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Animation remains a thriving corner of the industry for aspiring professional artists even if, as a career, breaking in has never been harder. “There are just not as many entry-level positions at this point when you think about all the work that’s been offshored over the years,” says Jinko Gotoh, an Oscar-nominated producer and vp at Wia, an organization that advocates for gender equity in animation, VFX and gaming. “As the industry shrinks and the demand for content shrinks, those positions shrink.”

Animation is at an inflection point as it continues grappling with the ongoing impacts of such market forces — not to mention the growing presence of AI. Schools and organizations like Wia and Asifa-Hollywood (which produces the Oscars of animation, the Annie Awards) are already addressing this game-changer with additional courses, industry events and multiyear studies. “It’s my responsibility to say to students, ‘Look, that threat will remain and grow,...

Quick LinksSebastian in Disney’s The Little Mermaid Originally Had a Different AccentOne of Disney’s Lead Animators Was Initially Unhappy With an Iconic SequenceWalt Disney Wanted to Make The Little Mermaid in His Lifetime

The Little Mermaid was a hallmark film for Disney. It introduced a new Disney Princess to audiences and was a financial boon for the studio in 1989. The Little Mermaid also successfully rebooted the Disney musical, a formula the studio had moved away from in previous years. It was also the first Disney film to which songwriting team Howard Ashman and Alan Menken lent their talents. Some might argue that a more perfect Disney film could not have been made.

It may be hard to believe that the final vision for The Little Mermaid was a long time coming. Walt Disney had originally envisioned the film being made in his lifetime. And even some of the...

The Beast's human form is reimagined in a new piece ofBeauty and the Beast art. The influential 1991 Disney animated feature followed a young woman named Belle who is held by a terrifying beast in his castle, only to uncover his true self as she spends time with him. In Beauty and the Beast, the titular monster voiced by Robby Benson was a vain, self-centered prince who was cursed alongside his loyal staff by a sorceress for his unkindness, and only true love could break the spell.

Artist @BleydhDu on X/Twitter recently shared their own reimagining of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, envisioning how they feel the Beast should truly look when restored to a human. As opposed to the long-haired, cleanly shaven man who was originally designed for the movie, this version of the human Beast is built closer to his monstrous form, with a beard and similar facial structure.

Fumi Kitahara, the animation publicist who guided award-winning campaigns for DreamWorks, Aardman, Laika, Netflix, Disney and independent studios during her distinguished 30-plus years in the industry, has died. She was 56.

Kitahara died Monday in Los Angeles of complications related to her long battle with a rare blood cancer, a spokesperson for Walt Disney Animation announced.

Among the many acclaimed animated features she helped to publicize are the first three Shrek films, Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, How to Train Your Dragon, Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings, Over the Moon and The Sea Beast.

She also oversaw the awards campaigns for numerous Oscar-winning shorts, including such recent titles as The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse and War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko.

Born on March 2, 1968, Kitahara graduated from California State University Northridge with a degree in business marketing.

Quick LinksDisney's Bolt Was a Successful But Almost Forgotten Disney FilmDisney's Bolt Helped Save Walt Disney Animation in the Early 2000sDisney's Bolt Has a Similar Premise to Disney • Pixar’s Toy Story

It's possible only Disney fans remember Bolt(2008). One of the first fully computer-generated movies Disney produced without the partnership of Pixar in the early 2000s. The studio was struggling to make the transition from hand-drawn animation to CGI at the time, and Bolt gave the studio the boost it needed. Starring John Travolta and a young Miley Cyrus, the movie follows a dog who believes he has the same superpowers as his TV persona. It premiered on November 17, 2008, at Disney's El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, and ranked third at the box office in its opening weekend.

Critically and financially, it was a hit for Disney. However, over the years, a shadow has fallen over Bolt, and it's...

The concept of reference points in animation is common if you're in the know, but might surprise folks who don't have much experience with or knowledge of the history of the medium. Even the greatest and most talented illustrators have to start somewhere when creating a character, and it's no different for the craftspeople working for Walt Disney Animation Studios. In the early eras of Disney animation, reference points were often live actors or animals. In the cases of "Bambi" and "Dumbo," for example, if you check out the 1941 film "The Reluctant Dragon" (a movie that was itself bizarrely censored for one particular animated detail), you can see animators literally watching how deer and elephants move so they can accurately capture those minute details in designing the titular characters. 

As the world approached the 21st century, however, Disney animators started to look not just to real people, but to specifically...

Exclusive: Academy Award-winning NYC studio Believe Entertainment Group has signed with Verve for representation.

The news follows the announcement of a Grammy nomination for the company’s Peacock documentary Kings from Queens: The Run Dmc Story in the Best Film Music category.

