Vergara joins The Smurfs and Happy Feet 2

Sofia Vergara ("Modern Family") has landed a pair of film roles, beginning with The Smurfs in which she will play one of the live-action roles as Odile, a powerful executive at a high-end French cosmetics company who is the boss of the live-action character played by Neil Patrick Harris. The second film is a voice role in Happy Feet 2, which George Miller is already working on down under. Vergara joins a voice cast already made up of Brad Pitt, Robin Williams, Elijah Wood and Hank Azaria.

From:
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/hanks-casts-crowne-vergara-joins-smurfs-and-ronan-moves-to-palos-verdes

===========

So this is interesting because it looks like Smurfs is mixing live action with 3D, a successful formula for Happy Feet (although it was mostly 3D), Scooby Doo, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Flinstones, Casper, and Garfield (although barely successful for Garfield). Interestingly, Spielberg was behind Flinstones and Casper, but he seems to have given up on the cartoon revitalizations.

Enjoy!

New Trailer Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Release Date: July 1, 2009

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Director: Carlos Saldanha

Screenwriter: Michael Berg, Peter Ackerman

Starring: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah

Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Family

MPAA Rating: Not Available

Plot Summary: "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," to be fully produced in 3-D, is the latest installment to the hit "Ice Age" franchise, which has grossed more than $1.2 billion around the world. "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" will be directed by Oscar-nominated Carlos Saldanha, who directed "Ice Age: The Meltdown" and co-directed "Ice Age." The film is being produced by Academy Award-winning Blue Sky Studios, the creative force behind all the "Ice Age" films and "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who."

===========================

I liked the first trailer better:

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs - 2009 HD Movie Trailer

A scientist tries to solve world hunger only to see things go awry as food falls from the sky in abundance.



Genres: Kids/Family, Animation and Adaptation

Release Date: September 18th, 2009 (wide)

Distributors: Columbia Pictures

Starring: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell

Directed by: Christopher Miller, Phil Lord

Produced by: Pam Marsden

Madagascar 2 fails to live up to the original (in sales)

Madagascar 2



Madagascar 2 was doing better than Madagascar 1 in its week 5 overall, but it already started dropping faster than Madagascar 1, resulting in lower sales.


Madagascar 2 in Week 5:

Weekend 5 sales: $5,079,120
Overall sales: $165,653,852


Madagascar 1 in Week 5:

Weekend 5 sales: $7,434,917
Overall sales: $160,191,242



The reasons for the sudden drop in sales

(1) There's a chance that people are getting smart this holiday season and recognizing that spending money on gifts leaves them with no money for movies. I think that's a factor, because all the holiday films were down, including solid attempts from blockbuster magnets Will Smith (Seven Pounds) and Jim Carrey (Yes Man).

That said, I'm also a firm believer in capitalism, and a few movies have faired okay in the fall/winter, including Twilight (released Nov. 21; total $167 million), and Christmas films "Marley and Me" (Owen Wilson + Jennifer Aniston + dog family film = gold), and Adam Sandler's "Bedtime Stories" (from Disney). So I don't think it's just the economy.

(2) Therefore I think Madagascar 2's extreme drop in sales also imply the hype was better than the movie.

(3) That said, it seems like we have an influx of holiday films this year that are attempts at blockbuster success, especially family friendly films. So the dollars are divided among...

G & PG:

- Marley and Me: Fox
- Bedtime Stories: Disney
- The Tale of Despereaux: Universal
- Bolt: Disney
- Madagascar 2: DreamWorks

PG-13 & R:

- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt)
- Valkyrie (Tom Cruise)
- Yes Man (Jim Carrey)
- Seven Pounds (Will Smith)
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (Keanu Reeves)
- The Spirit (Samuel L Jackson)
- 4 Christmases (Reece Witherspoon; Vince Vaughn)
- Quantum of Solace (James Bond)


I think they still might make another Madagascar movie, but the incentive has gone down quite a bit. I think DreamWorks was hoping to get the sales a little higher than the original, so they are probably thinking more about the Shrek and Kung Fu Panda franchises now and the newer attempts like Monsters VS Aliens, Puss in Boots, and others (Master Mind, How to Train a Dragon, and Crood Awakening, a caveman animation from the Lilo & Stitch director).


