A Bundle of News For the New Year!

     Well a lot has certainly happened recently in the world of animation! Where to start? Why not take a look at Disney's three studios. To start things out, DisneyToon Studios have decided to release their up coming Cars spin-off, Planes, in theatres. It will be coming on August 9th, 2013 and will be DisneyToon Studios first theatrical U.S. release since Pooh's Heffalump Movie in 2005. This move to theatres has been getting Disney a lot of crap but I don't really see why. DisneyToon Studios have stepped there game up recently and the quality of there films have been much better. No, I don't expect this to be a very memorable film, but it's sure to be a fun movie that many will enjoy! Why should DisneyToon Studios be relegated to just DVD releases? They work hard on these films and put a lot of heart into them! I see nothing wrong with them getting more well deserved attention.

     Pixar has been busy of late as well, releasing some fun concept art from their upcoming films. We have one image each from The Good Dinosaur, The Inside Out, and the Dia De Los Muertos film. All of the look beautiful and creative in typical Pixar fashion.

     Speaking of beautiful Pixar films, they have released a clip from their new short The Blue Umbrella. While it looks amazing and I'm sure it will be a very touching and original film, the description makes it sound a lot like Paperman... I'm sure it will be it's own film, but it is a small concern. Check out the life like animation and the description below. Simply stunning animation, right?

     

From Pixar Animation Studios, director Saschka Unseld and producer Marc Greenberg, "The Blue Umbrella" opens in theaters on June 21, 2013, in front of "Monsters University."

It is just another evening commute until the rain starts to fall, and the city comes alive to the sound of dripping rain pipes, whistling awnings and gurgling gutters. And in the midst, two umbrellas—one blue, one not—fall eternally in love.

      Something else that Pixar has released is some images from Monsters University, including a look at the new, and nerdy, Randall Boggs. I personally love the new design for Randall! It also appears that Randall was to have a similar job as Mike in being the bigger jock monster's assistant rather than a scarer. It will be interesting to see how that plays out!

     Not much has happened over at Walt Disney Animation Studios, however Jonathan Groff was confirmed to be voicing Kristoff! I am very pleased with this as I think Jonathan has an amazing and beautiful voice.

     Lastly, it looks like Disney has a very good chance of taking home the Oscar for Best Animated Picture, seeing as 3 of the 5 nominees are Disney Films. The official nominees are as follows:

Wreck-It Ralph

ParaNorman

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Brave

Frankenweenie

     A very interesting choice by the academy was to not include a foreign film. I thought for sure that a foreign film would be nominated, not only that but because of the environmental themes of The Lorax, I thought it had a pretty good chance of being nominated. Overall nothing to surprising and I am still hoping that Wreck-It Ralph will take home the award. Even though Brave won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Picture, I still think that Wreck-It Ralph will win.

     Another interesting thing is that no DreamWorks Animation films were nominated for best picture. And judging by there line up for the first half of the year we can expect the same at next years Oscars. Mr. Peabody & Sherman might have a chance depending on how good it turns out, but with nothing really released yet we will have to wait and see. As for DreamWorks Animation's two other films.... well, take a look for yourself.

     The Croods looks like it will have a fun, cute, meaningful story but the jokes in the trailer came off as stupid and it is a movie about cavemen.... so it looks like it could be an okay film with a good story, but jokes that fail and unlikeable characters. It was a beautiful looking trailer though! Turbo on the other hand just looks dumb all together. A snail who wants to race with humans? Again the jokes were dumb in the trailer and the premise of the story doesn't sound good. DreamWorks Animation HAS surprised me before so we will have to see!

     Finally we come to the announcement that Warner Bros. will be releasing one animated film a year. However instead of utilizing there animation studio, Warner Bros. Animation, they will be outsourcing their ideas to other animation studios to work on the film. Basically Warner Bros. put together a "Think Tank" of people, including Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy and Lego Movie Directors), Nicholas Stoller (writer of The Muppets), and Glenn Ficara and John Requa (writers of Cats & Dogs). So these people come up with ideas for animated films, they write them, direct them and what not, Warner Bros. Animation Studios helps come up with character designs and concept art, then Warner Bros. sends the project to another animation studio such as Animal Logic. What? It sounds very convoluted and messy to me. Why not just use their amazing animation studio that they already have? At least Warner Bros. is pushing for more animated films but I would have loved it if the house of Bugs Bunny were the ones actually making the films.

     Coming up on their slate is the Lego movie, set for February of 2014. After that comes Storks, which will be directed by Doug Sweetland (Presto) and is set for release in 2015. Then finally comes Smallfoot, based on an idea by Sergio Pablos (Despicable Me idea) and will be written by Glenn Ficara and John Requa, set for 2016. 

     Well that's it for now! What do you think of Warner Bros. new Animation plan? DreamWorks Animation's upcoming slate? Planes being released in theatres? Let me know in the comments below! Well isn't that enough news to say "OW! My giant blue head!"