Believe has previously won both an Oscar and an Emmy for Dear Basketball, the animated short film written and created by the late NBA star Kobe Bryant, which animation legend Glen Keane directed and animated, with a score by John Williams. The company also garnered Emmys for PBS’s American Anthems docuseries, co-produced with NBCUniversal Syndication Studios, and YouTube Kids’ Jam Van.

Other standout projects for Believe Entertainment Group include the two-time Emmy-nominated documentary Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kids, Peacock’s New York Yankees doc The Bronx Zoo ’90: Crime, Chaos and Baseball, Comedy Central and Paramount+’s scripted comedy feature Office Race,...

Actor Tom Cruise is a pop-culture icon and one of the most successful actors ever to enter Hollywood. Disney has long been a powerhouse of production, dating back to its first major hit, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937. Despite Tom Cruise's notoriety and Disney's massive scale, the two have never worked together on a production. Yet, the two do connect in one sense.

Tom Cruise inspired one of Disney's most recognized Princes. We will look at the Hollywood icon that is Tom Cruise, how he (sort of) made it as the star of one of Disney's biggest hits, and other actors who have gotten the same treatment from the House of Mouse.

Tom Cruise Remains One Of Hollywood's Biggest Actors

One would be hard-pressed to think of an actor who has had a greater impact on modern American cinema than Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise has remained a staple in the industry,...

Isn’t it true that the luster of a gold medal or the gleam of a golden statuette can pale in comparison to the enduring legacy of true legends? Dwayne Johnson has not yet clinched an Oscar, and Anthony Edwards’ basketball mastery went without an Olympic Gold’s embrace, but their names are etched into the annals of greatness, unblemished by the absence of these accolades.

They serve as shining beacons to remind us that while awards are the cherry on top, it’s the sundae of one’s influence and contributions that truly matter.

Kobe Bryant | Instagram: @kobebryant

Within the electrifying arenas of sports and arts, a remarkable feat that stands as a beacon of versatility & mastery is being the recipient of multiple industry awards. Recently, a social media video spotlighted Kobe Bryant for clinching both an Olympic gold and an Oscar, drawing awe and admiration toward a...

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

"The pitch for the story was a lion cub gets framed for murder by his uncle set to the music of Elton John. People said, 'What? Good luck with that.'" That's what producer Don Hahn said to Film School Rejects in 2018 of Disney's 1994 animated classic "The Lion King." It's an odd thing to say, given that it went on to become one of the most successful animated movies of all time. But that's looking back at it with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, it was viewed as a risk by the powers that be. It was a gamble that paid off handsomely, to put it lightly.

At the time, Disney was enjoying a fruitful period known as the Disney Renaissance,...

Exclusive: Former UTA agent Anna Berthold-Zuk has joined Stampede Ventures as Executive Vice President of Animation and Kids & Family, the company’s President Chris Bosco announced on Thursday.

In her new role, Berthold-Zuk will guide Stampede’s existing kids & family initiatives and oversee expansion in this space as she continues to build out additional creator-driven ventures aimed at launching new franchises. Additionally, she will work to find ways to overcome current hurdles in the kids & family business by building out strategic ventures necessary to support the launch of said franchises in the wake of continual constriction within the industry.

Berthold-Zuk’s appointment bolsters Stampede’s ability to expand its Kids & Family reach in tandem with their existing ventures including Mo Willems’s Hidden Pigeon Company with RedBird Capital Partners and HappyNest Entertainment, a co-venture with UTA, which Berthold-Zuk helped put together. Looking ahead, she will work closely with Sadaf Cohen Muncy,...

Once upon a time, Netflix was in the business of auteur-driven animation, allowing filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro work on his dream project "Pinocchio," giving Henry Selick his first movie in 13 years after Disney killed his previous project, letting Charlie Kaufman deliver an existential kids' animated movie in "Orion and the Dark," and rescuing "Nimona" after Disney pulled the plug. The streamer has partnered with the likes of Glen Keane, Sergio Pablos, Richard Linklater, Chris Williams, Craig McCracken, and Jorge R. Gutiérrez, but a name that won't join this list anytime soon is legendary filmmaker David Lynch.

Speaking with Deadline, Lynch offered an update on his long-gestating animated movie "Snootworld," which he's been teasing since at least 2009. Lynch co-wrote the script for his animated feature debut with Caroline Thompson ("The Nightmare Before Christmas"), with Lynch penning the second of the film's three acts.

"I like this story. It's something that...

Thanksgiving weekend featured an animation face-off between a titan of the industry, the 100-year-old Walt Disney Animation Studios, and a relative upstart, Netflix, which only started releasing its own animated features in 2019.

Disney’s holiday movie, “Wish,” was a musical extravaganza featuring the watercolor backgrounds of the studio’s past combined with cutting-edge CGI, while Netflix’s “Leo” was a more budget-conscious musical set in modern-day Florida.

It was a showdown of theatrical versus streaming, legacy studio versus blustery upstart, fairy tale versus contemporary storytelling. And the results were startling.