Take a look at how Madagascar 2 didn't match up:

Kung Fu Panda
P/DW
$215,434,591


Madagascar
DW
$193,595,521


Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
P/DW
$174,862,381

They moved "it," but they didn't move sales:



- TAE

No Narnia 3?

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-narnia25-2008dec25,0,7412331.story



No Narnia 3? At least not from Disney.

Walden Media continues looking for a finance partner and director Michael Apted is still attached (along with the actors and crew).



"We're disappointed that Disney has decided not to go forward," said David Weil, chief executive of Walden's parent company, Anschutz Film Group. "But we regard 'Dawn Treader' as an extremely valuable property and remain committed to the franchise."


- TAE

Disney's "Glago's Guest" clip and info about director

When Lasseter set to replace Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch) with a new director, one of the two directors he chose was Chris Williams, the creator/director of Glago's Guest, a new Disney short to be released next year.

Here's a clip:



It basically looks a little similar to the art style that Star Wars Clone Wars was pulling out, but it's even more realistic, and they totally nailed the animation and emotion (something sorely missing in the Star Wars animation). I'm very interested in seeing Chris Williams' work when Disney lets him write his own film. Trying to save Bolt, was destined to fail (it's Incredible Journey goes Hollywood; no reason to do that in 3D).

Before directing Bolt and this short, Chris was a writer at Disney on Mulan, Emperor's New Groove, Brother Bear, and now Bolt. (I loved Mulan and New Groove.)

Enjoy!

- TAE

Why is Disney/Pixar making a sequel to Cars?

First, let's talk about why they shouldn't.

Here is every Pixar movie.

The number is the total worldwide gross...


Toy Story
1995
$361,958,736

A Bug's Life
1998
$363,398,565

Toy Story 2
1999
$485,015,179

Monsters, Inc.
2001
$525,366,597

Finding Nemo
2003
$864,625,978

The Incredibles
2004
$631,442,092

Cars
2006
$461,981,604

Ratatouille
2007
$620,261,049





Cars was clearly the stinker of the bunch, if $461 million, two Oscar nominations, and a Golden Globe could possibly be called a stinker. =^)


This makes me wonder why they’re making a sequel to Cars instead of The Incredibles, Finding Nemo (maybe a Crush movie), or Monsters Inc.


My answer is... Merchandise.


Merchandise is probably the motivation for creating a sequel to Cars, seeing how it certainly isn’t the Box Office. (It makes more sense from a Box Office perspective to do a Crush movie, or a sequel to Incredibles or Monster’s Inc.)


Disney made more money off of merchandising Cars than any other Pixar movie.


Disney makes more revenue in merchandising than any other source. Even in the parks, more money comes from merchandise than food or tickets.

I remembered reading an article where Disney said they were hitting it big with girls with the Princess franchise and hoped to continue to get merchandise brands out of Pixar from Toy Story (which was their biggest success with boys), Incredibles, and Cars. (On the DreamWorks side, I’m sure they’re raking it in with Shrek and Madagascar.)

On a side note, they should make an Incredibles cartoon and place it in the older time frame when Supers ran rampant. That’s where the big money is for boys: TV cartoons and related merchandise (Warner Bros. has banked on it for 15 years).

Plus Pixar probably already thought of a killer idea for a Cars sequel, and that’s a motivating factor. It doesn’t take much to think of a sequel to Cars. The concept has “road trip” written all over it (which is pretty much the whole story of both Toy Story movies and Finding Nemo), and the road trip concept wasn’t used to its fullest potential in the first Cars movie.

- TAE

Is Pixar doing live action?

Is Pixar combining live action with animation?



If this is true, it’s not surprising. Technically, Pixar came from George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), and this is the same sort of thing they’re doing with their Star Wars movies. Pixar could do even better. Plus, the action-oriented films starring humans do very poorly in animation (Beowulf, Final Fantasy, Titan AE, Sinbad, etc.).



So Andrew Stanton may be uncovering new territory by making live-action films with an animation twist. The first film may be Princess of Mars (Andrew Stanton). Andrew Stanton is currently running Pixar, and he won an academy award for and had the biggest Pixar success with Finding Nemo (plus his Wall-E this year will surely also exceed expectations).



