorts since the first film almost met their expectations. One could say that The Lone Ranger is the belated culmination of the Rich Ross era, after all, the overspending happened during his tenure as Chairman of the Walt Disney Studios.

Maybe since that film has finally been released, Walt Disney Studios' live action pictures will start carrying smaller price tags. Is Chairman Alan Horn planning on keeping budgets down? Are the 2014 blockbuster/tentpoles like Tomorrowland and Into The Woods going to cost $150 million or less while the Marvel/Lucasfilm projects are the ones that'll carry the $200+ million budgets?

Speaking of which, Rasulo went on to justify $200+ million for things like Marvel films and Star Wars installments, since those are expected to gross lots both domestic and worldwide - and to be fair that's inevitable. But even those don't need to cost so much...

Oh well, better late than never I suppose...

Update (9/17/13): Apparently Mr. Horn is going to put the leash on Bruckheimer and keep him from overspending on films. Good idea, and maybe he'll be able to keep producing films for the company. Well, let's hope they up the quality in the process. (Pipe dream.)

Staying Afloat

The boy on the moon has been having some trouble lately...

2013 hasn't been a stellar year for animation in general - regardless of the breakout performance of Illumination's Despicable Me 2 and some other notable happenings - it's actually a rather dour one, from layoffs to the VFX industry problems to DreamWorks' reaction to a certain film's box office performance...

In February, DreamWorks announced that up to 350 people were going to be let go and that a film on their upcoming slate was sent to the back burner. DreamWorks had plans to release three animated films this year, much like 2010 when they did so for the first time to enough success. In 2010, How To Train Your Dragon was a sleeper hit and then some. Shrek Forever After did good here, but became the biggest installment in the series in foreign markets partially thanks to 3D. Megamind on the other hand was viewed as something of an underperformer, but nothing too disappointing.

2011 and 2012 saw DreamWorks sticking to the usual two-a-year routine, this year was going to see three films from the studio: The Croods, Turbo and Mr. Peabody & Sherman (which was slated to open on November 1st). What happened?

Rise of the Guardians, the second 2012 release, was a box office dud.

Regardless of what happened, whether it was poor marketing or poor timing, Rise of the Guardians turned out to be a bump in the road for the studio. If one film could lead to such layoffs and the cancellation of a project (Me and My Shadow) that was less than 2 years away and already in production, then I think DreamWorks should rethink their business model a bit...

Rise of the Guardians would also be the last DreamWorks Animation film released under the Paramount distribution deal, and Paramount tripped up the marketing on a lot of their films: Guardians' marketing campaign was their biggest disaster, selling the whimsical, often dark fairy tale-esque story as an action-packed Avengers wannabe for little kids. The already-bland title didn't help, either. Why wasn't the film called The Guardians of Childhood? What goes on in these title-changing people's heads? (I'm looking at you too, Disney and Warner Bros.)

So you'd think that under 20th Century Fox, things would look up, right? The Croods was one hell of a rebound, making a lot here (the press immediately wrote it off as a disappointment when it opened with $43 million, short of the $50 million expectations) and a whole lot more worldwide, and it was backed by an overall effective marketing campaign. Not a great one that ensured a Kung Fu Panda-sized opening (when will DreamWorks ever score a non-sequel $55 million+ opening?), but one that certainly paid off. Having all of late March, April and even May to itself was a real advantage.

Unfortunately, the hope train slowed down to a snail's pace. Literally.

Turbo, I will admit, was at least backed by an aggressive marketing campaign that did get the word out. The problem is, the film just didn't appeal to adults or anyone else. The concept seemed too ridiculous for anyone over the age of 10 to take seriously, and worst of all, Despicable Me 2's momentum couldn't be stopped. It was unwise to open the movie at the time, DreamWorks should've opted for a late August release or perhaps an autumn release. Opening with a weak total, Turbo won't reach $90 million at the domestic box office and it may fail to double that sizable $135 million budget worldwide (it's not out in every other country yet). More layoffs ensued.

Next year gives us Mr. Peabody & Sherman, How To Train Your Dragon 2 and Home. We know which one will be the hit. Peabody is guaranteed to do okay given the source material and how much more marketable it sounds (it doesn't sound generic like Turbo), Home is a gamble with a terrible title.

2015? The Penguins of Madagascar, B.O.O. and Kung Fu Panda 3. The sequels/franchise films will do well, B.O.O. can do okay but it's being sandwiched between Paramount Animation's Monster Trucks and Pixar's Inside Out. It has to be more than just average in order to do well amidst that summer's animation tsunami. If Turbo was some great film, it would've done well despite being crammed between Despicable Me 2, The Smurfs 2 and Planes. If anything, DreamWorks should release this in August.

2016 has Mumbai Musical, which is going to go head to head with whatever Disney Animation has ready for the March 2016 slot (it's probably going to be Zootopia given how far along it's gotten), How To Train Your Dragon 3 will make bank, obviously. Trolls? Easy sell, so it should do well enough. Maybe. Are people willing to show up for a musical based on the Good Luck Troll dolls?

But it seems like DreamWorks wants to do this 3 films a year thing every year starting with 2014, now that Mr. Peabody & Sherman was moved from this autumn to the spring.

So what keeps DreamWorks above water?

It's the films, because the films are what they've really got.

Regardless of what one might think of the quality of the DreamWorks films, it must be acknowledged that DreamWorks is pretty gutsy for an independent studio that's not backed by a big safety net. If you look at the other studios, like Sony Animation and Blue Sky and Illumination, they're backed by known distributors but they don't spend much more than $100 million on their films because they know what the ramifications will be if one of them were to underperform. I commend them for that, actually. Look at Blue Sky. Epic didn't do so hot, but thank goodness they didn't spend more than $93 million on it.