While “Wish” came in third at the box office with a disappointing $31.6 million, the Adam Sandler-starring “Leo” debuted to 34.6 million views (which is hours viewed divided by total runtime), according to Netflix, which in box office terms equaled a haul of around $500 million for its opening weekend, one insider with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap. “Leo” has been...

Throughout her career, actor Ming-Na Wen has been a consistent presence on-screen, not only in a variety of live-action projects, but in animation as well. Beginning in 1998 with Disney's Mulan, Wen has lent her voice to a wide range of animated films and series, making her uniquely qualified to narrate the new documentary film Pencils vs. Pixels, which chronicles the history and evolution of the animation industry. Featuring a who's-who of animation industry heavyweights including Glen Keane, John Musker, Pete Docter, Seth MacFarlane, Kevin Smith, and Jorge R. Gutierrez just to name a few, the film examines the shift from hand-drawn animation to computer-generated images, through the eyes of the animators and creators that lived through the seismic shift.

Fans of animation are bound to perk up while watching Pencils Vs Pixels. The new documentary is a celebration of all the intricacies involved in 2D hand-drawn animation. It also unwraps the Disney Renaissance that emerged in late 1980s and early 1990s, which gave birth to a major animation boom, which later fueled the computer animation revolution that exists and thrives today.

The documentary, directed by Phil Earnest and Bay Dariz, is narrated by Ming-Na Wen (Mulan). It features a stellar posse of legendary artists who brought what are now considered classic films to life. If you appreciate in-depth and illuminating documentaries, Pencils Vs Pixels is a great go-to as it guides audiences through the last few decades of animation and into the future possibilities of the medium that's yet to come. Phil Earnest and Bay Dariz shared more about the documentary in this exclusive MovieWeb interview.

Showcasing the Animators...

"Pencils Vs Pixels" is a new documentary that celebrates 2D hand-drawn animation and the journey from Disney Renaissance to computer animation revolution. The film features renowned animators and Hollywood names such as Seth MacFarlane, Pete Docter, John Musker, Glen Keane, and Sergio Pablos. "Pencils Vs Pixels" provides insights into the evolving methods of animation and explores the future of this art form.

From Strikeback Studios and Hideout Pictures comes the trailer for Pencils Vs Pixels, a new documentary that showcases the animators that bring your most favorite characters to life. The documentary is a celebration of 2D hand-drawn animation and the transformative journey from the Disney Renaissance to the computer animation revolution... and the inspiring future yet to come. Check out the newly released trailer for Pencils Vs Pixels below:

Alongside the trailer, you can also check out the official synopsis for Pencils Vs Pixels below, which details the scope...

“Moana” and “Raya and the Last Dragon” producer Osnat Shurer has left the Magic Kingdom.

She has joined Baobab Studios, where she will serve as co-chief creative officer alongside company founder and Cco Eric Darnell, a DreamWorks veteran who worked as a director on “Antz” and every “Madagascar” film (including “Penguins of Madagascar”).

Shurer joined Disney more than a decade ago as a VP of development, having come from Pixar where she oversaw short films like the Oscar-nominated “Boundin’” and “Lifted.” She also worked on shorts that appeared on the studio’s home video releases like “Jack Jack Attack,” written and directed by Brad Bird, which appeared on the home video release of “The Incredibles.”

Baobab Studios describes itself as “the leading interactive animation studio” and has produced a number of award-winning VR experiences. At Baobab Shurer joins Maureen Fan, the chief creative officer (she is a veteran of game...

Osnat Shurer, an Oscar-nominated producer of Disney Animation’s Moana and Raya and the Last Dragon, has joined Baobab Studios as co-chief creative officer, alongside company founder and Cco Eric Darnell (Madagascar).

Previously, Shurer served as Walt Disney Feature Animation’s vp development and as executive producer of the short films group at Pixar, where she produced or executive produced shorts such as 2006’s Lifted and 2003’s Boundin’.

As she joins interactive animation studio Baobab, Shurer joins creative leaders including Darnell, chief content officer Kane Lee and advisors and investors such as Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull and Disney legend Glen Keane.

“We are thrilled to welcome Osnat to Baobab,” said Maureen Fan, CEO and co-founder of the studio. “She has a gift for launching franchises with beloved characters that resonate across ages and cultures. Osnat’s extensive background brings invaluable expertise to our growing story franchises across film, television, games and books.

Indie animation studio Baobab Studios has brought in Oscar-nominated producer Osnat Shurer (Moana) to serve as Co-Chief Creative Officer alongside Cco Eric Darnell (Madagascar).

Boasting 30+ years of experience in animation, Shurer comes to the company from Walt Disney Feature Animation, where she served as VP of Development, having simultaneously held a role as the executive producer of the short films group at Pixar. Going forward, she’ll be part of a creative brain trust which includes Darnell and Kane Lee (Chief Content Officer), and such advisors and investors as Ed Catmull and Oscar-winning filmmaker Glen Keane, among others.