He would be leaving behind capable directors who will still concentrate on the animations, like Pete Doctor (directed Monster’s Inc., Mike’s New Car, and will direct Up in 2009), Lee Unkrich (co-directed Toy Story 2, Monster’s Inc, Finding Nemo, and will direct Toy Story 3 in 2010), Gary Rydstrom (directed Lifted (short before Ratatouille), and will direct newt in 2011; also won 3 Oscars for sound and 14 nominations), Brenda Chapman (directed Prince of Egypt, and will direct Bear and the Bow in 2011), and Brad Lewis (produced Ratatouille, and will direct Cars 2 in 2012).







From Wikismack:





Rumors began appearing in early 2007 that the Walt Disney Company was in negotiations to acquire the rights to the [John Carter] property for development through Pixar Animation,[2] or that it had already done so.[3]

In what was an April fools joke, Pixar blog Upcoming Pixar broke the news that John Carter of Mars would be Brad Bird's live action feature length debut as director. However the same blog confirmed that the film was to be made by Pixar on May 22, 2007. A month later, however, it was revealed that Brad Bird's first live-action film would be 1906. But it was revealed that Carter will use a combination of animation and live-action and is said to be in theaters in 2012.

On October 2, 2007, the director of John Carter was revealed to be Andrew Stanton and the screenwriter Mark Andrews. Both were visiting Tarzana, California to look into the Edgar Rice Burroughs Archives. [4]





So most of this has been confirmed:

- Pixar is doing the John Carter series
- The first one is probably going to be called Princess of Mars
- It is currently set to be released in theaters in 2012
- They would then continue the series, one film a year (or close to that)
- Andrew Stanton is directing
- Brad Bird is doing a live-action film, 1906, which seems to be a break from Pixar for him




It looks like the April Fools joke confused a lot of people. I think it was too close to the truth, which made it believable. =^)






Enjoy!

- TAE

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa – Jungle 2 Plain Featurette

From walls of dense jungle of the original Madagascar to a horizon line and Savannah and plains of Africa in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Movie magic, behind-the-scene look at the vision for the story’s backdrop, Africa.


Checka out this video featurette:

http://www.awntv.com/videos/madagascar-escape-2-africa-jungle-2-plain-featurette

That'll be on the DVD. =^)


- TAE

Smurfs realistic movie makeover

They've been around for over 50 years, but for the first time they're coming to our world. The Smurfs, the little blue people from comics and TV, are getting three-dimensional in a live-action/computer-animated feature film. Watch the exclusive teaser trailer, introduced by star Neil Patrick Harris, for a first look at the new digital Smurfs, then keep reading to find out how they end up in modern-day New York City.

In the original comic strips by Peyo, and later on the animated TV show, the Smurfs lived in a European setting during the Middle Ages. The movie begins in the same era, but the Smurfs' arch-enemy Gargamel (played by Hank Azaria) invades their village and sends them running. According to director Raja Gosnell ("Scooby-Doo"), some of the Smurfs stumble into a secret part of the forest where "there's a magical portal that transports them to Central Park."

Lost in Manhattan, the Smurfs -- Papa, Clumsy, Grouchy, Brainy, Gutsy, and Smurfette -- find a couple of human friends (Harris and "Glee" star Jayma Mays) who take them in. They look for a way home, but Gargamel also crosses into our world to track them down.



From the teaser trailer, it's apparent that the look of the computer-generated Smurfs is very faithful to the originals. They're blue-skinned, though with a textured, fuzzy-looking skin tone the cartoons couldn't capture. And of course they have their signature floppy hats (with Papa Smurf in red). He's not shown in the trailer, but photos of Azaria in costume as Gargamel have surfaced, and he also looks the part. He's bald, with prosthetic ears and a nose, and he's wearing a black robe and red shoes exactly like the animated version.



In addition to the human actors -- Sofia Vergara from "Modern Family" also plays a role -- the Smurfs are voiced by a wide range of comedic talents. Legendary standup Jonathan Winters plays Papa Smurf, George Lopez is Grouchy, "SNL's" Fred Armisen is Brainy, and Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) voices Jokey Smurf. Plus, pop superstar Katy Perry makes her movie debut as the voice of Smurfette.

