Rio 2 Cast and Crew Revealed; Due for 2014

Blue Sky Studios, who will release Epic later this year, return to sequels in 2014, with a follow up to their 2011 Brazilian-bird film, Rio. Yesterday, details of the film's voice cast were revealed in a press release by the studio's parent company, Fox.

The original voice cast are returning, which includes Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway and will.i.am; added to the cast are Kristin Chenoweth (Pushing Daisies), Bruno Mars, Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games) and Pierce Gagnon (Looper), amongst others. Carlos Saldanha is returning to direct, as are producers Bruce Anderson and John C. Donkin. Sergio Mendes and John Powell are also returning to handle the film's music.

Blue Sky get a lot of flack sometimes - it is a fair point that they should stop casting bloody singers in their films - but Rio was a really good and really fun film, and with almost all of the original crew returning, I have no doubt the sequel can be just as good.

In terms of a release date "Twentieth Century Fox's international rollout begins March 20, 2014, followed by its domestic release on April 11, 2014".

Rio Review - A Film That Easily Takes Flight

This latest review is of a film that, as regular blog followers will know, is one of the animated films I have been most looking forward to this year, Rio. Rio is the sixth film from Blue Sky Studios, the animation company famous for the Ice Age trilogy, however Rio is far removed from director Carlos Saldanha's more comedic Ice Age films and is a far more musical endeavour than Blue Sky Studios' previous films.

Rio Released

Blue Sky Studios' sixth animated feature film, Rio, is released today over here in the UK. As regular blog readers will know, Rio is one of the animated films that I am most looking forward to this year and I am still very hyped for it. Rio currently holds an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (100% from Top Critics) and the positive reviews are making me want to see it even more.

Unfortunately audiences in the US will have to wait until the 15th to see the film. Personally, I will be going to see the film this weekend so keep an eye out for the review.

New Rio Video

As April 15th gets closer, we're getting more and more hype and video packages for Blue Sky Studios' next feature film, Rio, we've already seen several trailers, a superbowl spot and had an announcement of Angry Birds Rio. As those of you who follow the blog regularly will know, Rio is one of the animated films that I'm most looking forward to this year and this new video (above) sheds a lot more light on the film. This newest trailer (of sorts) contains a lot of previously unseen footage, as well as showing more of the musical side that we have been led to believe will largely affect the film.

This newest video has me even more excited for the release of Blue Sky Studios' 6th feature film.

Stay tuned for more.