Can Fox And Dreamworks Combined Challenge Disney's Animation Empire?

 

During the summer of 2013, there will be six animated (or live-action/animated hybrid) entries.  At a glance, it would seem like healthy competition as each of the major current players are offering an official entry into the summer box office sweepstakes.  You've got 20th Century Fox taking a shot at proving they can do more than Ice Age sequels, delivering the somewhat on-the-nose-titled Epic over Memorial Day weekend.  Pixar unleashes their official summer entry, the Monsters Inc. prequel Monsters University on June 21st.  Universal delivers its trump card with Despicable Me 2 over July 4th weekend while Dreamworks releases its snail-racing comedy Turbo on July 17th, a frankly unusual release date for them, but no matter.  Sony delivers The Smurfs 2 on July 31st while Disney offers up the previously straight-to-DVD entry Planes on August 9th.

Press Release: Finding Dory swimming into theaters 11/25/15.

STILL SWIMMING!

Disney•Pixar’s “Finding Dory” to Dive into Theaters

November 25, 2015

Ellen DeGeneres, the Voice of the Beloved Blue Tang Fish in 2003’s “Finding Nemo,” Shares Plans for the All-New Big-Screen Adventure

Press Release and Commentary: Disney names Jennifer Lee as co-director of Frozen and it will be a musical.

There are two things of note in the press release, which I've include in full after the jump.  One, obviously, Disney is making another go at having an animated feature directed by a woman and actually featuring female protagonists (plural!) at its center.  Obviously one can only hope this story has a happier ending than Brenda Chapman's experiences on Pixar's Brave and one can only hope we'll soon reach the point when hiring a female filmmaker to direct a major animated feature isn't considered major news.  Anyway, Ms. Lee recently co-wrote Wreck It Ralph.  The other bit, arguably almost burying the lead, comes right at the end.

"With original songs by Tony®-award winner Robert Lopez (“The Book of Mormon,” “Avenue Q”) and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (“In Transit”), “Frozen” journeys into theaters Nov. 27, 2013, in Disney Digital 3D™ in select theaters."

That's right, folks.  Disney is apparently crafting another old-school 90s-style musical and just like the Waking Sleeping Beauty era, they are stealing from Broadway to do it.  Interesting... Anyway, the press release is below and feel free to share your thoughts on this nugget of news.

Scott Mendelson

Guest Essay: Dana Shaffer on how Brave fails at feminism.

Friend and colleague Dana Shaffer wrote this terrific piece back when Brave first arrived in theaters.  Since I had already had my say on the film, I thought it best to wait until the film arrived on DVD/Blu Ray, which it does today.  Long-story short, this whole piece elaborates on ideas that I merely acknowledged in my review.  So do enjoy.

Does Brave give us the Disney princess we’ve all been waiting for? 

The film recycles a familiar tale, with a few misguided twists

By Dana Shaffer

Brave is the story of Merida, a bow-and-arrow wielding princess, with attitude, gobs of personality and more interest in pursuing her own ambitions than marriage. It sounds like a dream come true for many who have longed for a princess story with more of a plot arc than meeting a man and falling in love.

But let me give you a quick synopsis of the film (complete with spoilers, be warned):

It is the story of a vibrant and sassy redheaded teenage princess who doesn't quite fit in. She has an unusual hobby that her particularly strict parent does not approve of. During a nasty fight one day, the very strict parent destroys the daughter’s most beloved possession in a fit of rage. The parent instantly feels regret, but the damage is done. The rebellious redhead runs away. The girl seeks help from a witch, who gives her a spell that will change her destiny. But unless she fulfills a mission within a few days, the spell will turn very, very bad. After a series of inconsequential “fish out of water” scenes, the daughter must face the consequences of the spell, and her parent’s life is put in danger. The princess is rescued from peril, and in the end, the parent decides to let the daughter win the initial argument and have her way.

So that’s a bare bones plot synopsis of Brave. But perhaps it sounded familiar to you. Read it again, but this time think a little less moors of Scotland and a little more “Under the Sea.” Yep. Brave, whether it knows it or not, borrows heavily from the structure of The Little Mermaid. Of course there are some vast differences between the narratives. And perhaps in a world that recycles fairy tales and fables over and over, it’s not a big deal. But it lends some interesting ways to compare the two princesses.

A kingdom with no ruler: The current animation landscape...

