This was a pretty mammoth week for animation news. Disney managed to both enrage and delight us, with some irritating release dates and remake news vs. exciting trailers and intriguing plot details; there were a few magnificent trailers, some intense posters, a crackpot theory and more! We've also got your latest Disney Retrospective and
Futurama, A Swan Song columns, and a review of Pixar's
Monsters University! Check out links to the past seven days of A113Animation shakings and happenings below.
News
Disney won't release Big Hero 6 in the UK until February 2015; my rant: We started the week on a low note. After a 3 month long wait last for
Wreck-It Ralph last year, Britons were allowed to hope, when we learned that we were getting
Frozen only a week after the States this year. This isn't lasting, however, as Disney's animated offering for next year won't arrive here until... well, not next year. The film starts playing in the UK on 15th February, 2015. Read my disgruntled editorial about the matter
here.
Aardman's Morph might be returning soon: Any Aardman news is good news. But good Aardman news is great news. This week we got an inkling, from Aardman co-founder and
Pirates! director Peter Lord, that one of the studio's earliest creations, Morph, might be gearing up for a comeback. The plasticine geezer who might be best remembered, by 90s kids anyway, as appearing on CBBC's SMart. Check out the full story
here.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier gets a poster: Thor sequel
The Dark World is next on Marvel's Phase 2 agenda, but a lot of the attention and a lot of the hype is gravitating towards the
Captain America follow-up,
The Winter Soldier. The film, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo (
You, Me and Dupree), has been said to have an espionage feel and be the closest thing to a direct sequel to the events of
The Avengers. Check out an intense teaser poster for the film
here.
Disney to remake The Jungle Book in live-action: The latest trend in Hollywood is remaking films and stories that Walt Disney made as animated pictures decades ago as new live-action films (strangely enough this isn't a trend just confined to Disney). In recent years we've seen
Alice in Wonderland and
Snow White and the Huntsman, we've got Kenneth Branagh's
Cinderella coming, villain-centric
Maleficent, a
Beauty and the Beast remake, and now, apparently,
The Jungle Book. Check out what we know so far
here.
French poster and trailer for Frozen: Not a lot of it's English-language, but we are getting lots of
Frozen advertising now. This week, a beautiful new (French) poster, focusing on the badass Snow Queen herself, for the film appeared online. Alongside the poster, we also get a redubbed, slightly edited version of the Japanese trailer we got for the film last week. Check both of them out, and marvel at just how brilliant Disney's 53rd animated feature is looking,
here.
Vin Diesel's Marvel meeting: Vin Diesel is a Hollywood badass about on par with The Rock or Jason Statham; he's dazzled and impressed in the
Fast and Furious films; now he might be about to go super. The star this week shared with his Facebook fans that he'd just been for a meeting with the Marvel top brass. That's all we know though, the rest is top secret. Nadine speculates on which Phase of the MCU Diesel will fit into; check that out
here.
First look at Disney's Mary Poppins true-story flick, Saving Mr. Banks: This project has been flying fairly low so far, but has been very highly anticipated nonetheless.
Saving Mr. Banks tells the untold story of Walt Disney's struggle to convince author P.L. Travers to allow the, now classic, film adaptation of
Mary Poppins to go ahead. Tom Hanks becomes the first man to portray Walt Disney on film, and Emma Thompson plays Travers. Check out our first look at the film
here
Titles, directors and plot details for Disney's animated slate up until 2018: This week brought one particular unexpected delight, as Blue Sky Disney broke several exciting new details about Walt Disney Animation Studios' slate of feature films post-
Big Hero 6.
Tangled directors Byron Howard and Nathan Greno each have their own project,
Zootopia and
Giants; we learned some concrete details and Ron and John's next film, and we heard our first words about the first film after that. Check all that out in exciting detail
here.
Official images and descriptions for the characters of Frozen: After some substantial French advertising earlier in the week, Disney released our first
official look at the characters of
Frozen. The wintery animated flick centres around two sisters, and we got character images and descriptions for them as well as an assortment of male characters, both friendly and villainous, and the film's animal sidekicks. Meet the characters of Disney's 53rd animated feature
here.
First trailer for Saving Mr. Banks: After giving us our first look at the film the day before, Disney then rolled out the trailer for
Saving Mr. Banks, showing us what the film will look and sound like in action. While, as one person pointed out,
"Tom Hanks doesn't seem to be playing Walt Disney so much as Tom Hanks... with a moustache," the trailer sets up a great premise, rooted in a real story, that seems to have slapped a smile on the face of nearly all Disney fans. Watch for yourself
here.
Teaser trailer for How to Train Your Dragon 2: From one end of the trailer spectrum to the other, DreamWorks released a teaser trailer for their follow-up to critical-darling
How to Train Your Dragon. The teaser tells us little to nothing about what will be happening in the film, only that, whatever it is, if it's at all like this, it's going to be epic. Thrilling, exhilarating and with great soundtrack accompaniment, make sure you check out the spectacular teaser trailer for
Dragon 2 here.
"The Pixar Theory" says the witch from Brave is Boo as a time-traveller and more: Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, the talking fish in
Finding Nemo existed in the same universe as the talking rats in
Ratatouille? Well, factor in a significant amount of crazy, time-travelling, an apocalypse or two, and you have Jon Negroni's "Pixar Theory". Check out the strange, weird and utterly fantastic theory
here.
Features
Disney Retrospective - The Great Mouse Detective: As Munir hits the halfway mark on his Disney Retrospective column, he looks at a film that certainly has a lot of fans out there (including myself). The debut feature from
Little Mermaid directors John Musker and Ron Clementers,
The Great Mouse Detective, is up for inspection this week. Does Munir love the film? Or is it another
Black Cauldron for him? Find out for yourself
here.
Futurama, A Swan Song - Week 4: With only 8 more weeks left, Matt Groening's other show is slowly counting down towards the end. Damien is counting with it, and with this week's
Futurama, A Swan Song, he offers up a mini-review of this week's fire-fighter-themed, Bender-centric episode,
The Inhuman Torch. Check out the review of the episode
here.
Reviews
Monsters University: Summer blockbuster season is fully upon us now, and Pixar's latest has finally found its way to British shores. As such, I took to the cinema this Friday to check out the studio's monstrous prequel, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I've penned my review, and you can find out why I thought
Monsters University was
"entirely entertaining, thoroughly fun, clever and at times emotional," and why I still prefer
Brave,
here.
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