Turbo, Rio 2, Cloudy 2 and More At the Licensing Expo

Yesterday we posted the first look at Blue Sky Studios' upcoming animated feature, Epic, out of this year's Licensing Expo, however it seems we overlooked lots of others. /Film and comingsoon.net bring us some other great first looks, posters and promotional material for upcoming animated films.

Firstly, (top) we have our first look at DreamWorks' Turbo, which follows "an ordinary garden snail who dreams of becoming the fastest snail in the world". While I was greatly looking forward to this film, I'm somewhat more cautious now. The animation is very bright and vibrant, and it looks like a lot of fun; but it also looks very goofy, and the main character is dangerously close to pulling the "DreamWorks face" (see above). I also found a recently released poster for the film (top), which does nothing to allay my fears.

We also get posters for a lot of sequels. Including Blue Sky's Rio 2 (above), Sony's Cloudy 2: Revenge of the Leftovers (above) and The Smurfs 2 (below) and Illumination Entertainment's Despicable Me 2 (below - we actually got a large display for this one). All of what we see for these films, though, gives us nothing new; it merely displays a '2' and the characters from the original - I suppose Cloudy 2 gives us a subtitle...

I loved Rio and Despicable Me - they were both phenomenal - but, at this point, I'm not really that excited to see sequels. I'm sure they'll be handled well, but I'm going to need some more details before I invest in the projects. I haven't seen, and don't particularly want to see, The Smurfs and have zero interest in a sequel. However, the one I'm particularly excited for is Cloudy 2. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a surprise hit, it was a lot, lot better than the advertising led us to think it would be - and Sony Pictures Animation will presumably handle a sequel well.

And finally, we get another poster (above) for Sony's impending release, Hotel Transylvania.

Turbo is released on 19th July, 2013 (US) and 18th October, 2013 (UK); Rio 2 will premiere in Brazil on 28th March and on 4th April, 2014 worldwide; Cloudy 2 is due for release on 14th February, 2014; Despicable Me 2 is due on 28th June, 2013 (UK) and 3rd July (US); The Smurfs 2 will be in cinemas on 31st July 2013; finally, Hotel Transylvania is out much sooner, on 28th September (US) and 12th October (UK), of this year.

All release dates are via IMDb and are correct at the time of publishing.