DreamWorks Goes Blue

The newly-announced DreamWorks Animation film may make you think "Seriously?" at first...

In celebration of the recent influx of a certain species of birds flying to Southern California's shores, DreamWorks has announced an animated comedy about...

Wait for it...

Blue-footed boobies...

Say whaaaaaa?

To be directed by long-time family film writer/director and DreamWorks stalwart Karey Kirkpatrick, this currently untitled film will be about a not-so-bright blue-footed booby who learns that the size of his heart matters, not the size of his brain.

This sounds like something they would've cooked up in the early 2000s, their "bad boy" days where they wanted to be the edgy ones, the anti-Disney with their snark, innuendos and pop culture references. The writers are obviously going to take advantage of the name of this species, or maybe not.

Anyways, blue-footed boobies are very interesting-looking birds, and they're ripe for great character designs in animation. Come to think of it, we need more good animated bird movies. Chicken Run, Rio and Surf's Up are the only good animated bird movies I can think of... Free Birds could also be good, but come on, birds that actually fly need more animated movies starring them! I mean, you'd get dazzling flight sequences through forests and jungles and whatnot. Perfect for animation, not to mention 3D... Because you know, 3D is a given with computer animated films.

The main plot seems like your typical "listen to your heart" kind of thing, but I bet there's more to it than this little announcement. The announcement just seemed to come out of left field, and like Larrikins (an Australian-set musical announced earlier this year), it's probably more likely to arrive in theaters before many of the adaptations DreamWorks has had planned for years. I mean, what happened to projects like Dinotrux and Maintenance and Captain Underpants?

So yes, we may be seeing this one sooner than expected... Or maybe not...

What's your take on a DreamWorks animated film about blue-footed boobies? Yay or nay?

(via DreamWorks on PitchEngine)

Minions on the Move

Illumination Entertainment made some changes to their release schedule... Some rather interesting ones...

The currently untitled Despicable Me spin-off prequel about the Minions is no longer opening on December 19, 2014... It's now slated to open on July 10, 2015, which was Pirates of the Caribbean 5's original spot. A very smart decision if you ask me, because Minions seemed to be in a tight spot anyway, being sandwiched between many family films and also going up against Brad Bird's Tomorrowland and the Hobbit trilogy's finale.

Illumination's untitled 2015 release is now set to open on February 12, 2016. Little by little, February is becoming a big month for animation. Gnomeo & Juliet showed that a small-scale film could generate good revenue during that time, due to the fact that families don't have anything to go see between the holidays and the March-April hit season. This year's Escape from Planet Earth also had good legs, The Lego Movie will more than pummel previous February box office records.

This makes me wonder, will DreamWorks move Home (formerly Happy Smekday!) to the December spot now that the Minions have packed up and moved? They could distance it from Disney's Big Hero 6... But it would still have competition to fight no matter what. I'm thinking that the December spot will be left blank, animation-wise, but you never know... These distributors always surprise us. Maybe something from 2015 could move up... Maybe Paramount Animation's SpongeBob SquarePants 2. They wanted that to be a 2014 release from the get-go to mark the 10th anniversary of the first film.

Maybe? Who knows...

What do you think will take the December 2014 spot? Or will anything take it at all? Do you think moving the Minions to a summer spot was a good idea? Sound off below!

Filling the Slot

With the rumblings surrounding Dean Wellins' "teenage space race" film and how it may not be ready for a long while going around, what could possibly take its place?

Now, before I start, I'll be going by Honor Hunter's theory of what Disney's upcoming slate will be like after Big Hero 6 hits theaters in 2014...

Zootopia - March 4, 2016

Giants - November 23, 2016

Moana - March 9, 2018

Dean Wellins Film - November 21, 2018

Now let's just say that Dean Wellins' film will have to wait... Maybe we'll get the thing in 2019 or 2020. What could take its place on Honor's predicted schedule?

By the way, I think Honor's schedule makes a lot of sense since Zootopia was officially unveiled, while Giants and Moana's titles and plot details haven't been officially announced by Disney. Also, Giants opening in November 2016 is great timing: A fairy tale every three years in the autumn: Tangled in November 2010, Frozen in November 2013 and this in November 2016. Moana sounds like a spring/summery kind of story, as noted by Bleeding Cool's Brendon Connelly a while back, so March 2018 sounds logical...

So... The candidates?

King of the Elves - This project has been gestating for a while, and it's been without a director since mid-2011 when it lost the "race" (as Honor put it) with Frozen for the November 2013 release spot. It doesn't seem to be chugging now, so the dormant project may get a tune-up sometime later this year, next year or 2015. You never know, it's not completely dead right now. They just need another director to work some magic into what wasn't working in the current version.

The Untitled Mickey Mouse Feature: Even though this was pitched back in 2011 and nothing has been said about it since, it's possible - and reader MattNor91 pointed this out - that they could possibly have Mickey's feature-length film ready for the character's 90th anniversary. That's right, he turns 90 in November 2018. Also, Get A Horse! is the first theatrical Mickey Mouse short since 1995's Runaway Brain, and it's possible that more will follow. Disney is actually making an effort to make Mickey popular again with new generations, especially with the new and divisive Mickey Mouse series on the Disney Channel.

Something completely new: Something Disney hasn't even brought to our attention, as projects are always being pitched.