For the second year in a row, Pixar will not have anything close to the best animated film of the year and will not have the highest-grossing animated film of the year, not worldwide anyway. This is not a rant to bag on Pixar, as they will be fine (I'm optimistic that they are merely experiencing growing pains) and I'm more curious to examine what the animation field looks like without an uncontested leader. The critical disappointments of the likes of Cars 2 and Brave along with the lack of any guaranteed masterpieces for a little while puts Pixar in a position where it's now just 'one of the guys'.  Disney has been trying to reclaim its once-uncontested title, but it too now sits in a position where it's 'just one of the gang', as there is no guarantee that the likes of Wreck It Ralph will even out-gross The Lorax domestically (worldwide, Tangled was the first Disney toon to top $350 million since Tarzan back in 1999).  Critically, Disney has not had an out-and-out gem since Meet the Robinsons back in 2007, where it was matched by Pixar's Ratatouille.  So the question becomes what does the animation landscape look like when neither Disney or even Pixar is the uncontested king of the proverbial hill?  The answer is somewhat more exciting than you'd think.

Having your cake and eating it too: Discussing the somewhat troubling finale of Disney's Wreck It Ralph.

Spoiler warning... this whole essay is discussing end-of-film events of Disney's Wreck It Ralph.  Like in the first sentence, so beware!!!
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When is a Princess Story not a Princess Story?  That's the question that's haunted both of Disney's major animated efforts this year.  While Brave has gotten raves elsewhere (not here) for focusing on a young woman who doesn't want to get married, the film is at its core a loose variation on The Little Mermaid save for the fact that said princess doesn't want a man quite yet.  But despite marketing efforts that focus exclusively on Ralph (John C. Reilly), Wreck It Ralph is actually a two-pronged narrative, telling what amounts to a buddy film in which both Ralph and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) have their respective goals and desires.  The would-be glitch in the racing game Sugar Rush merely wants to race and be accepted for what she is, while Ralph merely wants a better life and for those in his game to understand that he's just playing a role, that he's not actually a villain.  The film's duel goals come to a head at the third act, when Ralph is informed by King Candy that if Vanellope races and wins, the compound effects will be the destruction of the game, the homelessness of its inhabitants, and the death of Vanellope, since as a glitch she would be left behind as the game cabinet is unplugged.  It's a stunningly powerful story turn, the idea that Ralph realizes that he must do something horrible (wreck Vanellope's race car and renounce her goals) in order to be 'the good guy'.  It's heroism in the Jack Bauer mold rather than the clear-cut heroism of, for example, Mr. Incredible.  But the film reverses itself almost as quickly, exposing said story turn as a fabricated lie and setting up Sugar Rush's ruler as a scheming villain who has brainwashed the citizens and denied Vanellope's true nature.  And what is Vanellope's true nature?  Why she's a princess of course!

Press release: Disney announces boatload of Disney/Pixar/Marvel release information...

I'll let you decide what is newsworthy versus what is not.  Of course it would have been more newsworthy had Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier *not* gone the 3D route, but there you have it.  I'd be shocked if Guardians of the Galaxy and the newly announced Ant Man (my daughter will be excited as she's a big fan of The Wasp) don't go the 3D route as well.  The sad news is the removal of Phineas and Ferb from the summer 2013 schedule to parts unknown in 2014.  That can't be a good thing, right?  Anyway, the whole load of newly dumped info is after the jump.  The field is now yours. Oh, and just for fun, here's the newly released synopsis for the rather epic-sounding Thor: The Dark World.

In the aftermath of Marvel's Thor and Marvel's The Avengers, Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos... but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.

Scott Mendelson

Strictly for kids: In defense of the idea behind The Oogieloves.

The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure is officially past tense.  After one of the worst wide-release theatrical performances in modern history, the picture is gone from every one of its 2,100 screens with just $1 million to its name.  Its fate is now that of "ironic" screenings in college dorm rooms and the phrase "pulling an Oogielove" entering our pop culture vernacular.  I have not seen the picture and can't say if I ever will.  But I cannot and will not mock the film because it represents something that has pretty much disappeared from multiplexes over the last ten years.  Scott Stabile wrote a passionate defense of the movie he wrote last week, which you can read here.  I don't agree with every word, but he's tapped into what The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure tried to be, something that I'd argue is indeed worthwhile: the truly 'for kids' movie.  It wasn't trying to appeal to all audiences, it wasn't trying to secretly be hip enough for grown-ups or 'cool' enough for older kids.  It was merely a movie for young kids, perhaps painfully so.  There is something to be said for a film that was arguably trying to be a kid's first movie.

