Box Office Mojo reports that Fox have slotted in two new Blue Sky Studios films for release on 15th July, 2016 and 7th April, 2017 respectively. The 2016 film is called Anubis, and the 2017 one (which is being directed by Rio's Carlos Saldanha) is called Ferdinand.
Anubis - Kyle Ostrum points out - is as Egyptian as it sounds, based on the book The Anubis Tapestry: Between Twilights by Bruce Zick, and has been in the works at Blue Sky since 2008. Ferdinand is based on the Munro Leaf book The Story of Ferdinand, about a pacifist bull in bullfighting territory. The story has actually been previously adapted to animated film, with the 1938 Oscar-winning Disney short, Ferdinand the Bull (embedded below). Saldanha will presumably begin full time work on the film when he's wrapped next spring's Rio 2 - watch the teaser trailer for that film here.
In related news, Blue Sky's Fox stablemate, DreamWorks, have shunted some of their extensive upcoming release schedule around, moving B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations - which stars the voice of Seth Rogen - up from a 25th September, 2015 release to 5th June that year. That date was previously occupied by the studio's Trolls film, which will now open more than a year later, on 4th November, 2016.
In the meantime, Blue Sky's Epic opens a week yesterday (24th May), and DreamWorks' Turbo opens 17th July (US)/18th October (UK).
I don't hate Blue Sky but for me they have been a one time wonder studio. The only film I really like from them is the first Ice Age. I'm not saying all their other films are bad but I'm not impressed with any of them. Sure the Ice Age sequels are funny (especially Dawn of the Dinosaurs) and both Horton and Rio have their charms but they're nothing compared to films released by Pixar, Disney Animation and Dreamworks.
ReplyDeleteI hope their future films have better storytelling. I just saw Epic and I was disappointed with the film. Great animation but story-wise, it has many problems.
I can say the same thing about Illumination Entertainment and if Despicable Me 2 dissapoints this summer, it will join Blue Sky as my two least favorite animation studios.
See, I'm a big lover of Blue Sky. I love Ice Age, and like the second one. I adored Robots when I was younger - not so much now, but I still enjoy it. I was very, very fond of both Horton and Rio, and I do have quite high hopes for Epic.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, they're not on par with the top 3. And Illumination are yet to do anything worthwhile other than Despicable Me.