"The Smurfs" will be smurfing their way onto the big screen on August 3, 2011.

From:
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-the-smurfs-get-real-in-first-trailer.html
=================================

An interesting approach. It definitely is interesting, and it probably has the most potential. I think they could have done a lot in the medieval times, but bringing the characters to present times and big cities has worked well for Alvin and the Chipmunks and Scooby Doo (and slightly for Garfield).



Plus giving the film the Scooby Doo director is almost guaranteed a hit.

- TAE

Coraline - A Creepy Stop-Motion Animation

Who's up for a creepy stop-motion animated film?

Sneak Peek:



“Coraline” (due in theaters February 2009)

Take an inside glimpse at this amazing stop-motion production. Beware – there are a few story spoilers within. Could it be as good or better than “The Nightmare Before Christmas?"

Making of:



Neil Gaiman's fairy tale horror, "Coraline" is being adapted as a stop-motion animated film by Henry Selick, the director of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach". It is set to be released on February 6, 2009, and it's the first stop-motion animated film to be shot in stereoscopic 3D.

Here is a look behind the scenes of the film, with interviews from Selick and Gaiman, cast members including Ian McShane and John Hodgman, and all-new footage of Coraline! This video is first in a series of featurettes, presented exclusively by Rotten Tomatoes over the course of "Coraline Sneak Peek Week".

This video is shown courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes and IGN. "Coraline" ©2008 Focus Features and LAIKA Entertainment House.

The Story of Coraline:



In this featurette, Henry Selick and writer Neil Gaiman describes Coraline's unusual tale. She lives a life that's way too normal and her parents ignore her, when she finds a small, bricked-off door in the den. However, at midnight, it turns into a portal to another version of her house where everything is wonderful and magical, and she has more idealized copies of her parents that lavish attention on her and are much better cooks. However, she soon realizes that it's a trap set by the Other Mother to ensnare her and take her soul.

"Coraline" is adapted from an award-winning novel by Neil Gaiman, enchanting yet chilling. Henry Selick details how he is treating his story with his own stop-motion genius.

The World of Coraline:




---------------------------

Tim Burton must have rubbed off on the director, Henry Selick.

He worked with Burton by directing Nightmare Before Christmas and James & the Giant Peach.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0783139/


Thankfully, he returned to animation after directing Monkeybone. =^)

- TAE

Planet 51 Trailer

Everybody see the Planet 51 Trailer?




It’s pretty funny. I saw it with Witch Mountain last week.



Planet 51 IMDB page:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762125/



New directors, but the writer contributed to Shrek 1 & 2 (the good ones).

Done by Sony, so that’s Chubbchubbs, Monster House, Open Season, Surf’s Up, Beowulf, and the coming Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. (But all those were done in-house; this is a new animation studio and Sony picked up this film from them.)

Sony has yet to get their first 3D hit movie (Polar Express was a hit, but it was WB even though Sony animated it), but Chubbchubbs won the Academy Award for animated short and Surf’s Up and Monster House were nominated for best animated film. So I guess they’re remaining confident (even though they haven’t hit yet) and are trying new things with aliens (P51) and a children’s book (Chance of Meatballs).

=================

Planet 51 (2009)

Plot Synopsis:
Captain Charles "Chuck" Baker must navigate his way through the dazzling, but bewildering, landscape of 'Planet 51' in order to escape becoming a permanent part of the 'Planet 51' Alien Invaders Space Museum.

Directors:
Jorge Blanco
Javier Abad (co-director)

Writer:
Joe Stillman (writer)

Release Date:
20 November 2009 (USA)



Enjoy!

- TAE

Kung-Fu Panda is performing better than Wall-E

Kung-Fu Panda is performing better than Wall-E right now. Cars did better than what Wall-E currently is doing. (Based on comparing how well they did each week). These numbers are domestic only.




Kung Fu Panda:

- Week 4 sales: $11,692,061
- Total after Week 4: $179,276,754



Wall-E:

- Week 4 sales: $9,813,000
- Total after Week 4: $182,476,000



Ratatouille:

- Week 4 sales: $10,899,179
- Total after Week 4: $165,519,955



Cars:

- Week 4 sales: $14,569,356
- Total after Week 4: $182,591,139




So Kung Fu Panda is on track to beat Ratatouille and Wall-E.


