October Animation Tidbits

Tidbits, tidbits...

We got our first official trailer for Rio 2, after two teasers...



Cute. Colorful. That's about it, really. No doubt the family audiences will eat it up next April, and the plot at least isn't a rehash of the original. I'm just on the fence about this one. Also, what's with Blue Sky's recent iPod product placement?

But oh well, Nigel is still funny.

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Evan Goldberg dropped some more details on Sausage Party, his upcoming R-rated animated collaboration with Seth Rogen...

First off, he says it's an "existential mock-Pixar movie".

"... We are very, very proud of it. It's our opus. It's like Mr. Holland's Opus! It’s our take on a Pixar movie. It is very, very R rated."

It's all in good fun, though, as he also said, "I wish there were fifty Pixar movies every year. But listen, someone should take those motherf*ckers down a notch. Those high and mighty bastards. We're mocking all animated movies, with a special eye on Pixar."

A mockery of the current American animated feature landscape sounds ideal for an R-rated animated film, but here's hoping that the film is a fun send-up and will also be really funny regardless of any lowbrow or juvenile humor. This will be what Shrek almost was, a great parody of what's big in animation right now.

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Also, Frozen images... Boy do they look stunning!

Elsa's kingdom... With a Mike Giaimo sky! He's the art director of this film, and he was originally going to direct it back when it was actually called The Snow Queen. It's much like Pocahontas' color scheme, which gravitated towards heavy blues, lavenders and purples.

This one is just stunning... It's my favorite of the bunch. The pointedness of everything combined with the icy atmosphere. It just perfectly sums up Elsa's character.

These images alone make me anticipate this film even more now, not some poorly-edited slapdash trailer that assumes that audiences can't sit through two quiet minutes of anything animated. Of course, we know that Disney marketing won't make Frozen look like a grand must-see event spectacle, instead opting to bombard you with jokes, silly snowmen and one-liners. Like I said in my post regarding spoilers in Pixar trailers, I'll just stick to images and the teasers for these films and quite frankly... I'm fine with that.

Where did these images come from? Disney Russia's Facebook page... Why not Disney's other pages for different countries? If they don't come the other pages (American, European, etc.), I'll only shake my head in disbelief. At this point, I believe Disney's ever-so-wise marketing department would do that.

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What's your take on the new Rio 2 trailer? What do you think of the Frozen images? What do you think of Sausage Party and the writers' plans to mock Pixar films?

Sound off below!

A Relaunch for Adult Animation?

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's upcoming animated comedy Sausage Party can bring a lot of things to the table. The American animation industry both needs it and kind of doesn't it...

This is the first wide-release R-rated animated film since South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was released in 1999. It's a wide-release adult-oriented animated film. Period. We need much more of those. It seems like it'll be funny, given the duo's other films, especially the wickedly hilarious This Is The End.

In addition to the talent behind it and the lower budget they're shooting for, this looks to be something of a send-up of Pixar films. I mean, it's about a talking sausage (and talking food) searching for the meaning of his existence. It's like that line from American Dad!, mentioning a Pixar film called "Clothes" featuring John Ratzenberger as a tie!

And also, Pixar's "what if" approach to stories is in need of a good parody. Shrek is definitely a riff on Disney's classic animated films of the fairy tale variety, though it's also a bitter "**** you" to the company and their legacy from Jeffrey Katzenberg that tends to miss the mark. A good parody of the films from a fine studio would be welcome, and Pixar's filmography is ripe for one. Though it's possible that one day, Pixar will spoof themselves. After all, Disney did it with The Emperor's New Groove almost thirteen years ago.

So getting a potentially good R-rated animated film - a strange and bizarre one at that - so soon is a good thing, right? It's just what we need for the American feature animation industry, right?

Well, like I said earlier, a few problems may rise from this...

What kind of adult-oriented animation does well in North America?

Stuff like Seth MacFarlane's shows, stuff on Adult Swim, Fox's current ADHD block, and South Park. Over the years, failed "adult animation" blocks on other channels (Spike's CFFA immediately comes to mind - back when they were called Spike TV) showcased the same kind of animation: Raunchy, definitely not so suitable for children, and loaded with stuff that makes preteens say "Oh my god! That's sooooooo adult!" It's been a thing since the success of Family Guy, South Park and Adult Swim. From 2000 to now, most adult-oriented animated television shows follow this mold.

Now let's look at some wide-release adult-oriented animated films, Simpsons Movie excluded...

9? Not a good film to begin with despite the great art direction and style, and one that was marketed to teenagers in such a wretched marketing campaign. It failed for a good reason... Rango and Fantastic Mr. Fox? Brilliant. We need more of those. Fortunately, the former was backed by effective marketing and made some dough at the box office. Other than that? Not much. If adult-oriented animation can thrive on television, then it could very well be a viable thing in the world of theatrical animated features.  It's about time that someone is at least trying to create a market for this kind of animation at the moment...

