Disney had a very packed showing at CinemaCon this week, splashing details and footage from their Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar properties (although very little from their own animated films), but 20th Century Fox weren't slouching with the promotion for their own powerful animation stable either.
The corporation owns Ice Age creators Blue Sky Studios, and is currently the distributor for DreamWorks' animated offerings, so they had a lot to talk about at the event! A teaser trailer was released for next year's How to Train Your Dragon 2 (directed by Dragon 1 co-director, Dean DeBlois), which featured a teenage Hiccup interacting with Toothless. Dragon 2 hits cinemas on 20th June, 2014 (US)/4th July, 2014 (UK). Dragon 1 co-director Chris Sanders presumably won't be working on future instalments as he's now committed to returning to co-helm the recently green-lit Croods sequel.
Fox and DreamWorks also screened a teaser trailer for The Lion King co-director Rob Minkoff's Mr. Peabody and Sherman - that film, which stars the voice of Modern Family's Ty Burrell, opens on 7th March, 2014 in the US (and apparently 17th February in the UK), so expect the teaser to debut with Turbo this summer. They also showed the previously released trailer for Turbo (which releases on 19th July, this year, in the US, and 18th October in the UK) - watch that trailer here.
DreamWorks' Fox-stablemate, Blue Sky, unveiled a new logo (not the one in the header image), which apparently features "Ice Age's Scrat climbing up a blue surface which, when the shot pulls back, is revealed to be the edge of the "B" in the word "Blue."". They also screened some footage from their next film, Epic (check out the most recent trailer here), which is out on 24th May, 2013 (or 22nd in the UK).A teaser for Rio 2 also debuted, featuring its characters dancing to music against a plain background (yeah, because we've never seen that before in an animation trailer...). The Brazilian-bird sequel returns Carlos Saldanha to the director's chair and is due in 2014.
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| Image credit: Animation Fascination |
Fox Filmed Entertainment Chief Exec. Jim Gianopulos made a big deal out of Blue Sky's upcoming Peanuts feature, returning Charles Schulz's beloved characters to the big screen; he introduced the CG version of Charlie Brown - which is said to be very faithful to Schulz's drawings - warning the audience "prepare to have your minds blown." Peanuts, directed by Ice Age: Continental Drift's Steve Martino, will open in November 2015 (coinciding with the comic strip's 65th anniversary) - although don't be surprised if that date moves, they presumably don't want to go up against Finding Dory...
I'm particularly excited for Mr. Peabody and of course HTTYD 2. One disappointing thing though is that they didn't offer any news on Me and my Shadow which was supposedly coming next March (Is it being shelved or what?).
ReplyDeleteRegarding Blue Sky, Epic is looking better and better and the Peanuts movie should be interesting too. Not particularly excited with Rio 2 since I'm not very fond of the first one.
Me too! If only to see how the characters are handled in CG!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's been pushed back into development as a result of their financial woes. More here: http://www.a113animation.com/2013/02/dreamworks-woes-mr-peabody-pushed-back.html Sad news. Particularly given it was such an exciting sounding film!
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