Growing Pains: In the wake of Finding Nemo 2, just what is phase two of Pixar animation, and is it something to fear?

Is Pixar as we know it finished?  Has a fifteen-year run of uniformly fine cartoons given way to an act two filled with half-hearted misses and needless sequels?  It's a somewhat sensationalistic argument, but the timing is not a little disconcerting.  Andrew Stanton, fresh off the epic financial failure that is John Carter (which in many ways can be considered a Pixar live-action venture), is now back at Pixar to helm the sequel to one of his animated hits, a sequel that arguably no one was asking for.  And Pixar, fresh off a critical disaster (Cars 2) and a somewhat middling original effort that was supposed to restore their luster (Brave), is now set to make a sequel to their most popular film, a sequel that arguably no one was asking for.  

"Death doesn't like to be cheated." Why the Ice Age series is the Final Destination of animated franchises:

For those who wonder why I go out of my way to praise the Dreamworks Animation library, even the Madagascar films, you might want to sample Ice Age 4: Continental Drift. I'm not going to do a full review, but it's pretty terrible, a paint-by-numbers narrative (overprotective dads, boy-crazy teenage girls, damsels-in-distress, etc.) that makes Madagscar 3: Europe's Most Wanted look like The Incredibles. With another overseas haul over $225 million before the film even touches US shores, there is a good chance that the series will actually produce more sequels than The Land Before Time (13 chapters, natch). I made a comment yesterday, sight as-of-yet-unseen, that the Ice Age series was basically the Final Destination series of animation. In that I meant that both the first Ice Age and the first Final Destination films were real movies, they were thoughtful, character-driven dramas that were surprisingly somber and meditative about their core subject: death. Final Destination 2-5 and Ice Age 2-4 may have been cartoon-ish and paper-thin crowd-pleasing entertainments, but the first installments had depth, meaning, and genuine emotional engagement.  They were real films.

Weekend Box Office (06/24/12): Brave hits the Pixar bulls-eye while Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is (somewhat) staked.

Another year, another $60-$70 million Pixar opening weekend.  Brave (review) is their thirteenth release, as well as their thirteenth number-one debut and their eighth film to open between $60 and $70 million since 2001.  Brave, which attracted headlines due to the fact that it was Pixar's first film with a female lead (and a female director until Brenda Chapman was replaced by Mark Andrews), opened with an estimated $66.7 million this weekend, putting it (for now) just above Cars 2's $66.1 million debut and a bit below Up's $68.1 million opening as the fifth-best debut in Pixar history.  Brave pulled in $24.5 million on Friday, which gives the film a 2.71x weekend multiplier, which is actually pretty low by Pixar standards.  Still, it's close enough to the 2.73x multiplier for Wall-E ($23m/$63m), the 2.68x weekend multiplier for Toy Story 3 ($41m/$110m), and the 2.64x weekend multiplier for Cars 2 ($25m/$66m) to avoid any alarm.  Movies, even most animated ones, are just a bit more front-loaded these days and Pixar films tend to play like sequels in a popular franchise than stand-alone entries. In terms of total box office, there is always the chance that Brave could play like Cars 2, which (comparatively) flamed out with just 2.8x weekend-to-total multiplier ($191 million domestic) and end up below $200 million.

Review: Brave (2012) is Pixar's most impersonal and least consequential film and a more troubling failure than Cars 2.

Brave

2012
93 minutes
rated PG

by Scott Mendelson

Beset by production troubles and changing schedules, Brave enters theaters as a fable without an author.  I don't know what happened behind-the-scenes with original director Brenda Chapman nor do I know what replacement director Mark Andrews added to and removed from the final product.  But Brave is an almost irrelevant entry in the Pixar library.  While it is visually scrumptious (in 2D, natch) and boasts a terrific lead vocal performance by Kelly MacDonald, the overall story is both painfully slight and lacking any deeper meaning beyond surface-level morals.  While it is technically a superior film to Cars 2, that film was arguably a 'one for me' project with Pixar founder John Lasseter indulging his love of the Cars universe and his love of old-school spy pictures.  Brave is an artistically superior picture that is still pales in comparison to both the better efforts from both Pixar itself and the various animation rivals (Blue Sky, Dreamworks, Illumination, etc.) nipping at its heels.

Pixar/Disney debuts four Monsters University teasers at once.