On the other hand, DreamWorks spends more than $130 million on each film of theirs. Not a very smart move each time out, considering that they aren't owned by Disney or a mega-empire like that. Disney can handle a flop, which is probably why they let their animation studio and Pixar spend over $150 million (Pixar goes big with roughly $200 million) on their films, because there's still that aforementioned safety net that'll catch the two studios if they were to fall, not to mention lots of merchandise. Disney's marketing department also tries to make sure that these films do well, and their marketing machine is probably much bigger than that of the other studios'. (Though I question what they are doing.)

DreamWorks justifies their budgets, as their films do look great for the most part. They have top talent there, too. But... Is this overspending good for the company? Not quite...

It's surprising that they've had two money-losers recently, after a string of highly successful films. Everything released from Shrek The Third (mid-2007) to Madagascar 3 (last summer) has done well or made a profit. Sequels are essential because they need them, but luckily in this day and age, DreamWorks is beginning to put actual effort into their sequels. Jeffrey Katzenberg also jumped all over 3D, and went about it the right way (one thing I can actually praise about him) until 3D itself saw a collapse. Sad thing is, DreamWorks put their all into the 3D for their films. It was also a smart move due to 3D's success in foreign markets... But the domestic market does matter too. A good $200 million overseas gross couldn't save Rise of the Guardians and it won't save Turbo either, as the films needed to take in more than what they made here.

Reality has sunk in for them, now that two films of theirs have lost money. Now what do they do? They have three solutions to their little problem...

DreamWorks purchased Classic Media for a paltry $155 million last year, acquiring many beloved properties that they can distribute on home media and make some profits. They're also going to mine the different franchises for new ones, as they are planning to make a film based on Lassie. Classic Media also owns the likes of the UPA filmography (please DreamWorks, release it all on a collector's Blu-ray set!), Jay Ward cartoons, Filmation cartoons and several other things. Good investment for them.

DreamWorks also plans on expanding on their theme park plans as well as launching a family-oriented television channel. I admire these decisions, because with that and the live shows, DreamWorks could build up some sort of a safety net. I'm not saying that Katzenberg is aiming to make DreamWorks a Disney-sized empire, but expansion is nice. Fox's upcoming Malaysian theme park could also help, though they seem more interested in their own properties (i.e. the Alien franchise, Night at the Museum, Life of Pi) and Blue Sky Studios. Should DreamWorks opt for a theme park here in the states? Europe, maybe? It could happen, and it could be pulled off. But what else could DreamWorks do to justify spending so much on their movies each time out?

DreamWorks Oriental isn't just making animated films, they're actually making live action China-friendly films. Remember that project I talked about? The Tibet Code? Much to my surprise (how that slipped past me, I don't know), that's actually a live action film! Anyways, given how big China's market is and how big DreamWorks' films are there (The Croods actually had to pulled from theaters to let other Chinese animated films get some spotlight at the box office!), revenue from these kinds of films can keep them afloat. Other markets could also boost these films too, given 3D and whatnot. While I may not admire Katzenberg for his animation sense, I do admire his shrewd ways of running a business.

Now... Aside from possible safety nets and things to fall back on, what can they do about their films?

Well, if they are gung-ho about releasing three in a calendar year for the next 3-4 years (or possibly for a very long time), well they better crack down on both the quality of the films and the quality of the marketing.

Did Turbo really need to be a 96-minute long, $135 million movie for theaters? If anything, that could've made for a more inventive and even bizarre short film (given that concept) or a television series. Oh wait, a TV series is coming. Maybe that might help the film in the long run...

Maybe if DreamWorks made that snail tale a decidedly lighter film (with a smaller budget), it could've been a profitable gap filler for them so that they could move on to bigger things with ease. Maybe they should scale back on some films, go small scale and actually do what the other big studios (even Disney and Pixar) aren't doing. It would allow them to experiment more. Maybe DreamWorks should give hand-drawn another go (they almost partially did so with Me and My Shadow, but they had to indefinitely postpone it), but something with a smaller budget than their usual endeavors. The hopeful optimist in me suggests that someone will make a successful hand-drawn film, spurring Disney executives to invest in the medium.

DreamWorks very much wants to be more than just a studio, with the theme parks, live events, TV shows based on their hit films and the plans to create a channel (great idea). I think Katzenberg and the brass know that relying on big budgeted animated films is a strategy that could cause more harm than good, so these new routes are probably going to be taken. If anything, DreamWorks should strategically pursue building their company, making them more than just an animation house. They're the only ones who are really in that position, so there are opportunities there.

As for the channel... How about original programming? Instead of relying on feature films to kick off new shows, why not create an all-new show? Disney opted for that in the mid-1980s (partially for the wrong reasons) and look what happened? Disney proved with shows like Adventures of the Gummi Bears and Darkwing Duck that you can come up with original characters for successful shows, while relying on others that were based on pre-existing Disney characters (i.e. TaleSpin's Jungle Book cast) or other properties. DreamWorks could possibly reboot Classic Media properties for new cartoons, either for their channel or another network. What about actually giving those properties' early incarnations re-runs on their channel or another one?

It's all right there for them.

I mean, what are they going to do if another film of theirs doesn't recoup its costs? What if Peabody and Home struggle next year? Today's box office climate requires your film to either do well on opening weekend or to make a very good amount of money domestically. It's time that DreamWorks prepares themselves, they need to thrive. Their slate is both ambitious and risky in many ways.

Phases

I asked this question last summer... Are we going through a new Disney Renaissance? Or not? At the time, I felt... Yes. We are, and that it started with The Princess and the Frog. That was then, what do I think now?

Come to think of it, I think the term "Disney Renaissance" is kind of flawed. Of course, the real Renaissance referred to the great art movement in Europe, an era of innovative art, new ideas and many other great things. It was all at a time when it was big, when it was popular. The Renaissance was called what it was because it spread like wildfire all across Europe. Likewise, there was a renaissance in  rock music in the 1960s: Experimentation, growth, success, new ideas that were unheard of in music. Now, the "Disney Renaissance" refers to the period when Disney animation became popular again. It was really a product of a greater happening in film history - The Second Golden Age of Animation, which began before The Little Mermaid was even put into production or green lit.

