Rio 2 Trailer: Into the Wild

Back in 2011, Rio told the story of the unable-to-fly macaw Blu getting lost in Rio de Janeiro and having to survive in the hostile environment. But the sequel's latest trailer reveals that Rio 2 will go out of the city, as most of the plot will apparently take place in the jungle; that doesn't mean things will be any easier for Blu though, now father of three baby birds.

Watch the new trailer after the jump.

First Look: Bright New Stills from Rio 2

USA Today have got a sneak peek at the next film from Munir's favourite studio, Blue Sky. Rio 2, a sequel to the 2011 hit starring Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway, flies into cinemas next year (this, unlike The Good Dinosaur and Minions hasn't been pushed back yet); we've seen a few teaser trailers for the Sambaing sequel, but this is our first proper look at the film's returning and expanded cast of characters.

New Teaser Trailer for Rio 2

Blue Sky Studios and Fox just released a new teaser trailer for Rio 2, their next animated installment due for release next year. While no real footage is included, the new teaser emphasizes the colorful and playful tone that was prevalent in the original film matched with some catchy music.

Watch: Another Rio 2 Teaser Trailer

Well, this is a little curious. Despite already having released a musical teaser for Rio 2 back in May, Yahoo! Movies have got another teaser for the Blue Sky Studios sequel, due next year. This latest teaser again focuses on the film's rhythmic sensibilities, this time having various animals belting out "Memories" from Cats.

The film doesn't look like it's going to set the world on fire with innovation, but it looks fun, and if director Carlos Saldanha and co. can recapture the same toe-tapping light-heartedness the first film had, Rio 2 should be an entertaining romp.

The film rolls out internationally on 20th March, 2014, before opening in the UK on 4h April and State-side on 11th.

[UPDATED] Watch: Portuguese Teaser for Rio 2

Blue Sky Studios' 8th feature film, Epic (directed by Chris Wedge), is in cinemas on 24th May, so the Ice Age studio is looking towards the future, as they've put together a musical teaser for their upcoming sequel, Rio 2, which appears to have leaked online early - in Spanish Portugese (my ignorance has been pointed out. It's actually Portuguese, not Spanish)!

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".

Theory: Newt Isn't Cancelled, It's Just Hibernating

*This post contains some mild spoilers if you haven't seen Brave yet*

Pixar's latest feature film, Brave, is out now in the US and its release dates for the rest of the world are fast approaching. With the release of a new Pixar film, swiftly comes the Easter-egg hunting. Pixar have a long-standing tradition of cross-pollinating their films with references, both to each other and to the wider world of animation in general. The most famous examples are the Pizza Planet Truck (which first appeared in 1995's Toy Story) and the code A113 - the very same code that this blog is named after.

Very common also though are references to other Pixar films, past and present. Occasionally for the purpose of time-saving or due to cost-constrains - like the use of Geri from the short film Geri's Game as the cleaner in Toy Story 2, or the tree from Ant Island from A Bug's Life being used as the scene for Jessie's happy playtime memories, also in Toy Story 2, due to the film's short time-frame for animation - but more often just as a neat little reference, indicative of the deep affection Pixar have for all of their projects. In Monsters, Inc. for example, in one of the final scenes in Boo's bedroom, you can see Jessie from Toy Story 2 and Nemo from Finding Nemo (the previous and following Pixar films). Also, in Ratatouille you can see a shadow of Dug, who would appear two year's later in Up.

The only hint I'll give y'all concerning all the Brave Easter eggs is that they are all in the same sequence. ;)
— Catherine (@cathicks) June 25, 2012

Now that Brave is out, the search is on for how Pixar slotted its references into the antiquated 10th century Scottish setting. The Pizza Planet Truck has been spotted quite en masse, but A113 and an apparent Monsters University reference have alluded most viewers - despite Pixarian Cat Hicks' helpful hint (above) that all of the Easter eggs are in the same scene. However, one reference that has been noticed quite widely, to some delight and shock, was one to Pixar's cancelled project, newt.

Turbo, Rio 2, Cloudy 2 and More At the Licensing Expo

Yesterday we posted the first look at Blue Sky Studios' upcoming animated feature, Epic, out of this year's Licensing Expo, however it seems we overlooked lots of others. /Film and comingsoon.net bring us some other great first looks, posters and promotional material for upcoming animated films.

Firstly, (top) we have our first look at DreamWorks' Turbo, which follows "an ordinary garden snail who dreams of becoming the fastest snail in the world". While I was greatly looking forward to this film, I'm somewhat more cautious now. The animation is very bright and vibrant, and it looks like a lot of fun; but it also looks very goofy, and the main character is dangerously close to pulling the "DreamWorks face" (see above). I also found a recently released poster for the film (top), which does nothing to allay my fears.

We also get posters for a lot of sequels. Including Blue Sky's Rio 2 (above), Sony's Cloudy 2: Revenge of the Leftovers (above) and The Smurfs 2 (below) and Illumination Entertainment's Despicable Me 2 (below - we actually got a large display for this one). All of what we see for these films, though, gives us nothing new; it merely displays a '2' and the characters from the original - I suppose Cloudy 2 gives us a subtitle...