My guess is that it will cap out at around $230 million domestic. It’s currently at $206 million domestic and $360 million total.


See the full chart here:

http://boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?view=weekend&id=junecgvs.htm



- TAE

Presto animated short before Wall-E

Get ready for some magic to play before Wall-E!!!!



I love how Pixar always includes a short before their films! Of course, they have to show it in a film festival a month or so before it hits theaters (they also do this with shorts that play on DVD releases). That way it qualifies for the Academy Award (because being released in some film festivals qualifies your film as being released in theaters).



You can always go to a Pixar movie and know that you’re going to watch an enjoyable short first. It’s rebuilding some of the magic that Walt Disney achieved in his film shorts in the 30s-50s. A common phrase in those days was, “What, no Mickey Mouse?” in reference to people being disappointed when any movie was released without a Disney cartoon. Of course, there were far less movies being released back then. =^)



Disney has a long way to go just to get people to expect an animated short before their own films (but I believe Lassetter is working on this).



Premiering at Annecy 2008 on June 10, Pixar’s newest short film “Presto” (directed by Doug Sweetland) is in the news with a few promotional images. Read below, and enjoy!

Pixar’s “Presto”




Enjoy!

- TAE

Disney's Bolt - Our Thoughts

The trailer for Bolt looked awesome to me for the first few seconds until they revealed he was just an actor dog.

I would have preferred a superhero cyborg dog story that was a bit more like The Incredibles. It’s one of those things where they show a movie in the trailer and everybody is happy. The movie looks great!

Then the announcer says, “until…” and then they show that it’s just an actor or they got arrested on an overseas trip or something stupid. The whole movie dies right there. =^)




Essentially, this is a a remake of Homeward Bound (1993):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107131


Which is itself a remake of The Incredible Journey (1963):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057180



At least all three are Disney movies.

Maybe if you remake a movie every 15-30 years than all the kids will forget that you already made that movie. =^)


They later got lost in San Francisco in Homeward Bound 2 (1996):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116552/


The difference is that Bolt is in 3D, has a Hollywood subplot, and they replaced the older dog with an annoying hamster (but there’s still a cat and a naïve dog). And they replaced Michael J Fox’s voice with John Travolta.

This is why the movie died for me after 35 seconds of the trailer, when they revealed that Bolt was an actor. I really wanted “The Incredibles, but with a cyborg dog” rather than “Homeward Bound: Movie Star Edition.” Come on Disney!

The good news is that this is the last of the Disney animated films started before Lasseter took over (although he remixed Robinsons and Bolt). So the question is how the movies are that he has put together from scratch. So far, so good. He's returning to the Disney roots of fairy tales, with three in the pipeline (and one in the mixer at Pixar).


We don't need a 3D Oliver & Company!!!!

- TAE

Everyone's Hero creator set to make Dorothy of Oz with Jim Belushi

Martin Short and Jim Belushi have have signed on to lend their voices to Alpine Pictures’ upcoming animated movie Dorothy of Oz. Based on the book children’s author Roger S. Baum, the great-grandson of famed Oz creator L. Frank Baum, the pic is the first in a slated series of animated feature films being produced by Alpine Pictures, in association with Box Office Productions III.



Directed by Daniel St. Pierre (Everyone's Hero, Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey, Sheepish), Dorothy of Oz continues the beloved fantasy tale of a young girl who finds herself in a magical and treacherous kingdom threatened by a wicked witch. Short will voice the role of The Jester and Belushi will give voice to the Cowardly Lion. The movie is being produced by Bonne Radford (Curious George, The Road to El Dorado, Balto).

Emmy and Tony Award winner Short has voiced animated characters in Paramount’s The Spiderwick Chronicles, Disney’s 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure and Treasure Planet, Nickelodeon Movies’ Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, DreamWorks’ The Prince of Egypt, MGM’s The Pebble and the Penguin, Universal’s We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story and The Weinstein Co.’s upcoming Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil.

Belushi, star of the ABC sitcom According to Jim, also has credits in animation, including The Weinstein Co.’s Hoodwinked, Disney’s The Wild, Nickelodeon Movies’ The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Classic Media’s direct-to-DVD features Casper’s Scare School, among others.