It is true that Disney animation grew in popularity at a rather rapid rate at this time. The Little Mermaid's $84 million take in 1989 was impressive for an animated feature and it was good for a film in general, but Beauty and the Beast sat alongside 1991's giants, Aladdin topped them all and The Lion King became 1994's biggest film at the worldwide box office and still one of the biggest of all time. You could say the 1989-1994 period was a Renaissance...

In technical terms, you could say it was a Renaissance as well. The Little Mermaid made use of computer generated imagery, but so did the three films before it. Mermaid's biggest innovation was perhaps the first ever use of CAPS, but The Rescuers Down Under was the real breakthrough here. It was the first film done completely in that format, and it allowed the animators and creative team to bring back effects like the multiplane camera. It did more with pure CGI, trying to mesh it with hand-drawn animation unlike what we saw in films like The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver & Company and The Little Mermaid where the animators traced over photocopies of the computer-generated images.

However, in The Rescuers Down Under, the traced over CGI (such as McLeach's monstrous bushwhacker truck) looks better than the pure CG imagery (New York City skyline, the Sydney Opera House), but this was an admirable first attempt to combine pure CGI images with hand-drawn art without making them look hand-drawn. Beauty and the Beast took these ideas further, with a dazzling Rococo ballroom that meshes almost perfectly with hand-drawn Belle and Beast. Aladdin's Cave of Wonders produced mixed results, but The Lion King has the incredible stampede sequence. The use of CGI and the integration of it continued to grow and go through its ups and downs, even after Tarzan... But most of the advancements were being explored during this period.

Quality? Well here's where I get iffy about the whole "Disney Renaissance" label (even though I use it from time to time)... The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King are all very good films, but do they really try anything new? As far as I'm concerned, The Little Mermaid is a hark back to the Golden Age films like Snow White and Cinderella, but at least its story isn't a complete retread of those films' ideas. Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King however, are a bit on the formulaic side. Walt's films weren't, they were all unique and different. Some were even radically different than others (Fantasia is certainly no Cinderella, and Cinderella is definitely no Bambi), the 1990s Disney films feel like they are basically following Mermaid's basic template:

#1. Broadway/pop chart-topper musical numbers that consist of the love ballad, the villain song, the showstopper tune and the "I Want" song...

#2. Good vs. evil story with a love story.

#3. Has to have a cutesy sidekick in it, just for the sole purpose of making the films appeal to toddlers and selling Happy Meal toys. See the behind the scenes woes of Pocahontas for a good example of this. (hint, "If I Never Knew You".)

Not a terrible thing, per se, but certainly a far cry from what Walt was doing. It'd be okay if Disney used this formula for a film every once in a while (minus the pandering), but using it for film after film wasn't the risk-taking Disney should be associated with. The model was to make one film a year, but Jeffrey Katzenberg went about this in a flawed manner: Faster and cheaper. Cheap shouldn't apply to big event Disney animated films, though the budgets got bigger starting with The Lion King.

I also feel that the 1990s films, like example #3 of the formula, try too hard to please children. Walt's films didn't do that, as they took the audience seriously. I think the three rules of the formula are what deflated the Renaissance/hot streak. Adults are a big audience for these films, contrary to popular belief (kids are not the "target audience" of a Disney animated film, and never were), and films like Pocahontas, I believe, scared them off. At the same time, I think people just got tired of same ol' same ol' by that time. Hercules certainly didn't feel any different from the films that preceded it. It became cool to knock Disney for their formula, and it's part of the reason why Shrek was such a big hit. (Ironically, that Disney formula is a thing because of Jeffrey Katzenberg.)

Anyways, the "Disney Renaissance" is simply that time when Disney was huge and popular. Of course, when that supposedly ended in 1999, other animation studios became popular: Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky... The Renaissance for Disney was said to end before the millennium even started...

So, a new "Renaissance"? Well, I don't necessarily think it's a new "Renaissance" per se... I consider the old Renaissance to be a "big era" of sorts. I would say Golden Age, but I usually use the term "Golden Age" to refer to all animation, not just Disney, but you can say 1989-1999 was the studio's own little Golden Age. But see, I think differently. From The Little Mermaid to The Lion King, it was a streak of good films. To me, Pocahontas ended that, but Hunchback was great! But then there was the enjoyable Hercules and the problematic Mulan, but the pretty good Tarzan followed that. The post-1999 films were certainly more experimental, regardless of how they all turned out. It was overall a good and successful era for them. I think Disney had their own Golden Age from 1928 to 1942, but that's another story.

I think this era is a new Golden Age for Walt Disney Animation Studios. When did it begin? In 2008, with Bolt, the first film completely produced under John Lasseter, the first from the fixed studio...

Of course, I have a great deal of respect for Meet The Robinsons. Lasseter did what he could with that film, as it was going to be an absolute disaster. Thankfully, half of it is great, focused and certainly not misguided. He literally steered the ship away from a whirlpool, and firing Chris Sanders from American Dog was an unfortunate happening... But from the way I see it, it had to happen. Bolt is essentially a building block to a better future for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Their reputation was rock bottom after Chicken Little, and Lasseter felt that Sanders' ambitious film couldn't go through at that rate.

It's a very rocky issue with the animation community, but I think Bolt is fine for what it is. Yes, I would love to see American Dog in any possible way, but I understand that the film was most likely riddled with issues and it would've perhaps been an unwise business decision to start production on it with the state that the story was in. Delaying it wouldn't have helped either. That being said, I take Bolt for what it is and I understand why we got this instead of Sanders' film. Lasseter was trying to rebuild Walt Disney Animation Studios reputation, and he had to sacrifice riskiness for the time being for the 2008 release, and then the two films that would follow. I'm sure that Lasseter probably would want something like American Dog to be made, but the timing just wasn't right.

