Edgar Wright to Direct a Live-Action/Animation Hybrid Adaptation of 'Fortunately, the Milk'

The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Fox is about to acquire the film rights for Neil Gaiman's book Fortunately, the Milk. Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) and Johnny Depp are attached to the project. More below.

New Pirates Film Has a Title

The next instalment in the Pirates of the Caribbean films (yes, there is going to be a number 5) is to be titled Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

We previously reported that Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki) will be directing the next Pirates, with production beginning next year.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is due out Summer 2015.

Via Den of Geek

Pirates of the Caribbean 5 Directors Named

Despite the fourth chapter of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, On Stranger Tides, series being critically underwhelming, Disney are going ahead with a fifth, and have found a director - or directors, rather - for it.

Watch: New Trailer for The Lone Ranger

An action packed new trailer for Jerry Bruckheimer's latest Disney live-action flick has been released, showcasing a lot of sand, a lot of fighting and some very expensive set design.

Brand New Trailers: The Croods and The Lone Ranger

Yesterday we showed you some brand new images from Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger, and told you to expect the debut trailers for that and DreamWorks' The Croods today. They're online now, and they're fantastic - and you can check them out after the jump break!

Poster and Images for Disney and Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger

A glut of brand new shots, and a poster, from Gore Verbinski and Disney's adaptation of The Lone Ranger hit the web today! The super high-budget western epic stars Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer (The Social Network) as the title character, and is directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean 1 - 3, Rango) and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean, Top Gun).

Check out some brand new images after the jump break!

Illumination Entertainment Developing The Cat in the Hat Adaptation

Almost a decade after the critical and box office failure of the live-action adaptation of arguably Dr. Seuss's most famous work, The Cat in the Hat, Universal Pictures are set to have another go at adapting the beloved book, this time as an animated film, Deadline reports.

Universal's resident animation department, Illumination Entertainment, are tasked with adapting the book for a CG animated release, following the enormous success of their adaptation of another of Dr. Seuss's books, The Lorax. The Lorax has topped the US box office for the past two weeks, and that success seems sufficient enough to somewhat expunge the painful memory of the 2003 live-action disaster from the mind of Audrey Geisel, as the widow of Dr. Seuss has agreed to the production of the film. Geisel will also be executive producing the product, with Chris Meledandri set to produce and Rob Lieber penning the script.

Meledandri has been working with the famed author's widow on adapting his works since he ran Blue Sky Studios, with 2008's Horton Hears a Who. Illumination Enertainment are also reportedly working on a live-action biopic about Seuss's life, starring and being produced by Johnny Depp.

Via Big Screen Animation.

Rango Takes Home a BAFTA

Although the presentation of the award appears to have been cut from the broadcast of the 65th British Academy Film Awards, earlier today the BAFTA for Best Animated Film was awarded to Paramount and Nickelodeon's Rango. The Gore Verbinski directed animated western is the favourite heading into the 84th Annual Academy Awards in two weeks' time and this is a huge honour for the film.

Rango beat out Steven Spielberg's mo-cap adventure, The Adventures of Tintin and the British film, Arthur Christmas. Check out the full BAFTA results here.

Behind the Magic: The Look of 'Rango'

Via the official ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) YouTube channel, we get a behind the scenes look at absolutely gorgeous animation of Rango.

The video (above) shows some of the brilliant techniques and unparallelled detail that gave Rango some of the best animation of all time; the video shows the film's use of 'emotion capture' and how all the big names helped give the animation its life and vibrancy.

National Board of Review Recognises Rango

The National Board of Review, a collection of top film experts, have announced their annual awards, with Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed Hugo scooping the top prize of Best Film. However, in the animation category, the NBR recognised Nickelodeon Movies and ILM's Rango, starring Johnny Depp, which is a heavy favourite going into award season due to its wit and satire.

Rango really was a fun and clever film, whilst not in my opinion the best of the year, it's still a good choice that may very well be repeated by the Academy come February.

Rango Review - Depp-initely Worth Watching

This latest A113Animation Review is on a film that I couldn't make head nor tail of, Rango. The film just opened this weekend here in the U.K. and after some positive reviews I was anxious to see it!

The trailers for Rango sent somewhat mixed messages, they looked really funny, interesting, sporadically deep; yet also... not groundbreaking. In this portrayal of the film, the trailers were rather accurate.

Rango comes from Nickelodeon Movies a company renowned for films that range from mediocre to terrible - Rugrats Go Wild, I am Number 4 and The Last Airbender -, however I can happily say that Rango is leagues better than the rest of Nickelodeon's resume combined! However the actual animation was handled by Industrial Light & Magic, a special effects company best known for their work on the Star Wars films. This is ILM's first attempt at branching out into the feature film market for animation and it is a phenomenal one.

Rango Released

Nickelodeon Movies' newest animated film, Rango, has its full theatrical release on Friday. However it has been open to specific audiences for a day or two and reviews are very positive. Review aggreagators Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are both seemingly fans, on Metacritic, Rango holds a 73/100 and on Rotten Tomatoes it has a mighty impressive 89% (so far equal to Tangled).

Not bad, not bad at all. Only 2 days until we can all see.

Update

Now slightly down on RT, to 88%, but up to 75 on Metacritic! Still great so far, I'm off to see it this weekend so keep you're eye out for the review that counts!

A Collection of Things

Here's a few things relating to Animation in the past few days:

• Toy Story 3 was recently named the best film of 2010 by review aggregater Rotten Tomatoes, topping great films this year like Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Kick-Ass, TS3 was the best reviewed film of the year with 99%, 100% amongst Top Critics, you can read the full list here
• The second trailer for Nickelodeon films' upcoming animation Rango, starring Johnny Depp, came online this past week. The trailer shows a lot more depth and emotion than the previous, more humour oriented one, did. You can watch it below.