Among the first projects Shurer will work on at Baobab are the Momoguro multiplatform franchise, which includes a digital collectibles game, an upcoming Roblox game, and a TV series in development, and two falling under a TV development deal with Disney+.

Blue Whales: Return Of The Giants 3D takes viewers on a journey of a lifetime to explore the world of the magnificent blue whale, a species rebounding from its near extinction. Following two scientific expeditions—one to find a missing population of blues off the exotic Seychelles Islands, the other to chronicle whale families in Mexico’s stunning Gulf of California—the film transforms our understanding of the largest animal ever to have lived. From its almost incomprehensible size to its spectacular feeding habits; from the surprising role it plays in the health of our oceans to its awesome long-distance communications, the film provides an unforgettable window into the lives these animals live—and the extremes scientists must endure to study them. Joined by a cast of supporting characters—from dolphins and sperm whales to sea lions and orcas—the blue whale finally gets its star turn … in life size,...

As part of the final full day of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Disney debuted a whopping 20 minutes of its upcoming animated feature “Wish.” Meant as a celebration of Walt Disney Animation Studio’s legacy, with nods to its illustrious past, it also marks a bold step forward visually for the studio, incorporating a painterly art style that sets it apart from virtually every other computer-animated movie in the library.

Originally announced at D23 Expo in 2022, back then what exactly “Wish” was remained fuzzy. During that presentation, it was mentioned that the movie would make nods to the company’s past but that it would be an original musical fairy tale, full of characters both dashing and devilish. Also that it would serve as a kind of origin story for the wishing star that has been featured in so many Disney classics. It was intriguing and confounding in equal measure.

Ming-Na Wen, who voiced Mulan in Disney’s animated feature of the same name, is set to narrate a new documentary titled “Pencils Vs Pixels.”

Co-directed by Bay Dariz (“Hypochondriac”) and Phil Earnest, “Pencils Vs Pixels” is a celebration of 2D hand-drawn animation.

The documentary, which will have its world premiere at Annecy International Animation Film Festival next week, will explore the Disney-led 2D animation boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s which was soon eclipsed by the dawn of computer animation. But, as the film shows, a resurgence of 2D animation suggests there is still hope for the medium.

The documentary features interviews with the great and good of the animation world including Pete Docter, John Musker (“The Little Mermaid”), Tony Bancroft (“Mulan”), Jorge R. Gutiérrez (“The Book of Life”), Seth MacFarlane (“Family Guy”), Glen Keane (“Beauty and the Beast”), Tina Price (“Hercules”), Lorna Cook (“Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron...

Exclusive: The animation indie behind Netflix’s Trash Truck and My Dad the Bounty Hunter has been acquired by France Télévisions’ studio arm.

France.TV Studio becomes a majority owner of Dwarf Animation Studios, providing the animation producer and facility with a “more robust operational infrastructure and accelerating the long-term goal of building a creative hub in the South of France,” according to France.TV Studio. Financials were not disclosed and the deal is the France.TV Studio’s first acquisition.

France.TV Studio, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of French national broadcaster France Télévisions, will build out Dwarf’s front-end pre-production such as visual development and storyboarding, while sharing technical facilities.

Dwarf Animation Studio is best known for Netflix animation double My Dad the Bounty Hunter from Everett Downing and Trash Truck, which is EPd by Oscar-winning animation vet Glen Keane, along with Disney+ show Monsters at Work. The studio...

When people think of moments from Disney movies, they often focus on the sweeter examples. From Snow White dancing with Dopey to Jasmine and Aladdin discovering a whole new world, there's no shortage of adorable Disney scenes to choose from. Yet, as many Disney fans know, there's always been a darker side to the Mouse House's films. This comes through clearest in the studio's most frightening sequences, especially those that focus on the not-so-magical topic of death.

To some, the death of Bambi's mother remains a traumatic memory. For others, Mufasa's tragic demise in "The Lion King" left an inescapable mark on their youth. Whether they feature a dreadful antagonist's end or an adorable sidekick's demise, these moments deserve our admiration for giving us goosebumps well into our adult years. While we won't be focusing on any Pixar moments (since they deserve a spotlight of their own), there are...

Burny Mattinson, a Disney Legend who served as an animator, producer, director and story artist in his nearly 70-year career with the studio, died Monday at the age of 87 following a short illness. Disney announced his death on their official website.

The story goes that Mattinson, who was born in San Francisco in 1935, was transformed when his mother took him to see Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio” at the age of 6. He knew what he wanted to do. As Don Hahn, who produced some of Disney’s most beloved movies during the Disney Renaissance, said of Mattinson’s life: “His life could be a Disney movie: teenaged kid shows up at the Disney gate with his portfolio under his arm and stays for 70 years. He was our story sensei, a brilliant draftsman who showed us what it was like to grind on a story until it was right.”

