This Week on A113Animation (17th - 23rd June, 2013)

This week has brought some cool stuff. Pun intended. Disney finally thawed the ice on Frozen, their winter animated release by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, releasing some new stills and the first trailer for the film. We also got trailers for The Lego Movie and Free Birds. As well as some Marvel news, Pixar's Monsters University opened this week, so there's unsurprisingly some posts about that. For all that, your usual features (and a new one) and more, check out our weekly recap below.

News

First Frozen stills released: Disney decided to make up for their hitherto lacking, non-existent Frozen advertising by coming out swinging this week - as such, they released five gorgeous stills from the film (on weather.com of all places). The stills show the film's main characters (princess, male lead, comedy sidekicks, villain, etc...) and give us a taste of what's to come. Have a gander yourself here.

Frozen teaser trailer released: Disney weren't stopping with the stills, they've got a lot of ground to make up and they know it, so we finally got to see the first trailer from the film! Alas, it was just a teaser, but it was a very fun, zany one, and co-director Jennifer Lee promises "Scope, scale, epic-ness to come" in a full length trailer in the next couple of months. Check out the teaser, which focuses on comic sidekicks Olaf and Sven, here.

John C. Reilly's the latest to head to space for Marvel's Guardians: Marvel's last pre-Avengers 2 film is still quite a way away, but it's slowly starting to take shape as an ever more impressive cast assembles around director James Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy. The Step Brothers star is the latest to join Karen Gillan, Glenn Close and Lee Pace aboard the super-team space opera, due August 2014. Check out the news here.

Teaser Trailer for The Lego Movie: This week was a week of several trailers, and the second one to debut was our first animated look at Warner Bros.'s The Lego Movie. The teaser gives us a look at the Legos at the centre of the film, voiced by Chris Pratt, Morgan Freeman, Will Arnett and Elizabeth Banks. The film is directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) and actually looks surprisingly fun. Watch the trailer for yourself here.

Billy Crystal and John Goodman promote Monsters U: Monsters University is in US cinemas now! So, as you'd expect, Disney and Pixar are going all out on a promotion blitz to try and make the monstrous prequel the next Toy Story 3 financially. So the film's voice stars have taken to promotion as well, and this week we shared an interview with Billy Crystal and a College Humor sketch with him and John Goodman. You can watch both here.

Free Birds trailer: The first film from new-on-the-block animation studio Reel FX was once called Turkeys. The film recently changed its name to Free Birds, unfortunately, that name change didn't help improve the quality of the film any. A trailer for the Thanksgiving-themed film came online this week, and we here at A113Animation aren't particularly fans. But you can judge for yourself here.

New story details on five upcoming Disney films: Via JoBlo, this week we got story some small but interesting story details on a range of upcoming Disney films. We now know the name of the titular dino in Pixar's The Good Dinosaur; we know a little bit more about what's going on in WDAS's Big Hero 6; Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy get detailed, and we learn some new story and casting bits about Kenneth Branagh's live action Cinderella film. Check all that out in much more detail here.

Robert Downey, Jr. official for Avengers 2: There's been a lot of back and forth over whether or not the star seemingly at the centre of Marvel Studios' magnificent success would return to play Iron Man again, and this week it was announced that Robert Downey, Jr. has finally signed on to play the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist at least two more times. The actor will appear in The Avengers 2 and The Avengers 3. We can only guess at just how lucrative a contract this is for him. Check out the news here.

Monsters U opens big for Pixar: Although many have cried out that Pixar have lost a bit of their magic in recent years (following Cars 2, that is), one place they've irrefutably never missed a step is at the box office and their latest film once again didn't disappoint in that regard. Monsters University is Pixar's fourteenth consecutive number 1 opening, and it took an impressive $82 million from the North American box office alone this past weekend. This one's gonna be big. More details here.

Features

French Animation, Chapitre 5 - The Illusionist: Damien this week reviews another French classic (admittedly a more recent one) by Sylvain Chomet, the 2010 Oscar-nominated The Illusionist. This is also, as it happens, the last in the series for a while, so check out the for-now final French Animation review here.

Munir's Disney Retrospective -- Animated Classic #23: The Rescuers: Munir is approaching the halfway point of his Disney Retrospective, and this week he reviews The Rescuers, a film which he calls "an underrated classic". Released in 1977, this was the last film the famed Nine Old Men of Disney animation worked on. Check out Munir's review of the film here.

Futurama, A Swan Song - Week 1: When someone closes a door, they open a window. As Damien brings his French Animation series to a close for now, he launches a new column: Futurama, A Swan Song. This new feature will mini-review each new episode of the final series of the beloved-but-doomed sci-fi comedy until the end. Check out the first week here.



Other

"Kiddie Fare": Why Animated Films Need to Be More Than Just 'Fun': Munir put together an editorial, exploring the main issues holding animation back from the respect it deserves. He puts forward that the films, good or bad, are largely written off as "fun". No more, no less. Check out this length opinion on why this is wrong, here.




It's taken a while to get edited, but look out for episode 2 of the A113Animation Podcast, talking Epic and a bunch of hot animation topics, tomorrow.