From:
http://www.animationmagazine.net/article/8910

-------------------------------

I didn't think Jim Belushi would become a bigger name than Martin Short, but hey, it happened. =^)


- TAE

Is Pixar doing live action?

Rumors are running rampant that both Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton are combining animation and live-action for their movies. Is it an elaborate April Fools joke, or is the joke itself a joke (meaning that it was presented as an April Fools joke, but it really isn’t)?


From Wikismack:

Rumors began appearing in early 2007 that the Walt Disney Company was in negotiations to acquire the rights to the [John Carter] property for development through Pixar Animation,[2] or that it had already done so.

In what was an April fools joke, Pixar blog Upcoming Pixar broke the news that John Carter of Mars would be Brad Bird's live action feature length debut as director. However the same blog confirmed that the film was to be made by Pixar on May 22, 2007. A month later, however, it was revealed that Brad Bird's first live-action film would be 1906. But it was revealed that Carter will use a combination of animation and live-action and is said to be in theaters in 2012. On October 2, 2007, the director of John Carter was revealed to be Andrew Stanton and the screenwriter Mark Andrews. Both were visiting Tarzana, California to look into the Edgar Rice Burroughs Archives.


---------

Technically, Pixar came from George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), and this is the same sort of thing they’re doing with their Star Wars movies. Pixar could do even better. Plus, the action-oriented films starring humans do very poorly in animation (Beowulf, Final Fantasy, Titan AE, Sinbad, etc.).

So these flagship Pixar directors may be uncovering new territory by making live-action films (one with an animation twist). The first two of these films may be 1906 (Brad Bird) and John Carter (Andrew Stanton). Brad Bird just won two academy awards for Incredibles and Ratatouille, while Andrew Stanton is currently running Pixar, and he won an academy award for and had the biggest Pixar success with Finding Nemo (plus his Wall-E this year will surely also exceed expectations).






This information has been confirmed:

- Brad Bird is directing 1906, based on the novel of the same name (see below).

- People are guessing that the movie will be done in 2010.

- Andrew Stanton is working on the first John Carter movie, probably called The Princess of Mars.

- It will be a combination of live action and 3D effects (like the Star Wars movies).

- The move is currently scheduled for 2012.

- They are thinking that they will continue the series with sequels, every 1-3 years.

- Pixar will be producing both these live-action films (Warner Bros will be co-producing 1906).





The novel:
http://www.amazon.com/1906-Novel-James-Dalessandro/dp/0811849414




They would be leaving behind capable directors to concentrate on the animations, like:

1. Pete Doctor (directed Monster’s Inc., Mike’s New Car, and will direct Up in 2009)

2. Lee Unkrich (co-directed Toy Story 2, Monster’s Inc, Finding Nemo, and will direct Toy Story 3 in 2010)

3. Gary Rydstrom (directed Lifted (short before Ratatouille), and will direct newt in 2011; also won 3 Oscars for sound and 14 nominations)

4. Brenda Chapman (directed Prince of Egypt, and will direct Bear and the Bow in 2011)

5. Brad Lewis (produced Ratatouille, and will direct Cars 2 in 2012)



- TAE

Interesting Madagascar promo

“Chunky”

Madagascar 2 offers this ode to the rotund silhouette. You can’t fight the groove.

http://www.awntv.com/videos/will-i-am-big-and-chunky





I hope that promo isn’t geared toward children. =^)



Seeing how Disney’s advertising on the site to get Academy members to vote for Bolt for best feature, that’s a safe bet.



- TAE

Alice in Wonderland Official Trailer

I can't wait for this movie! It's good to see Burton unite with Disney again (Nightmare Before Christmas was so great). Burton got his start working for Disney. Hopefully they'll also do Frankenweinie together (an early Burton Disney short about a Weiner dog that got the Frankenstein treatment; they're making it into a feature length film).

Enjoy!

- TAE

How to Train Your Dragon - Update

They released the trailers for "How To Train Your Dragon" ... a new DreamWorks cartoon coming in 2010.

It's just a short teaser with no voices or characters other than the dragon. But it's enough to get you excited!



Enjoy!