Striking New Concept Art from The Blue Umbrella

Monsters University is sure to be a hit when it opens this summer: it's a follow-up to one of Pixar's most beloved films and is getting strongly positive reviews thus far. What's making the whole idea even more tantalising, though, is Saschka Unseld's visually arresting, thematically sweet short film, The Blue Umbrella.

UPDATED: First Reviews for The Croods Surface

DreamWorks' first film of 2013, The Croods, opens a week yesterday, and, as such, reviews are slowly starting to roll out, and, while they're so far pretty good, they're not as good as we might have hoped.

Disney Apparently Working on Rumpelstiltskin Adaption, The Name Game

Disney's upcoming slate is more heavily shrouded in secrecy than Pixar's at the moment. Frozen, their first fairy tale film since 2010's Tangled, hits cinemas this winter; after that, Disney are set to release Marvel-adaptation Big Hero 6 in 2014. Beyond that, there's the long dormant King of the Elves, and we heard whispers of a possible Mickey Mouse/Roger Rabbit team-up last month (rumours, that have since been seemingly shot down).

Buffy and Mad Men Writer-Producer Joins Pixar!

It was announced today, at the Austin Film Festival, that Marti Noxon, best known as a writer and executive producer on Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer - as well as working as a writer and consulting producer on the second series of AMC's Mad Men - has joined Pixar to work on an unspecified project!

Pixar is a studio renowned for its exclusivity, in that all of its ideas come from within. Yet, in recent years, we've seen the Emeryville studio branching out: bringing in Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) to script Toy Story 3, and Irene Mecchi (The Lion King) for Brave - in fact, Joss Whedon even co-wrote Toy Story! It's worked very well in the past, and Pixar are clearly hoping for a similar performance by Noxon - announced today, by Pixar senior development executive Mary Coleman, to be collaborating with the studio on an upcoming film.

It's a little late in production for Monsters University for writers to start being brought in, and Michael Arndt is already attached to Pete Docter's Untitled Mind Film - and Victoria Strouse to Finding Nemo 2 - so it seems likely that Noxon (who most recently helped write Glee series 3) will be contributing to Lee Unkrich's Untitled Día de los Muertos film.

We'll keep you updated as we learn more, but, for now, we're pretty excited by this!

Via Indiewire.

UPDATED - Selick in Talks to Take Shademaker to Laika (Or Not)

Director Henry Selick (left) and Laika CEO Travis Knigt (right)

IndieWire is reporting that The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick is in talks to take his, previously tentatively titled, Shademaker, to Laika!

The project was being produced by Selick's Cinderbiter/ShadeMaker Productions, alongside Brain Trust members from Pixar, until news recently broke that Disney had pulled the plug. Claims were that the film's story wasn't where Disney wanted it to be and that production was lagging. The rumours emerging today though claims that Selick is shopping the idea to Laika, whom he previously worked with on 2009's Oscar nominated Coraline.

IndieWire also offers up some rumoured details about the film's plot and style:

I'm told that the once-titled "ShadeMaker" is the story of two brothers, and that it takes Selick's special brand of surrealism into a new direction. The sets are spectacular (especially Central Park) and they've been and they've been making use of a similar Rapid Prototype 3D printer for replacement heads that Laika introduced on "ParaNorman."

It's a shame that Selick's deal with Disney fell through - it might lead to awkwardness if/when he returns to make the planned adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book - but the film certainly seems a good fit for Laika and we know they work well together! Be sure also to check out our review of Laika's latest film, ParaNorman!

Via Craig Good and HitFix.

UPDATE: 27/09/2012 - 00:07 (GMT)

Times look dark Selick fans, and not good, Coraline, dark. /Film reports that whilst Henry Selick did meet with Laika, the talks "went nowhere and Laika will not fund its former director’s project." First Showing also reports that the film, apparently now titled The Shadow King, is not being taken on by Laika, and is seemingly done for.

Selick supposedly sent a memo to the team at Cinderbiter, saying that Laika chief Travis Knight couldn't figure out a financially sound way to continue production on the film. Selick could shop the film around some more, but following knock-backs from his two biggest options, it might be time, sadly, to move on.

Sad news for sure, especially so short after hearing that Digital Domain's closure meant the end of The Legend of Tembo. But here's hoping it gets picked up somewhere else in the near future, and we here at A113Animation wish the very talented Mr. Selick and all on the Cinderbiter crew all the best in whatever they go on to next!