Officially it's because Billy Crystal gave them enough improv material to cut four teasers, and I suppose there is some charm in walking into Brave on Friday not knowing which teaser you're going to get.  "Billy Crystal's an amazing comedic actor," remarked Dan Scanlon, Director, Disney•Pixar's Monsters University. "He gave us so much fun material, we decided to cut four slightly different versions of the trailer. We are so happy to have him back as Mike!". Allison hasn't been keen on watching Monsters Inc., due to the whole 'monsters = scary' meme.  But perhaps seeing this comedic teaser might change her mind.  The differences below are limited to one single line of dialogue, but I suppose that means the trailer can be released to Yahoo, Disney, Huffington Post, and iTunes all at the same time as 'exclusive'.  Anyway, say what you will about the depressing fact that Pixar is following up the disliked Cars 2 and the critically-mixed Brave with a needless prequel, but the idea of Pixar doing a college comedy has some token merit.  Anyway, Monsters University opens on June 21st, 2013.  As always, we'll see.  The trailers are after the jump.

Scott Mendelson

Good is not the enemy of Perfect: An examination of and a defense of Dreamworks Animation and their 24 films thus far.

As the initial reviews for Pixar's Brave roll in (again, I'm waiting till opening day to take the kid), it's clear that the film is both pretty solid and somewhat disappointing considering the uber-high standards that Pixar has set for itself.  I personally think it's almost dangerous to go into a Pixar film expecting each one to be as good as Up, but I digress.  One of the running themes of said reviews is that the film is merely 'Dreamworks good'.         If you think that's supposed to be an insult, it is. The meme for the last decade or so is that Dreamworks is not just inferior to Pixar (probably true overall), but a genuinely mediocre producer of mass-market animated films that constantly engages in some of the worst practices of mainstream animation.  But as we examine the last fourteen years of Dreamworks Animation, it becomes clear that their reputation is somewhat unfair, akin to judging Pixar based on Cars.  Dreamworks Animation may not have the sheer number of masterpieces as Pixar, but their 24 animated features (double Pixar's output) show a remarkable range of both quality and variety.  They truly are more than just the worst parts of Shrek the Third and the best parts of How to Train Your Dragon.

Can't wait until June 22nd, eh? Via books and toys, Disney/Pixar's Brave spoils itself a month before release.

The first round of press screenings for Pixar's Brave start tomorrow night.  I won't be in attendance, and I probably won't be attending any press screenings.  It is a cruel irony that my daughter is now old enough to go to press screenings with me and actually wants to go to press screenings with me, yet 90% of what I would take her to is now shown in 3D for media audiences.  In short, the few times we watched a 3D movie, she took the glasses off 15-minutes in and watched the rest of the film in blurry-vision.  Since she wants to see Brave, it just makes sense for me to wait for a Friday June 22nd late-afternoon 2D matinee.  Alas, the whole 3D hassle also prevents me from taking her to whatever cool stuff the El Capitan is doing this time around, but I digress.  On the plus side, if I just can't wait until June 22nd, I can just read the movie right now.  Wait, what?

Unequal equivalency: Why 'girls can do anything boys can do' sends a harmful, not positive, message to girls and women.

"Why is this okay?"  It was a random thought that I had while watching the final twenty minutes of Snow White and the Huntsman.  I suppose I should put a spoiler warning, but if you've seen even a single commercial or trailer you know that during the third act Snow White dons a suit of armor and rides into battle on horseback.  It's not that I took any offense at the notion, but I sat in the theater last night wondering why this kind of revisionism was completely acceptable for Snow White but not for James Bond.  Simply put, if someone tried to make an 'Elseworlds' version of James Bond where he was a British (or American?) spy during the 1880s and engaged in action-fueled espionage in a wild-west setting, I'd imagine the film punditry world would be in a tizzy.  And let's not even try to imagine what would happen if someone tried to make a Superman movie where Krypton didn't explode, Lex Luthor was a CIA agent who was actually an alien, and Superman wore a spacesuit from which he received most of his powers, because J.J. Abrams wrote wrote just such a script that sent the Internet into pandemonium back in 2003.  The geek community (and arguably the mainstream media outlets in a desperate attempt to be 'down' with the geeks) explodes with outrage at any alleged deviation from their beloved source material.  Spider-Man has organic web shooters... horror!  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles might actually be from outer-space in their next movie... shock!  James Bond drinks a beer Skyfall... gasp!  But Alice (in Wonderland) dons armor and kills a dragon and no one cares.  Snow White dons armor and rides on horseback into a medieval battle scenario and no one cares.

The summer blockbuster no one sees coming...