Mattinson’s first...

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio topped the 50th Annie Awards for animation, collecting five prizes including best animation feature, direction (del Toro and Mark Gustafson), character animation, music and production design.

“Fuck,” said del Toro as he and Gustafson took the stage to accept the directing award. “I hope to stay with you as peers with this beautiful, beautiful craft we have.” He noted that he’s been directing for 30 years and “the most creative ideas-filled group I worked with is animation.” Del Toro added his hope is that the community pushes the medium for future generations and “change the way we are perceived as a medium, not for us, but for the people coming up.” He got laughs and cheers as he wrapped by exclaiming, “Can I say, I wanted an Annie so much!”

Also Saturday at UCLA’s Royce Hall, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On won three awards,...

The early 2000s were a weird time for everyone -- Disney included. Like an exhausted millennial desperately rephrasing their resume, Walt Disney Animation Studios was eager to latch onto anything that would permit the company a new lease on life. For context, the Disney Renaissance, which began with "The Little Mermaid" in 1989 and shuttered its majestic doors with "Tarzan" in 1999, was over and the studio wanted to prove it could create stories that were more than musically charged fantasies. What's more, Disney also wanted to explore more computer-generated imagery or, as it's better known, CGI. Throw in an increasingly voracious audience with a highly specific hunger for science-fiction and, well, two and two makes four.

Look, this is a gross exaggeration of how Disney functioned in the early 2000s. It seems like the company was working with a strict "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" mentality. Nothing...

It’s nearly Christmas, which means it’s time to watch Christmas movies, sip hot chocolate, and cosy up in the pleasant weather. From Scrooge: A Christmas Carol to The Christmas Chronicles 2 here are a list of fun titles on Netflix that are the perfect watch for the holiday season.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without carol singing, right? Directed by Stephen Donnelly and starring Luke Evans, Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley in lead roles. Scrooge: A Christmas Carol is a Netflix musical animated movie. An adaptation of Charles Dickens novel Holiday Chestnut, the story centres around Ebenezer Scrooge, a selfish miser who is presented with an opportunity to fix his past mistakes and improve his future by an unexpected guest.

Holiday Home Makeover with Mr. Christmas

Netflix’s Holiday Home Makeover with Mr. Christmas is a lighthearted drama about an interior designer featuring Benjamin Bradley as Mr. Christmas.

The BAFTA has revealed nominations for its Children and Young People Awards, which are returning for the first time in three years.

The BBC’s “Dodger” and “The Snail and the Whale” lead with three nominations each, followed by two nominations for “The Amazing World of Gumball,” “Jamie Johnson,” “JoJo & Gran Gran” and “Silverpoint.”

The ceremony will take place in London on Nov. 27, where 14 categories will be awarded in recognition of craft, performance, and games. All awards are voted on by BAFTA’s membership of children’s industry professionals. The ceremony will be hosted by TV and radio presenter Lindsey Russell.

Faraz Osman, chair of the BAFTA Children and Young People Committee, said: “It is a real joy to bring together the industry and celebrate the creativity and craft behind its recent output, especially after the pandemic, where children’s programming played a monumental role in family support. Through the...

The Disney Renaissance was a time of great experimentation for the Mouse House — one that saw its animation division tackling all sorts of challenging material, from ancient legends spanning cultures around the world to decidedly dark and mature literary classics by Victor Hugo and Edgar Rice Burroughs. But with great daring comes the risk of committing equal-sized blunders, and that's just what the studio did when it decided to turn the tale of the real-life Indigenous American woman Pocahontas (a nickname passed down by her father) into an animated musical extravaganza.

That's not just the hindsight talking. "Pocahontas" earned a lackluster critical reception upon its theatrical release in 1995, with reviews arguing it was stunningly animated but otherwise lacking in personality. The film's reputation has only worsened over the decades thanks to its soft-peddling of the violence perpetuated by European colonialism, along with its rehashing of Indigenous American stereotypes. Adding insult to injury,...

Many media outlets like ESPN (plus many of their on-air hosts), TMZ and even NBA.com are reporting that NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal and current superstar Steph Curry won Oscars on Sunday. But that is simply Not true. When “The Queen of Basketball” took the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short on Sunday night, the only person to receive an actual Oscar was Ben Proudfoot, the director and producer. He was also the person accepting the award at the ceremony.

SEEOscar winners list (plus all the nominees)

The Oscars website (see photo above) and the IMDb awards section confirm that Proudfoot is the only person credited with an Academy Award win. Adam Segal from the 2050 Publicity Group and David Magdael from David Magdael and Associates, which handled all campaigning for the film, also confirm this information in an email to Gold Derby. O’Neal and Curry are credited...