That being said, Bolt may have been on the bland side in terms of the presentation, but it packed a very solid story with a great amount of heart, memorable characters and the good mix of laughs, emotional parts and pure fun. It was a laid-back road movie, and it may not have taken any great risks, but it on its own terms, it's a delightfully well-made film. However, I personally see sheds of what's to come in that film... The Bolt television show sequences are action-packed, reminiscent of the The Incredibles' great action sequences. They're pulled off well, and there's a brief bit towards the end with alien spaceships. Now those were designed well and I can see Disney doing an entire space film like that... In fact, they are!

The Princess and the Frog and Tangled are based on fairy tales, so I think Lasseter had a plan all along... I call this Phase 1 of the new Golden Age. Consider...

Lasseter turned the risky American Dog into the safe Bolt, and followed that up with two fairy tale adaptations that were not far removed from Disney's other fairy tales for a reason, methinks. He basically wanted to win audiences back, audiences who were left cold by Walt Disney Animation Studios' last couple of efforts, and the salvaged Meet The Robinsons most likely wasn't going to start bringing the crowds back in. (Though if you ask me, the bland paint-by-numbers marketing kind of held that film back from doing well at the box office.)

Phase 1 ended with Winnie the Pooh in my eyes, that project was gap filler. A new film based on the character had to be made for some rights reason, so Lasseter had Walt Disney Animation Studios make a good Pooh film rather than have DisneyToon make a bad cash-grab film. (Like we needed another film like Piglet's Big Movie or Pooh's Heffalump Movie?) Plus, 2011 was empty at the moment with King of the Elves set for fall 2012, and Reboot Ralph in spring 2013. Of course, we all know that didn't exactly happen.

But to me, Bolt, The Princess and the Frog and Tangled tread familiar ground and don't take any wild risks. Lasseter's game plan was to make a string of easily marketable films that would do well in the long run (i.e. Frog and Tangled being about princesses, merchandise), and Walt Disney Animation Studios did not slack off in that department. All three films were met with critical praise, Bolt and Frog did decently at the box office while Tangled was the big hit Disney Animation has been waiting for.

So now... We are in Phase 2. (Yes, Marvel is most likely in your right head now...)

Wreck-It Ralph, as I've said many times before, is more akin to something like Atlantis: The Lost Empire or Treasure Planet. It's not a fairy tale nor is it something you'd expect from a Disney animated film. It's about video games, it features settings that you wouldn't expect from a Disney film and in terms of the presentation, it's just different and a real breath of fresh air. That was one of the main reasons I was so stoked about it early on. But the writers and crew married these ideas to a very strong story that barely missed a beat, and one that packed the usual Disney heart and humor. On the other hand, Atlantis and Treasure Planet were risky and ambitious, but they were botched by suits who knew nothing about animation. Wreck-It Ralph gets to be what it wants to be, and as a result, it's such a fantastic film. It was a critical hit, audiences liked it, its loss at the Oscars even inspired a massive albeit misguided backlash. Disney Animation was finally allowed to make the great, risky film they wanted to make a decade ago.

Now, this autumn, Disney goes back to fairy tales once again with Frozen. Many skeptics argue that they are trying to recreate Tangled, which is something I myself was concerned about very early on. But having learned about the story itself, I don't think that'll be the case. Instead, I think it'll resemble Tangled in the way Cinderella resembles Snow White. Cinderella is not a rehash of Snow White, it's just a great story in the vein of Walt's first film. Plus, they are both fairy tales, of course there will be similarities. I think Disney will make fairy tales every once in a while to keep things going. Fairy tales are associated with Disney, so while experimenting, they can still give audiences the familiar fix with films like Frozen and Giants. It's like their top meal on the menu, they can't just stop doing that. At the same time, they look to entice audiences with new kinds of stories. Maybe one day, people will associate big action films - among many others from adventure films to thrillers to dramas - with Disney Animation, rather than just fairy tales and animal stories.

But the good thing is, they don't want to follow a formula. It's not like the 1990s anymore where the writers and artists had to obey the rules. The Princess and the Frog and Tangled are very different in tone, and their stories and structures are both different too. Frog has a big bad villain who toys with dark magic, Tangled has less powerful one that's manipulative. Frog is mostly classical in its dialogue and mood, Tangled is a little more modern and snarky. One involves a lot of magical elements, the other doesn't as much. Frog's musical numbers are big and Broadway-esque, Tangled's are quieter and small. I'm sure Frozen will be similar to both, but different at the same time. The basic plot is already different.

On the other hand, Disney will be trying something new with every other film. Big Hero 6 is something I probably would've never expected them to do ten years ago, adapting a Marvel comic (a lot of good came out of that acquisition, now did it?) that's very much like a manga. Imagine Disney doing a computer animated film that resembled Japanese anime... We're in for a real treat with this one, and Disney will have no problem marketing it since it'll automatically appeal to the demographic that the suits have been chasing for the last five years. It won't be an ordinary superhero film, as the film's team consists of a robot and a man who can transform into a Kaiju. It's set in a stylized city that's an already clever mix of Tokyo and San Francisco, and will probably have lots of sci-fi and action elements. This won't be a diet Incredibles, that's for sure. It's looking to be Disney Animation's first ever anime. That only hints that we'll see even more experimentation in the far future.

Zootopia will take us to a world where it's inhabited by human-like animals only, an extension of that trope that we've seen in countless animated films and cartoons - from Disney's own Robin Hood to DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda. The concepts and ideas revealed at D23 earlier this month already show the gargantuan amount of potential that this film has, plus the whole framing story leading to a giant conspiracy plot already sounds intriguing. This ain't no Beauty and the Beast! Moana will take us to a Polynesian setting, and its story will most likely enthrall and intrigue. I like it when Disney attempts to look into different cultures for fantasy stories. Films like Pocahontas and Brother Bear, even if the finished films didn't turn out too well. At least there's great ideas there, from Pocahontas' "one with nature" aspect (which I felt should've really been explored) to Brother Bear's great spirits elements (which I felt they went all out with). Disney should do more with this kind of thing, but apply it to an excellent story. Maybe Moana will do just that.