But if this film is a big hit, what will it tell executives?

"More raunchy adult-oriented animation!"

No, they won't be saying, "Let's invest in smart adult-oriented animation now that there's a market for adult animation." They'll be saying, "Let's make more raunchy stuff!" You won't be seeing anything resembling Studio Ghibli films or something like The Triplets of Belleville produced by an American animation studio any time soon. Heck, we don't really get that kind of stuff on television, we're not going to get it in theaters anytime soon.

Now that's not to say that some of the stuff out there isn't experimental. I was once a big fan of Adult Swim when they were airing an eclectic batch of shows. Nowadays, they don't really do that in my eyes... But there was a time when Adult Swim was home to a wide variety of different animated programs despite all of them using raunchy humor or shock-value violence. Some fine examples, to me, would be Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021, The Venture Brothers, Robot Chicken, Metalocalypse and Superjail! Stylistically, not all of these shows were the same. Thematically? Only a few were similar, mostly the William Street riffs on Hanna-Barbera stuff (Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021, The Brak Show). Despite excessive gore, Metalocalypse and Superjail! aren't the same exact show while Robot Chicken is no Venture Brothers. Get what I am getting at, here?

Fox's ADHD block moves on from the Seth MacFarlane/dysfunctional family formula with shows like Axe Cop and whatnot. This is also good, as it'll show that adult-oriented animation doesn't have to be limited to screwed up sitcoms about crazy families.

But...

Adult-oriented animation is so much more than what you see on Fox, ADHD, Adult Swim, FX or Comedy Central... Just look at what's made in Europe and Japan. More of that in America, please! History repeats itself, as in the 1970s, Ralph Bakshi's works motivated people to invest in shock-value adult animated films. The animation world saw a lot of crumby knock-offs in the 1970s and 1980s, lots of films that try so hard to be a successful, but they didn't have what made Bakshi's films work.

Sausage Party will either open up a door for the American animation industry and show the bigwigs that there is a market for adult animation, thus people will seize different opportunities... Or it will only ensure the growth of raunchy, mostly immature "adult" animation with nothing smart to come out of any pore.

What do you think will happen?

September Animation Tidbits

More tidbits for ya... Some rather interesting ones, too...

Aardman's next feature-length stop motion animated film finally has a release date...

As confirmed by writer/director Richard Starzak on his Twitter, Shaun the Sheep (based on Aardman's long-running television series of the same name) will hit theaters on March 20, 2015...

Now first thing's first, is that the UK/Europe-only date? Or is this when it's supposed to open in the US as well?

Here in the states, DreamWorks' The Penguins of Madagascar opens the weekend after March 20th. Columbia essentially dumped Aardman's last film, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, in a spot where it would be eaten up by both 3D and family-friendly competition (shame on them) so if that's the US release date, I won't be surprised. I had last predicted that the film would hit theaters in April, but it looks like they're going for the mid-March spot.

I have a feeling that it will be an April release here in the states, what do you think? Either way, it's great to know that they finally have an idea of when it will be completed. Hopefully we get dates on other planned 2015 animated films, such as Ratchet & Clank, soon.

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It was announced today that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are currently working on an R-rated animated comedy called Sausage Party.

Get this, it's about a sausage who goes on a journey to discover the "truth about his existence"... Where does this journey take place? In a supermarket... And the main sausage must get back to his aisle before the Fourth of July sale...

DreamWorks stalwart Conrad Vernon will direct with Greg Tiernan (bizarre choice, considering that his background is only direct-to-video Thomas the Tank Engine movies), and the film will be released by Columbia Pictures presumably sometime in 2015.

I'm not too sure about this one just yet. While it's nice to have a mainstream R-rated animated film come around, I have a feeling that this one will be no different from all of the "adult" animation that catches on in America. You know, the Family Guy and South Park variety. When are we going to start getting real "adult" animated films? Films that are mature to begin with, not ones that are raunchy and juvenile.

Then again, I loved This Is The End so this could be very, very funny. The concept though... Talking food? That's... New...

Well, for an animated feature-length film that is...

Update (9/25/13): Cartoon Brew confirmed that the film is being produced by Canadian animation house Nitrogen Studios, and the film will be computer animated.

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Europe got four Frozen posters today... And boy do they beat the domestic one. Well not by much, but still...

The UK one on the left? Sven seems too front and center here. The one on the right is a bit better, even though it still makes the film look like a goofy comedy.

The one on the left? Great! Finally, some focus on Elsa for a change! The one without Elsa? Ehhhhh...

Oh, and I already saw the trailer that we're getting on Thursday. It's no great shakes, though the footage looked beautiful. I do anticipate seeing it in good quality this come Thursday but it doesn't come anywhere close to the short Japanese teaser. Typical of Disney's North American marketing...

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And that's it... Some animation tidbits. What do you think of the international Frozen posters? What's your take on Sausage Party? Are you excited about Aardman's next film - a stop motion one no less? Sound off below!