Rich Ting (“Warrior”), Darren Barnet (“Never Have I Ever”) and Keiko Agena (“Better Call Saul”) have been tapped to lead the voice cast for the English-language dub of Netflix’s “The Summit of the Gods,” from César award-winning filmmaker Patrick Imbert.

Based on the acclaimed manga by Jirô Taniguchi and the novel by Baku Yumemakura, “The Summit of the Gods” poses the question, “Were George Mallory and his companion Andrew Irvine the first men to scale Everest on June 8th, 1924? Only the little Vestpocket Kodak camera they took with them might reveal the truth.”

“The Summit of the Gods” picks up in Kathmandu, 70 years after Mallory and Irvine’s journey, when a young Japanese reporter named Fukamachi Makoto (Barnet) recognizes the camera in the hands of the mysterious Habu Joji (Ting), an outcast climber believed missing for years. As the plot progresses, Fukamachi enters a world of obsessive mountaineers on...

Milt Kahl, Glen Keane, Marc Davis, and Eric Goldberg are just a handful of artists responsible for some of Disney's best and brightest animated features. Since most of the studio's beloved characters began their lives as sketches on a piece of paper, a bumper crop of artists has found a home at Walt Disney Pictures.

Related: 10 Best Disney Movies Of The Last Decade

In the past, Disney was known to reach out to well-known artists in the hopes of adding some extra visual flair to their productions, and movies like Alice In Wonderland, Fantasia, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire have benefited from the presence and involvement of many famous artists, some even finding their callings while working at the studio.

Star running back Reggie Bush, who became one of college sports’ most controversial athletes and gave up his Heisman Trophy award in the midst of an NCAA investigation into USC’s football program, says he’s “finally ready to tell my story.”

He’ll get that opportunity in an upcoming documentary film announced Wednesday from Believe Entertainment Group and director Kirk Fraser (ESPN’s 30 for 30: Without Bias). Bush, who played for the Trojans from 2003-2005 under head coach Pete Carroll, will serve as an executive producer on the project.

The untitled film promises to detail “the incredible untold story that led to Bush being erased from the NCAA record books and the heartbreaking loss of his Heisman Trophy.” Bush voluntarily surrendered the trophy—the most coveted in college football—in 2010 after the NCAA determined that sports agents had secretly provided Bush and members of his family with cash, travel and other expenses,...

Three new animated feature films and series from Asian American creators are coming to Netflix in 2023, including Stephen Chow’s “The Monkey King,” starring the voice talents of Jimmy O. Yang, Bowen Yang, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Jo Koy, Ron Yuan, Hoon Lee, Stephanie Hsu, Andrew Pang, Andrew Kishino, Jodi Long, James Sie and Bd Wong.

“The Monkey King” is inspired by the famous Chinese tale “Journey to the West,” in which a special monkey fights gods, demons, dragons — and his own hubris. The film is executive produced by Chow, with “Over the Moon’s” Peilin Chou and “How to Train Your Dragon 2’s Kendra Haaland producing. Anthony Stacchi (“The Boxtrolls”) is directing.

“The Monkey King has endured for generations with his unique character and spirit,” said Chow. I’m so excited to be collaborating with Tony, Peilin, and everyone at Netflix to bring this joyful tale to audiences worldwide!”

Additionally,...

The Oscar race for animated feature is between Pixar’s Black-led “Soul” and Cartoon Saloon’s hand-drawn Irish folktale, “Wolfwalkers” (co-produced by Apple Original Films). Both led Asifa-Hollywood’s prestigious Annie Awards, but the momentum is with “Soul.”

The other nominees include Pixar’s first fantasy, “Onward,” and two entries from Netflix: “Over the Moon,” the gorgeous musical fantasy about the Chinese Moon Goddess from Disney legend Glen Keane (Oscar winner for the “Dear Basketball” short), and Aardman’s “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon.”

With director/chief creative officer Pete Docter at the helm, Pixar accomplished its most ambitious film yet by contrasting gritty New York City with the ethereal Great Before. That’s the pre-birth training center where aspiring jazz pianist Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) finds himself after eluding death in The Great Beyond. He teams up with risk averse new soul, 22 (Tina Fey), on a journey...

Animation allows filmmakers to imagine vibrant new worlds that should induce amazement while still making sure the “audience can identify with the experience,” explains Disney legend Glen Keane, the director of Netflix’s Over the Moon.

For Keane, one of the scariest parts of this movie was creating Lunaria, the city on the moon. “How are you going to create a world that’s so outlandishly wonderful and new, not earthly, the equivalent of Oz?” Keane says. “And how do you create a city on the moon that doesn’t look like it was from Earth? No matter ...

Animation allows filmmakers to imagine vibrant new worlds that should induce amazement while still making sure the “audience can identify with the experience,” explains Disney legend Glen Keane, the director of Netflix’s Over the Moon.