If King of the Elves ever gets back on track, which I'm sure it will in the future, I can see that being a very big, epic fantasy with a touch of quirkiness. Big Hero 6 and Zootopia already seem different and out of Disney's comfort zone, and again, Disney Animation manager Andrew Millstein said that risk-taking is now a go thanks to Wreck-It Ralph's success, and that film's director Rich Moore added that the next slate films will open people's minds up to what a Disney film can be. That statement alone excites me. King of the Elves can be something like The Black Cauldron, except better. I think Disney Animation can pull off something big like The Lord of the Rings, something with compelling fantasy worlds and epic battles. Here's hoping director Chris Williams can get it off the ground soon.

Dean Wellins has had that "teenage space race" film - as Honor Hunter of Blue Sky Disney puts it - in the works for a while, and I can only imagine why it hasn't gotten off the ground yet. Disney Animation and an outer space, sci-fi setting would make for something truly amazing. I just hope that can get the greenlight soon, Honor Hunter seems to think that it'll be the studio's fall 2018 release. The Mickey Mouse film that Burny Mattinson confirmed a while back could be that as well, since Mickey turns 90 by that time... A Mickey Mouse movie would have to really deliver on all fronts as well, since it's the first proper feature-length film based on him. He's an icon, so they'll probably go all out with something amazing.

Now aside from the storytelling of these films, what about advancements in technology and the medium? Well, Bolt was the first Disney film to experiment with a new kind of computer animation - the painterly look. Bolt's art direction had the feel of a painting, and the computer animated characters and objects themselves blended with that. Tangled took this even further, as that had a traditional animation-style coating to it. Frozen is an extension of that, and Giants is rumored to take that style even further.

Then you had Paperman, which was pulled off with Meander. This shows that traditional animation really is alive and well at Walt Disney Animation Studios, and it's been rumored that Moana will be the first feature-length film done in this style, unless Giants does it first. It'll take computer animation to new heights while also differentiating the studio's work from the competition, so maybe people will stop calling Disney's computer animated films Pixar productions. And best of all, it'll keep hand-drawn alive in some form.

Going back to Millstein's "uncorked" comment, I think Wreck-It Ralph started Phase 2 for a reason. Unlike the four films before it, it was the big risk. The test to see if audiences would go see a Disney animated film that wasn't like the usual, and boy did it pay off. Now the game plan is to keep trying new things, like Walt would've done, whilst also visiting the Disney traditions every once in a while.

In all, I think we are going through a new Disney Golden Age. You can call it a Renaissance, but looking back on the Renaissance, I see it as more of a period of good, successful films. Just a solid Golden Age. If I did consider it a Renaissance, then I'd consider this a Renaissance as well. Of course, this opinion may be radical, but I consider this era that's coming to be the real Disney Renaissance in addition to just being a Golden Age. The so-called "Disney Renaissance" to me was just a successful Golden Age for them in terms of their success and their consistency of delivering good to above average films. But this coming era looks like Walt-era Disney reborn with a bite.

Nowadays, Disney is making films with great writing, but will also tackle different genres, themes, settings and stories much like their Emeryville comrades have. The Lasseter era of Disney has only gotten warmed up in the last 5 years, and now with Wreck-It Ralph behind them, they can truly take off.

A Piece to the Puzzle?

The Pixar Times put up a great article on Andrew Stanton's recent words on the follow-up to his 2003 masterpiece. Finding Dory is still on track for its fall 2015 release, but of course everything has been kept under wraps.

Stanton was against sequels for a long time, but lately he's been quietly talking about them. Last summer, he talked about how the Pixar sequels were "comfort food" for them and probably the audience. He also said that we may see more sequels in the future since the people at the studio aren't "blinded" anymore, since they are a business after all. In speaking with The Los Angeles Times, who ran a rather positive piece on sequels, Stanton stated...

"It’s more often that somebody fails at a sequel than they succeed. You don’t want it to be derivative or redundant."

All of Pixar's sequels aren't derivative or redundant. Even the dreaded Cars 2, which is certainly not anything like its predecessor. People may be disheartened by the amount of sequels Pixar has made lately, but there's one thing that the sequels don't do: Rehash what made their predecessor work. Give them props for trying a different story with each sequel.

"There was polite inquiry from Disney [about a Finding Nemo sequel]. I was always ‘No sequels, no sequels.’ But I had to get on board from a VP standpoint. [Sequels] are part of the necessity of our staying afloat, but we don’t want to have to go there for those reasons. We want to go there creatively, so we said [to Disney], ‘Can you give us the timeline about when we release them? Because we’d like to release something we actually want to make, and we might not come up with it the year you want it."

Again, I always found his comments on some of this to be a bit contradictory. Going back to the comment he made about sequels and originals last summer, the originals do bring in a boatload of cash. In fact, Up outgrossed the likes of Cars 2 and Monsters University. WALL-E, Ratatouille and several other originals grossed more than $500 million worldwide so they don't need to depend on sequels. Finding Nemo is their second highest grossing film of all time, it's an original!

That being said, at least Stanton says that they'll do a sequel when they are ready, not when Disney wants one. Of course, that's all contrary to popular belief that Pixar just wants to "churn out sequels to make money/they don't care about art anymore." Toy Story 3 turned out to be excellent, and Monsters University was damn good. We have not seen Finding Dory yet, and people are already assuming right off the bat that it's going to be a blemish. A bad film! An embarrassment to the original! Another sign of the studio's "decline"! Yep, tell me more about that crystal ball of yours...

