[UPDATED] (Very) Early Oscar Predictions for Best Animated Feature

I know most animated films scheduled for this year haven't even been released yet, but I think it'll be fun to make some predictions based on what we know of each film and weigh up their chances of receiving a nod next year for the next Oscar ceremony. So, without much further ado, here are my (very) early predictions for next year's Academy Awards.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman Review - DreamWorks Animation is Back!

After a disappointing 2013, with middling efforts like The Croods and Turbo, DreamWorks Animation is starting this year on a high note, with their newest film, Mr. Peabody & Sherman! Based on the popular 1960s cartoons, the film takes the unlikely pairing of the smartest dog in the world and his adopted human son and brings them to the XXI century in grand fashion. After The Lego Movie kicked the year off with a bang, it's reassuring to see that Mr. Peabody & Sherman is continuing this trend of excellence in what appears to be a superb year for animation.

Exclusive: Full Spreads from Titan Books' The Art of Mr. Peabody & Sherman

The Art of Mr Peabody & Sherman is out now from Titan Books. © 2014 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

As we announced moments ago, we're giving away a free copy of Titan Books' new DreamWorks Art of book, The Art of Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and we've got an exclusive gallery of some great spreads from the book to share with you! Whet your appetite below.

[NOW CLOSED] Competition: Win a Copy of The Art of Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Judge an A113Animation Award

A113Animation have got not one, but two, great competitions for our fabulous readers, with two great prizes! Firstly, we're teaming up with the great guys and gals at Titan Books again, to give away a free copy of the art book for DreamWorks' new film, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, directed by The Lion King's Rob Minkoff. In addition to The Art of Mr. Peabody & Sherman, we're giving one of you the chance to judge this year's Second Opinion A113Animation Award, telling us your favourite animated film of 2013. Check out the details of both the competitions below!

Watch: New Full Trailer for Mr. Peabody & Sherman Pays Homage to Doctor Who

Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary special aired tonight (it was bloody marvellous, wasn't it?), and DreamWorks have capitalised on the longest running sci-fi series' immense popularity to front the first full trailer for their upcoming time-travel flick, Mr. Peabody & Sherman! Check it out below.

Watch: Disarming First Trailer for Mr. Peabody & Sherman

DreamWorks are slowly amping up advertising for their first film of next year, the time-travelling comedy Mr. Peabody & Sherman. After rolling out our first official stills from the film last week, the Shrek shack has now released the first trailer - and it looks like a lot of fun!

First Look: Stills from DreamWorks' Mr. Peabody & Sherman

2014 looks to be a really exciting year for DreamWorks. Their hotly anticipated How to Train Your Dragon sequel hits in June, and the Jim Parsons/Rihanna-starring Home is released in November, but their first film of the year is the quirky, and oh-so quintessentially cartoony, Mr. Peabody & Sherman. And via USA Today, we now have our first proper look at stills from that film!

This Week on A113Animation (22nd - 28th July, 2013)

This has been a rather slow week for news over here at A113Animation, particularly after the trailer-iness and Comic-Con-ly goodness of recent weeks. That said, we did get a few really cool teaser posters for some of the upcoming films that have us most excited, and a little bit of Star Wars news and Pixar stuff. We've also got your latest features and another new editorial about Toy Story director John Lasseter. Check out the rather slim breakdown of the past seven days below.

Teaser Poster for DreamWorks' Mr. Peabody & Sherman

While DreamWorks' latest is getting a bit battered at the box office, the studio (now under the 20th Century Fox banner for distribution) sets its sights forward to next year, with a cool new teaser poster for their first film of 2014, Mr. Peabody & Sherman.

Fox at CinemaCon: Dragon 2, Peabody, Epic, Peanuts and More!

Disney had a very packed showing at CinemaCon this week, splashing details and footage from their Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar properties (although very little from their own animated films), but 20th Century Fox weren't slouching with the promotion for their own powerful animation stable either.