For Keane, one of the scariest parts of this movie was creating Lunaria, the city on the moon. “How are you going to create a world that’s so outlandishly wonderful and new, not earthly, the equivalent of Oz?” Keane says. “And how do you create a city on the moon that doesn’t look like it was from Earth? No matter ...

When it was time to make the “Oz”-like leap on “Over to the Moon” from contemporary China to fantasy moonscape Lunaria, Disney legend Glen Keane introduced production designer Céline Desrumaux to the iconic CD cover of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” for inspiration. “I was taken by the design,” she said. “I could see the inky black darkness for the animation with that simple prism of white light and refracted colors. He said he had no idea what Lunaria looks like, but that it needs to be as bold as that cover.”

From there, Desrumaux began creating a backstory for Lunaria, home of the towering, diva-like Moon goddess, Chang’e (Phillipa Soo). According to their update of the Chinese fable, Chang’e takes a magic potion and spends eternity on the moon longing for her lover. When 12-year-old Fei Fei (Cathy Ang) mourns the passing of her mother,...

Netflix not only grabbed a ton of Oscar nominations for its live-action films, it also grabbed three noms for animated fare including “Over the Moon” and “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon.” They scored in the animated feature category alongside Disney/Pixar’s “Soul” and “Onward,” and GKids/Apple TV Plus’ “Wolfwalkers,” while “If Anything Happens, I Love You” is the frontrunner in animated shorts.

It’s an impressive haul for a part of the streaming giant that is relatively new.

“It’s hard to even find the words to describe how thrilling it is,” says Melissa Cobb, VP of kids and family entertainment at Netflix. She is an animation veteran who was brought over from DreamWorks in 2017 to lead the division.

“I started there about 3½ years ago, and for filmmakers to choose to entrust their film, but also their time — three or four years of their life that it...

Exclusive: Netflix is in development on the new animated musical Steps, with Amy Poehler producing and Alyce Tzue set to make her directing debut.

Poehler will produce through her Paper Kite Productions banner along with her partner Kim Lessing, with The Croods producer Jane Hartwell also producing. Riki Lindhome will pen the script from a story she wrote with Kate Micucci. Lindhome and Micucci also will exec produce and writing all the music in addition to overseeing it.

“We are so excited to be working with Netflix and the great Riki, Kate and Alyce on this joyful and much-needed story,” Poehler said.

The story is a spin on the classic Cinderella story. Two stepsisters are overlooked for marriage by the prince and embark on an epic journey, realizing that their own perfect fairytales might be different from what they originally thought.

“Our step-sisters are a pair of young Asian immigrants to a fairytale world,...

David Fincher’s monochromatic “Mank” dominated the Oscar crafts on Monday for Netflix, grabbing six nominations for Erik Messerschmidt’s cinematography, costume design, makeup and hair, production design, score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and sound. Paul Greengrass’ post-Civil War western, “News of the World,” followed with four nominations.

Netflix also did well by collecting three nominations apiece from Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, in addition to solo nominations from George Clooney’s sci-fi “The Midnight Sky” (visual effects), Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” (Terence Blanchard’s score), and “The Life Ahead (La Vita Davanti a Se),” as Diane Warren secured her 12th original song nomination for “Io Si (Seen).”

Significantly, Chloé Zhao’s Best Picture frontrunner, “Nomadland,” the recessionary road odyssey, scored two nominations for Joshua James Richards’ cinematography and her editing, which puts Zhao in a select...

Actor-producer Priyanka Chopra Jonas and singer, songwriter, and actor Nick Jonas announced the 93rd Oscars® nominations today (March 15), live from London, via a global live stream on Oscar.com, Oscars.org, the Academy’s digital platforms, an international satellite feed, and broadcast media.

Mank led the field with 10 nominations and becomes the seventh black-and-white film to be nominated for Costume Design and the seventeenth for Cinematography since separate categories for color and black-and-white films were merged in 1967. David Fincher’s film offers a vivid look at Hollywood in the 1930s when movie studios were at the height of their power and influence, and 100 million Americans went to the pictures every week.

Chopra Jonas and Jonas announced the nominees in 23 categories at 5:19 a.m. Pt. For a complete list of nominees, visit the official Oscars website, www.oscar.com.

Academy members from each of the 17 branches vote to determine the...

This morning, animation legend Glen Keane was up before the sun and learned that he’d scored his first Oscar nom for Best Animated Feature Film, for his debut feature — Netflix musical fantasy, Over the Moon.

“It’s pretty exciting. I tend to get up around four o’clock anyway, but this was something to get up at four o’clock for,” says the director. “I am just so thankful that [the Academy] recognized the beauty of this movie. It was such a labor of love.”

In conversation with Deadline, Keane shared his feeling that the message of his film is “the right one for this year: healing and love.”