Anyways, a good chunk of people who believe that Pixar is declining tend to point the finger at Disney, saying that they were the cause behind Cars 2, Monsters University and Finding Dory (they conveniently leave Toy Story 3 out) and the overall quality of Cars 2, Brave and Monsters University. I'm sure Disney wants sequels, being a corporation and all, but going by what I've gathered over the years - they don't seem to force Pixar to make sequels. If they did, why haven't they forced Walt Disney Animation Studios to make a sequel to something like Tangled or Wreck-It Ralph? They seem more sequel-happy with their live action stuff than with what's going on in the animated front.

For the sake of those who don't know (gotta go in broken record mode here!), Toy Story 3, Monsters University and Finding Dory exist because of the copyrighted scripts for the aborted Disney/Circle 7 sequels to Toy Story, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. You know, the ones that were supposed to be made if Pixar were to break away from Disney after Cars. Pixar had to "overwrite" all three, but they did so when they wanted to. If that wasn't the case, Toy Story 3 would've been out in theaters quicker. No, they made sure that they delivered a fantastic finale to that trilogy. They pounced that right after the merger because they finally had the chance to make the finale they wanted to make, since one was brewing for a while. Finally getting the rights to their work back, it makes sense that Pixar's Toy Story 3 began pre-production in 2006. At one time, Toy Story 3 was actually scheduled for 2009... But guess what? It got moved to summer 2010! Monsters University was put into development some time in 2007 or early 2008 (some concept artwork is dated 2008, and it was hinted at back then), so they spent 5-6 years working on it. Maybe even more! Finding Dory? Well we have no idea, but I assume they waited a while to "overwrite" the Circle 7 'Finding Nemo 2', they didn't just dive right into it right after the merger. I'd say 2009 was when they started working on it, which will mean that they spent 6 years working on it. Typical timeframe for a Pixar film.

All of this, I firmly believe, explains why these sequels exist, why they all came/are coming out between 2010 and 2015, and why they came out so close to each other. Cars 2, again, is the anomaly of the bunch since there's no evidence that Circle 7 greenlit a sequel to Cars back in 2004/2005. Again, my conspiracy theory is that Bob Iger coaxed John Lasseter into making it after merchandise sales went through the roof and Lasseter agreed to make it because he's in love in with his universe. Can't blame him!

So basically, Pixar had to make Toy Story 3, a Monsters, Inc. sequel/prequel, and a Finding Nemo sequel. They went about the latter two in the best way possible, by not making them right off the bat. If Pixar only cared about churning out sequels, you'd see Monsters University and Finding Dory a lot sooner. As rushed, poorly-made films on top of that. No, originals exist and they continue to exist. Finding Dory is not coming out until late 2015. Why? Because two originals are coming first. But those two films don't exist, right? Right? Again, why would Pixar do two originals and then a sequel if all they cared about was mindlessly churning out sequels?

Unfortunately, Stanton or anyone at Pixar probably won't tell us about the Circle 7 deal. I think Stanton is giving us some sugarcoated PR talk, because Finding Dory exists for a reason. Disney "politely inquiring" about a Nemo sequel is not it. Pixar being money-hungry and just reared on numbers is definitely not it. John Carter bombing was not it, either. Finding Dory was most likely in the works before John Carter was officially put into production in 2010. The Circle 7 thing went down in 2004, so a Nemo sequel has been around before Stanton even got the opportunity to direct an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' influential stories. Pixar could've put some rookie in the director's chair to handle a Nemo sequel in 2006 after the merger and have the thing out in 2009/2010, just rush it out quickly. Nope, they waited a while. The official announcement came early this year, and the film is not out till 2015. That's nearly decade since the merger! Now compare that to another big studio (animation or not) greenlighting a sequel right after the first one does incredibly well on opening weekend, and the thing arrives 2-3 years later. Every Pixar sequel has arrived over 5 years after their respective predecessors; even the rushed cash-grab Cars 2 didn't arrive immediately.

In the end, I don't think Stanton's comments fully explain the existence of Finding Dory but they do help subdue the ever-expanding and annoying super-skepticism towards Pixar. The quality of Toy Story 3 and Monsters University more than help as well... It just goes to show, Pixar does take sequels seriously and will try to make them great or at least very good companion pieces to the originals. Also, remember what Ed Catmull had to say? Yes indeed, any sequel made after Finding Dory is one that they want to make. Not one they have to overwrite or make because Disney wants them to (well, maybe except for a third Cars, but I think the Planes franchise will make Disney happy in the meantime), so whatever sequel comes after 2015 will be one that isn't forced or one that had to be made. Plus, if Disney was really forcing sequels, we'd already see a rushed Brad Bird-less Incredibles 2 around this time. In fact, a sequel to that film is not in the cards at all. Not until Brad Bird says one will be made. Yeah, Disney is "forcing" sequels alright...

Going back to the whole "staying afloat" thing, Pixar is also a business in addition to being a studio. The originals are the foundation of the company, but a few sequels here and there (that are good, mind you) aren't necessarily a terrible thing. After this wave of four sequels/prequels, it'll be "original central" for a good while with very few sequels in between. Not bad, I'd say...

Animation Directors Speak Out

When a big name in animation points out the problems with today's industry, you know the problems have come to a head of sorts. Recently, Henry Selick had this to say on the current state of feature animation in the United States...

“It’s too homogenous. It’s way too much the same. The films aren’t really that different one from the other. Despicable Me could have been made Pixar, by DreamWorks. It’s not a great time for feature animation if you want to do something even moderately outside the formula.”

While I do agree with he is saying to a point, I don't agree that Despicable Me "could've" been made by Pixar, or DreamWorks to a lesser extent. However, to an outsider, Despicable Me is like everything else on the market. Audiences normally call most computer animated films "Pixar films", in a similar way to how your average joe might call Don Bluth's Anastasia a Disney film. While I see a Pixar film as far different on a writing and cinematic level from something like Despicable Me, many others probably don't... All they see is a computer animated film. Since Pixar is a big name, that's applied to said film.