A revived project: Frozen was an on-and-off project, as a Snow Queen adaptation dates back to the late 1990s or possibly even before that. It's possible that Lasseter and the story trust are eying down earlier films that didn't pan out. A fine example: Barry Cook's A Few Good Ghosts. That film was canned around 2004 because Walt Disney Feature Animation's Florida unit was shut down and hand-drawn was deemed unsuccessful at the time. Disney still owns the rights to it, and a good number of the recent films were in some form of development as far back as the 1990s. (i.e. Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph.) Recently, Barry Cook said he'd love to take another shot at it or see someone complete it. There are several projects that Disney probably still owns that could be revived for a 2018 release. Maybe they're already looking into some, and we just don't know it yet.

What do you think? What film will be it? Be sure to vote on the current poll!

Sound off on theories and your voting reasons!

Update (9/16/13): The poll has finally closed...

Two voters said King of the Elves. Not a bad choice, after all, this thing has to be finished soon!

Nine voters think the fall 2018 film is going to be the Mickey Mouse film, making it the most-voted for option.

Seven voters think it'll be something new that has never been announced in any form... I wonder if that will ultimately end up happening.

Only one vote for a revived project. Probably realistic thinking there, but again I'm optimistically unrealistic at times and I do hope for something like A Few Good Ghosts or something like that.

Thanks for voting, people!

Disney Slate Update: Marvel, Muppets, Planes & More!

Disney has once again changed their upcoming slate, but this change doesn't affect releases from Walt Disney Animation Studios or Pixar. The details are here thanks to Box Office Mojo and /Film...

The big news here is that two untitled Marvel productions have been slated for May 6, 2016 and May 5, 2017. Marvel usually takes the first Friday of May for most of their films (the Iron Man films, The Avengers and its sequel, Thor), and I guess Star Wars spin-offs are opening in theaters in both May 2016 and May 2017.

What will be ready? For the May 2016 film, probably Doctor Strange, though in my recent set of predictions, I thought that the film would come a month early since Marvel has locked the early April 2014 spot for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I was thinking that Disney would release Marvel movies in April to distance them from any Lucasfilm productions (i.e the Star Wars spin-offs, since Disney wants at least one Star Wars film a year), but it looks like Disney is okay with releasing both a Marvel film and a Lucasfilm production in the same month. That is, if Lucasfilm follows the mid-May tradition for everything they release.

Oddly enough, no other Marvel production is slated for a 2016 release. This implies that Marvel may produce one film a year after 2015, but maybe we'll hear more in the coming months. I can't see Marvel ditching the 2-film-a-year strategy anytime soon since the momentum is still there. Speaking of Lucasfilm, no date for Star Wars: Episode VII yet! But I think we all know what it will be...

Yep, Ricky Gervais is going to be in this.

Some minor changes were made to one 2013 release and two 2014 releases...

Brad Bird's Tomorrowland has been moved a week forward. The film will now open on December 12, 2014... Good. The only thing that stands in its way is the finale to Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, but something tells me that this Bird-directed sci-fi will overshadow the hobbits since the first one did very well, but didn't perform like a titan. In addition to George Clooney, Hugh Laurie and Raffey Cassiday, Thomas Robinson has now been cast. It'll be fun to track this one, since the marketing will be decidedly enigmatic!

The Muppets... Again! is now Muppets Most Wanted. Not really sure about that title, to be honest. It may fit in with the plot, but I think it sounds a bit awkward. What do you think of it? The release date is still the same: March 21, 2014.

This December's Disney film, Saving Mr. Banks, has also been moved a week forward. The film opens on December 13, 2013.

More films have been scheduled for release in 2014...

The first of which is Planes: Fire and Rescue, which opens on July 18th... I was hoping that this spin-off franchise wouldn't be a theatrical thing. I was already not to thrilled with the fact that Planes was getting a theatrical release, this will only cause more confusion since a lot of people assume that the series was made by Pixar. Like I need to hear any more "Planes? What are you doing, Pixar?!" complaints. Anyways, Disney is apparently very confident in the first film. After all, it probably didn't cost much to make being a DisneyToon Studios production, but I'll be surprised if it makes much more than $100 million at the domestic box office.

Opening on August 8th is a project I've never heard of before: The Hundred-Foot Journey. A Touchstone/DreamWorks production, the film is based on a book by Richard C. Morais. It's about an Indian boy living in Paris who becomes the apprentice for a chef that's a rival to his father.

This one was announced last year: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. An adaptation of the children's book of the same name where a boy's family has a bad day thanks to him wishing they'd experience his daily problems, this might go the way of The Odd Life of Timothy Green... It just screams unspectacular to me. However, The Jim Henson Company is working on it so there might be something interesting about it. Steve Carrell and Jennifer Garner will be in it, and Cedar Rapids director Miguel Arteta will direct. The film is set to open on October 10, 2014.

Into The Woods will arrive on Christmas Day. I had initially predicted that it would be Disney's March 2015 release, but apparently it'll be ready by the end of next year. The Rob Marshall-directed production stars quite the cast, too: Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep. This ought to be a big success for Disney, though it's being released a little too close to Tomorrowland.

A total of 13 films from the Mouse House (including Marvel and Touchstone/DreamWorks films) will now be coming to theaters in 2014! I guess Disney really does want to bang 14-15 films out a year! Now I'll have to update my predictions...

What's your on this news? What do you think of Planes' sequel getting a theatrical release? Are you interested in any of the live action films that Disney has planned for 2014? Or not? What do you of think the new title for the Muppets sequel?

Sound off below!