“There’s a moment in the movie where Fei Fei says, ‘I just wish things could go back to the way they were,’ but we don’t go backwards, as we’re finding out,” he added. “We go forward, and it’s...

Exclusive: The late Audrey Wells was a prolific screenwriter and director whose work focused on strong female characters, from 2003’s Under the Tuscan Sun and 1999’s Guinevere through to 2018’s The Hate U Give. That trend continued with Over the Moon, Netflix’s animated musical about based on a Chinese myth about a determined 14-year-old girl named Fei Fei who, coping with the loss of her mother, builds a rocket ship and blasts off, hoping to meet a mythical moon goddess.

Wells was brought on to pen the screenplay in March 2016; by that time she had already known that she had cancer and that the script would be her final work.

After a trip to China for inspiration she turned in a draft nine months later. Peilin Chou, the producer who brought Wells aboard the project, remembered weeping after reading it.

“She told me it was the most important script she had ever written,...

A version of this story about “Over the Moon” first appeared in the Oscar Nominations Preview issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

Glen Keane draws. It’s the way he communicates. It’s how he started at Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1974, how he sketched Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” and the Beast’s transformation in “Beauty and the Beast,” and how he and Kobe Bryant won an Oscar for the hand-drawn short “Dear Basketball” in 2017.

And while his film “Over the Moon” is a large-scale and often dazzling computer-animated fantasy, it also contains a sequence early on that uses Keane’s line drawings to tell the story of the Chinese moon goddess Chang’e.

“When I was reading the script, I thought, ‘Ok, I am going to hang onto this little piece, and this is going to be my moment,'” he said. “For me, I need to get...

Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars from Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis. Following Academy Awards history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar predictions are updated regularly with the current year's contenders in all categories. Variety's Awards Circuit Prediction schedule consists of four phases, running all year long: Draft, Pre-Season, Regular Season and Post Season. Eligibility calendar and dates of awards will determine how long each phase lasts and will be displayed next to revision date.

To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Collective

Draft>>>Pre Season>>>Regular Season>>>Post Season

2021 Oscars Predictions:

Best Animated Feature

Updated: Mar. 4, 2021

Awards Prediction Commentary: “Over the Moon” continues to miss in a few key spots like art directors and could be that Oscar morning snub we aren’t anticipating, even with the love for Glen Keane pouring through the branch.

The directors of nine of the animated films under consideration for Academy Award nominations will discuss their craft in a free online PreVIEW event Friday, March 5, beginning at 10 a.m. Pt.

“Animated Features Oscar Contenders – A Directors’ Discussion,” presented by the View Conference, features Glen Keane (“Over the Moon”); Pete Docter and Kemp Powers (“Soul”), Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart (“Wolfwalkers”), Joel Crawford (“The Croods: A New Age”), Walt Dohrn (“Trolls World Tour”), Kris Pearn (“The Willoughbys”), Dan Scanlon (“Onward”), Gitanjali Rao (“Bombay Rose”), and Will Becher and Richard Phelan (“A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon”).

“The annual awards season always encourages lively discussion, and this year is no exception,” says View Conference director Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez. “It is such an honor for View Conference to host this conversation between 12 of our leading filmmakers. Their contribution to the art and craft of animated features is immeasurable, and I cannot...

This marks the fourth year that the entire membership of the academy can take part in the nomination stage of the Animated Feature Oscar race. Previously, only select members of the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch and invited members from the other branches could serve on the committee that decided the nominees. Collectively, the committee tended to favor traditional and stop-motion films over CG fare. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2021 Oscars predictions for Best Animated Feature.)

Mandatory attendance at screenings has been dropped and voters who want to be on the nominations committee need only attest to having seen all the contenders at theaters or screenings or by way of the the academy’s streaming site.

And the method of determining the nominees has been changed. Gone is the system where voters scored a film from 6 (poor) to 10 (excellent) with only those movies meriting an average mark of...

Pixar’s “Soul” and Apple/Gkids’s “Wolfwalkers” may have topped the Annie Award nominations with 10 each, but it was Netflix that walked away with the most nominations overall, picking up 40 across an array of projects.

Netflix scored six nominations each for its features “The Willoughbys” and “Over the Moon,” and three for “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon.” Other Netflix projects receiving nominations include “Hilda,” “The Midnight Gospel,” “Bojack Horseman,” “Big Mouth,” “Alien Xmas,” “Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy,” “The Christmas Chronicles 2,” “The Umbrella Academy,” “Bna,” “The Great Pretender,” “Blood of Zeus,” “Trash Truck,” “Buddi,” “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power,” “Fast & Furious: Spy Racers,” “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous,” “Tales of Arcadia: Wizards,” “Dragons Rescue Riders,” “Cops and Robbers” and “If Anything Happens I Love You.”

The next biggest studio tallies were Pixar and DreamWorks Animation with 20 nominations each, followed by Apple/Gkids with 10, Disney with nine,...