DreamWorks Woes: Mr. Peabody Pushed Back, Shadow Back in Development, Staff Cuts Coming

On the back of Rise of the Guardians under-performing (though it's still taken almost $300 million worldwide - hardly a failure), DreamWorks have a string of unpleasantness on the horizon, and none of today's developments are good news for animation fans.

DISCUSS: What's Your Most Anticipated Animated Film of 2013?

2012 has passed and Awards season is upon us, so we'll soon know what the critical successes of 2012 were (in terms of box-office successes, I'll refer you to someone much more knowledgeable about that than I - though what I can easily judge, is that 2012 was not a good year for stop-motion). So, now we look to the future - or, more accurately, the present - and our inner film-savant surfaces as we offer our predictions on what will be big in 2013.

DreamWorks Preview Their 2013 Movies

DreamWorks, fresh off a critical hit, if not a commercial one (yet), with Rise of the Guardians, are looking forward to 2013, where - under their new distribution deal with Fox - they will release three films. Towards the end of last week, some post surfaced about said films, which have been previewed for press at the Fox campus.

DreamWorks Buys Classic Media

News broke a few days back that DreamWorks Animation, the studio behind Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, was planning to purchase Classic Media. Today, it hit the web that the purchase had been made for $155 million, adding the vast Classic Media library to DreamWorks' already vast repertoire.

Classic Media hold the rights to - as well as Rocky and Bullwinkle, the Mr. Pebody and Sherman section of which DreamWorks are already making a film adaptation of - the Entertainment Rights catalogue, including Basil Brush and Postman Pat (big hits over here in the UK); Where's Waldo?/Wally?; He-Man; Felix the Cat; several UPA properties, including Mr. Magoo; Lassie; Casper the Friendly Ghost; Noddy and several more! Basically, Classic Media own a lot of stuff. And now DreamWorks owns it.

So, we can expect - presumably - to see a lot more from these properties coming out of DreamWorks in the next decade or so. Speaking of the transaction and DreamWorks' plans for the properties, CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said:

"Classic Media brings a large and diverse collection of characters and branded assets that is extremely complementary to DreamWorks Animation's franchise business,

We plan to leverage it across our motion picture, television, home entertainment, consumer products, digital, theme park and live entertainment channels."

It's going to be very interesting to see what comes out of this in the near future.

Via The Telegraph.

First Look At DreamWorks' Mr. Peabody and Sherman

With Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted due for release on 8th June (US release; 19th October here in the UK) and Rise of the Guardians due late November, DreamWorks Animation are setting their sights further forward to begin promoting their huge slab of upcoming films. So, today, Collider gives us our first look (above) and synopsis from their 2014 release (or one of them) Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

The image is pretty much what you'd expect, but it looks pretty good - nice visual style. The official synopsis for the film reads:

Based on Jay Ward’s classic cartoon, Mr. Peabody is the world’s smartest person who happens to be a dog. When his “pet” boy Sherman uses their time traveling WABAC machine without permission, events in history spiral out of control. It’s up to this most unexpected of “father-son” teams to somehow put things back on track before the space-time continuum is irreparably destroyed.

Sounds like the kind of huge romp that we've come to expect from DreamWorks - and the kind that they've recently handled very well. There's a great team behind Mr. Peabody and Sherman as well, it's being directed by Lion King helmer Rob Minkoff, with Ty Burrell (Phil in Modern Family) voicing Mr. Peabody and Max Charles (Young Peter Parker in The Amazing Spiderman) voicing Sherman.

Between this, The Croods, the expected Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon sequels, and further away projects like Turbo, Monkeys of Mumbai and, one of my personal most anticipated films, their adaptation of Captain Underpants, DreamWorks have a solid upcoming slate, and I look forward to hearing more about this.

Mr. Peabody and Sherman is currently scheduled for a 14th March, 2014 release.

Via Slashfilm.