By the time Madagascar 3 is released in America on June 8th, it will have been just over three months since the last major family-friendly film.  Mirror Mirror ($159 million and counting off an $85 million budget) and Pirates: Band of Misfits ($23 million here and $85 million overseas off a $55 million budget) certainly weren't flops, but we've seen what amounts to a dearth of family fare over 2012.  Surely that's due to the epic traffic jam that was pre-summer 2011, which saw six major animated features (Gnomeo and Juliet, Rango, Mars Needs Moms, Hop, Rio, and Hoodwinked 2) debuting between February and April, all of which were somewhat handicapped by the sheer volume of concurrent product.  This year we didn't have a single major *new* kid-friendly feature until March 2nd, as as a result Universal's The Lorax powered to an eye-popping $70 million in its opening weekend before ending up with $209 million domestic.  We are currently in the middle of another similar drought.

Press Release: Disney/Pixar's Brave to premiere on June 18th at grand opening of the new Dolby Theatre.

WORLD PREMIERE • GRAND OPENING

June 18, 2012

World Premiere of Disney•Pixar’s “Brave” Heads to Hollywood

for Grand Opening of the Dolby Theatre

Epic Action Adventure Joins 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival Lineup

BURBANK, Calif. and SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (May 18, 2012) – Disney•Pixar’s “Brave,” a groundbreaking adventure full of humor, heart and breathtaking action, extends its pioneering spirit to its world premiere on June 18, 2012, marking the Grand Opening of Hollywood’s Dolby® Theatre^SM. The red-carpet event is a special presentation for Film Independent’s 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival. Premiering in Dolby 3D, a state-of-the-art imaging solution providing audiences with a superior 3D experience, “Brave” is an epic tale set in the mystical Scottish Highlands where the film’s headstrong protagonist, Merida, is forced to discover the meaning of true bravery. The film hits theatres nationwide on June 22, 2012.

“With a spirited heroine and enchanting setting in the ancient Scottish Highlands, ‘Brave’ represents some exciting firsts for Pixar,” said Ricky Strauss, president, marketing, The Walt Disney Studios. “We are proud that the world premiere of ‘Brave’ will serve as the inaugural premiere at the new Dolby Theatre as part of the LA Film Festival, a fitting way to launch Merida’s extraordinary adventure.”

Pixar's Brave gets a tonally awkward and redundant trailer.

The first 90 seconds of this 2.5-minute trailer is basically a distilled version of what's either the first act or the two reel of the film.  It's all stuff we've seen before, with an emphasis on light comedy and the lead's feeling of gender-based disenfranchisement.  But at around the 90-second mark, the trailer completely shifts gears and tries to arbitrarily sell a mythic fantasy picture, despite little in the footage to sell that.  Yes, I like the Celtic music, but putting somber, moving music in a series of somewhat random images does not make a trailer feel epic.  There's obviously a lot that Pixar/Disney isn't revealing in regards to the second half of the first, and more power to them for that.  But if you want to be cryptic, just stop cutting trailers and sell the film based on what you have.  

Come back from where? How the 'Brave is/must be Pixar's comeback' meme plays into the horse-race mentality of pop-culture.

It's no secret that America loves a comeback narrative.  The only thing mass-media (and its audience) loves more than taking celebrities down a peg is watching them theoretically rise up from the ashes.  I'd argue that the media intentionally creates 'great falls' for allegedly important people purely for the purpose of trumpeting their would-be comeback.  We especially see this in the coverage of political elections where a non-stop horse-race mentality keeps candidates who have no plausible shot of victory making imaginary strides so that the inevitable front-runner can make a 'comeback' victory in this-or-that primary.  We see this in an entertainment journalism arena which declared Christina Aguilera's career in dire straights after a single month of crappy occurrences.  It wasn't just "she's having a bad month" but rather "she's hit rock bottom but she's going to have a grand comeback!" which tied into her joining NBC's The Voice.  Point being, a comeback, at least an artistic one, is predicated on a series of professional disappointments and/or a prolonged period of unwilling under-employment.  John Travolta's star-turn in Pulp Fiction and his several years of peak-stardom was a 'comeback'.  Senator Hillary Clinton winning the New Hampshire presidential primary in January 2008 after losing a single primary a week prior in Iowa was not a comeback.  As such, can we please stop referring to Brave as 'Pixar's comeback film' and/or implying that Pixar really needs to knock it out of the park with Brave lest their entire artistic reputation be undone?