Where he is right is in his description of the market itself. Blue Sky, Sony and Illumination all produce family friendly films that have a significant amount of comedy, along with casts that include lots of big names. While there's nothing wrong with making an animated film like that, many of the studios essentially copy this sort of formula without realizing why the first one to do it was successful. I've been saying this for years and so many others have as well, there's not too much diversity in the mainstream feature animation world. It's Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks... And films that are like theirs, but not as unique.

Once in a while, you get something different like Rango or ParaNorman. The former was a big budget risk, a rare bird (or reptile) in this industry. The latter was smaller-scale, lower budget and it ultimately proves that you can make a great animated film with less than $100 million... But the box office talks, sadly.

Pete Docter

Pixar's Pete Docter (director of Monsters, Inc., Up and Inside Out) added...

“The way things are set up right now, it seems like a win-or-lose situation, right? You put so much money in, the stakes are so high. I think that’s what Henry’s talking about, that leads to a similarity. There’s other ways to make movies. I think Henry is a great example of that. Get a Henry Selick project going. How cool would that be?”

He's right in many ways. If a studio is going to spend over $120 million on a feature-length animated film, they want to net in all the fish. The problem is, animation is still pushed to the "kids" corner. A summer blockbuster that's rated PG-13 can take in over $200 million domestically, no problem! Teens are a big audience, but a lot of teenagers "outgrow" animation. Even in this day and age when animated films are slowly but surely piquing their interests (for mostly the wrong reasons), so it's still a challenge. A PG-13 rated animated film with gratuitous violence and inappropriate content won't fare well, because teens won't see it and neither will anyone else. But a mature PG-13 or R-rated animated film? A true gamble if there ever was one... A gamble that someone needs to make...

Selick then discussed the places where risk-taking will definitely translate to success...

 “I have some feelers out. For example, Amazon is producing a kids animated series. I have more faith that people like Google, Amazon, Netflix, all these indie cable stations, would be a better home. I mean, that’s, there’s way more creativity in television, and risk-taking, but especially new media.”

Very, very true. You'd think with some of the creative television shows we have right now, both animated and live-action, that there would be a sort of spark... People actually wanting to see material like that on the big screen. But yet the same old story does well, though sometimes it doesn't particularly do it. Summer blockbusters are a great example, since not every big budget spectacle you throw at the audience will be a smash hit. Battleship is an excellent of this as a whole, because the film was highly derivative and had nothing to really differentiate it from something like Transformers. On the other hand, a well-made big budget film like Pacific Rim is not doing so well at the domestic box office because the marketing failed to sell it... Awesome visuals don't completely get audiences to turn out in droves to see a film, and hopefully Pacific Rim's box office teaches that lesson to studio marketing departments.

Selick is currently finishing up The Shadow King, a stop motion film that was originally going to be released by Disney this autumn. When new Chairman Alan Horn came on board, the project was scrapped, reportedly because Selick was behind schedule. Earlier this year, K5 International bought the halfway-finished production. The question is, who will distribute it and when will it arrive? Will we be seeing it next year?

But also, why is he struggling to get this film made? Aardman and LAIKA are thriving despite the marketability and box office grosses of their films, and LAIKA actually rejected his film... Oddly enough. You'd think someone would be interested, rather than a small foreign production company. This is a film from the man who directed the continuing success The Nightmare Before Christmas (though most associate that success with Tim Burton) and the successful Coraline, you'd think it would be slated for a release already with a distributor backing it. It's a tough world, I guess... Projects like his are few and far between, and the trouble he's having getting it finished is proof.

The Coraline director also criticized the blockbuster market as well...

“They’d rather risk huge money on The Lone Ranger or White House Down than risk much smaller money doing something that’s a little interesting. No one’s ever going to make a PG-13 animated film unless David Fincher executive produces it and puts it out on Netflix, and then if it’s a success everyone will change.”

This is what I've been thinking for a while. Someone should make a lower budget PG-13 animated film, one that's good and actually "mature", not something stupid and gimmicky. Give it good marketing and try to appeal to the adults first (you win that way, then you'll get the teens in), then the animation industry will see a change. A real change. When something does very well, people will want to try harder and be a bit different... Or copy what made that great.

But what if many styles of animated filmmaking prove to be successful? This is what needs to happen. Long-time animator and director Kirk Wise (he directed Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Gary Trousdale) also shares the same beliefs...

"I would love to see something come along that was just a little quirky, a little more special, that didn’t feel like the same movie that was released three weeks ago. That’s one of the things that’s very much on my mind. I think we need to create a variety of types of animated films, some that are not going to cost as much as others. Not every story is giant.”

Again, talk about hitting the nail on the head! Creative animation shouldn't be limited to the independent market. Lots of different live action films do very well at the box office each year, but these great directors are probably aware of the main problem which we always keep coming back to... The public perception of animation. They'll see any kind of live action film, from a PG-13 blockbuster to a rom-com to a serious drama. With animation, all they want is G/PG stuff with laughs, tears and cuddly stuff. Nothing more. This needs to change, but how?

Kirk Wise

Perhaps if more minds take advantage of the smaller market and outlets like Netflix, something can be jumpstarted. Something could catch on, because millions of people have Netflix! The word could be spread some way!

Chris Sanders discussed the benefits of making lower-budget animation... But quicker! He uses his great Lilo & Stitch as a stellar example...

“We pitched (Lilo & Stitch) with the idea that we would be paying for our story freedom with reduced schedule and a reduced budget.”

Lilo & Stitch was produced at a time when Walt Disney Feature Animation was slowly spiraling down a black hole, a time when executives were given too much creative control over the projects that were in the works. All of these problems explained the box office totals greatly and the erratic quality of the films. Ambitious concepts like Atlantis: The Lost Empire were turned into gigantic messes, because executives were prejudiced and were worried about not appealing to kids... Or teenagers. Or whatever they were reading from the dreaded focus groups. Depends on the film you're evaluating... With Atlantis and Treasure Planet, they tried too hard to get the teens. With something like Home on the Range, they were trying to appeal to toddlers.

Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois directed and wrote Lilo & Stitch by themselves, and the film was made entirely at Disney Feature Animation's Florida unit for $80 million; Clark Spencer produced. By contrast, Treasure Planet, Burbank's big budget project that came out later in the year Lilo was released, cost $140 million. More writers and producers worked on it. Atlantis cost close to $120 million, many people wrote the story while two people handled the script. Both films were botched by the suits, many of Atlantis' great ideas were gutted from the finished product, which ended up being a rather gimmicky mess with a sloppy story that loses its steam halfway in. Treasure Planet also turned out that way as well, though it did have a stronger story for the most part.

Lilo & Stitch had very little executive meddling going on behind the scenes, and as a result, the film is a bright spot in that troubled era. It's no surprise that it opened well, did very well, got rave critical reception, spawned a bigger franchise and remains a popular beloved film to this day. Disney executives didn't learn from this back in the day, but I think this film is a great lesson to the industry nowadays. It was actually one of Disney's least expensive animated projects at the time of its release, and yet it did so well and it continues to be a success.

That should more than prove that you can be risky and wildly original, for nearly half the budget even! Films like LAIKA's films and Aardman's films, along with great little gems like Fantastic Mr. Fox, are today's Lilo & Stitches except they aren't from a big studio. Why quality product like this can't catch on is beyond me. Lilo & Stitch had the Disney name to secure a safety net, but the marketing was fantastic and it appealed from the get-go. Stop-motion fare struggles, and I still can't crack this nut. Why is it so hard to make it appeal? Even Frankenweenie - from the well-known Tim Burton and released by Disney (and backed with aggressive marketing) no less - struggled at the box office! How does one make that appeal?

Audiences don't hate stop-motion, that certainly can't be the case. It's the content and the way it's presented in the trailers. Coraline and ParaNorman were horror films, they didn't have cutesy creatures running around making jokes. Focus Features' trailers for the latter tried desperately to make it seem like a cutesy funny comedy with a ghoulish backdrop, when the film actually terrified a lot of children. (That's a good thing, though!) That style of animated filmmaking only seems to work on audiences when it concerns a certain Burton/Selick film. The Pirates! Band of Misfits was definitely not a mainstream film, and judging by its weak run, most American audiences didn't get it. When will audiences want to see more creative stuff like this?

In order to turn the ship into the better direction, one of the big guns is going to have to really experiment. I don't care who does it at this point, whether it's Disney or Pixar or DreamWorks or whoever... One of the big studios needs to make a lower budget film that's unlike anything else, perhaps something that may not be overtly family friendly. Pixar did it a couple times, Disney did it with Lilo & Stitch over a decade ago, DreamWorks is capable of doing it. What if one of those studios were to make something completely eccentric and unique, back it with strong marketing and the resulting film is a critical and commercial smash hit?

Walt Disney Animation Studios could do it first. Wreck-It Ralph took a risky concept and used conventional tricks to make it work, to much success. Critical acclaim, good box office and popularity. Frozen retreads the fairy tale ground, but Big Hero 6 looks to be the next Lilo & Stitch... Or any of the four films coming out of after that. We keep getting teased about these films, and how they'll open audiences up to what a Disney animated feature can be. Going by what I've read of these projects, they may make some real waves here. Big Hero 6 so far looks like it'll be a real game-changer for both Disney and mainstream animation. It sounds like it's going to be quite different.

Pixar still continues to experiment with seemingly outlandish and risky ideas, Inside Out being a fine example. The "Dia De Los Muertos" film could also be wicked and wildly different. People are now accusing Pixar of a formula (imagine that!), maybe they'll make something that's totally unlike their current batch of films. Disney Animation and/or Pixar are the likely candidates at the moment, since the Disney empire is their safety net. A flop won't really matter, and Bob Iger did imply that risks are worth it. Hence their "show must go on" attitude after The Lone Ranger bombed.

DreamWorks is out of the question right now, since one flop cost them dearly. DreamWorks banks on their films to keep them going, but if they successfully expand and tap into theme parks and other things, maybe they'll have more confidence to experiment and try even harder. Something like that Alma project could be greenlit or something. For the time being, DreamWorks has to play it safe considering their jam-packed film slate.

Sony Animation? Well, they don't spend much more than $120 million on their films and a few of their releases were actually good (Surf's Up, Cloudy) while the rest is pure product, plain and simple. They're also doing a good number of sequels... What if one day they just said, "Hey! Look at how much we made from Hotel Transylvania 1 and 2, Cloudy 2 and Smurfs 3... Let's take a risk!" That probably won't happen, considering that this studio wants to make a Tonka trucks movie starring Adam Sandler.

Illumination is a bit more likely than Sony, despite their rather creatively unambitious plans. Consider this, the Despicable Me franchise is their safety net along with Universal. That distributor has been on a roll lately, that's actually an understatement! Anyways, Illumination spends at least $70 million on their films... They could totally do something different. The question is, are they willing to?

Similarly, Blue Sky spends less than $100 million on their films. Epic could've been that very project that was different, one that would been tried out because of the success of the Ice Age films. (You know, the sequels funding the originals kind of thing.) But sadly, that wasn't the case. Blue Sky isn't too content with taking massive risks either... Yet. Anubis may very well be something unique and different. May, being the key word here.

A big studio making something that's incredibly original and different would really kick off a better future for American feature animation... Will it happen? Or will some smaller outlet have to kick things into high gear?

One more thing... Why are news sites like Variety saying Selick is slamming Despicable Me 2 and/or the animation industry? If anything, he's evaluating a problem... More story distorting... Tsk tsk.