I loved Rio and Despicable Me - they were both phenomenal - but, at this point, I'm not really that excited to see sequels. I'm sure they'll be handled well, but I'm going to need some more details before I invest in the projects. I haven't seen, and don't particularly want to see, The Smurfs and have zero interest in a sequel. However, the one I'm particularly excited for is Cloudy 2. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a surprise hit, it was a lot, lot better than the advertising led us to think it would be - and Sony Pictures Animation will presumably handle a sequel well.

And finally, we get another poster (above) for Sony's impending release, Hotel Transylvania.

Turbo is released on 19th July, 2013 (US) and 18th October, 2013 (UK); Rio 2 will premiere in Brazil on 28th March and on 4th April, 2014 worldwide; Cloudy 2 is due for release on 14th February, 2014; Despicable Me 2 is due on 28th June, 2013 (UK) and 3rd July (US); The Smurfs 2 will be in cinemas on 31st July 2013; finally, Hotel Transylvania is out much sooner, on 28th September (US) and 12th October (UK), of this year.

All release dates are via IMDb and are correct at the time of publishing.

84th Academy Awards Nominations Revealed

Earlier today, the nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards (to be hosted by Billy Crystal) were announced. The reveal, as expected, saw a glut of nominations for Martin Scorsese's Hugo (11 nominations) and silent film (and Best Picture frontrunner) The Artist (10 nominations), however it also saw some controversial decisions, and the animation category was no exception.

The nominees for Best Animated film are:

• A Cat in Paris
• Chico & Rita
• Kung Fu Panda 2
• Puss in Boots
• Rango

Now, the Academy does often throw some lesser known, critical hits into the mix, so it shouldn't be too great a surprise that Chico & Rita and A Cat in Paris have cropped up. However, what is somewhat of a surprise, is the omission of The Adventures of Tintin. This isn't simply due to personal preference (although I think you all know by now how much I enjoyed Tintin) but Tintin recently took home the Golden Globe and the Producers Guild Award in the same category - as well as being nominated for the BAFTA - so the Oscar omission is somewhat bizarre. Also of note is the absence of a Pixar film on the list - the first time since the award's conception in 2001 that the Emeryville studio haven't snagged a nomination - and whilst it isn't too great a surprise to see Cars 2 missed off (although it would definitely have been deserving in my eyes), it is weird to not see Pixar as a frontrunner this year.

It now seems likely that Nickelodeon and ILM's Rango will take home the coveted prize, although I'd like to see DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda 2 get some recognition.

Also, in terms of animation, the nominations for Best Animated Short Film are:

• Dimanche (Sunday)
• The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
• La Luna
• A Morning Stroll
• Wild Life

Whilst it's a shame that the Looney Tunes short, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat didn't make the cut, it's nice to see Pixar get at least some presence at the show.

Also, 'Real in Rio' from Blue Sky Studios' Rio is one of only two nominations for Best Original Song this year - competing with 'Man or Muppet' from Disney's The Muppets.

This year's Oscars will be broadcast from the Kodak Theatre, Hollywood on February 26.

More For Your Consideration Adverts

As awards season heats up, what with Annie, Golden Globe and more nominations being revealed, and the 84th Academy Awards getting closer and closer, we are treated to more and more For Your Consideration Ads, promoting the year's best animated films.

Above and below, you can see, courtesy of Awards Daily, some of the latest For Your Consideration Ads for animated films, including ones for the Warner Bros. short film, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, as well as Blue Sky Studios' Rio, DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots, and Aardman's Arthur Christmas.

For a full list of For Your Consideration Adverts, animated or otherwise, keep your eyes on Awards Daily.

Christmas Thoughts - 2011

I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas and that you all had a wonderful day yesterday. I thought I'd, as I did last year, share my thoughts on some animation related gifts I received.

At the top you can see the vast majority of them, I was incredibly overjoyed to receive these presents, as you can see, and as you can probably tell from reading my blog, I quite like animation, so these presents were fantastic for me.

To go through the presents one by one, I got, which is probably my favourite present, 'The Art of Pixar: The Complete Color Scripts and Select Art From 25 Years of Animation'. The book which touts colour scripts from all of Pixar's 12 feature films, as well as from some of their shorts and includes several pieces of art made for each film, is fantastic. Authored by Cartoon Brew co-founder, Amid Amidi, the book is rather scarce on text, but what there is is rich in detail and history. However, as it should be, the main focus of the book is the fantastic, jaw-dropping, beautiful artwork from the artists of Pixar; and if they included the level of detail in the text we see in the individual 'Art of' books, this one would be substantially larger than the 300-odd pages it is at the moment. The book is a brilliant read and I would definitely recommend it. I will likely publish a full review of the book in the coming week.

In terms of DVDs, I got a decent amount of animated films this year, including Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (a fun and quirky animated film that was one of my favourites from 2009), Rio (which isn't pictured, as the box is somewhat trashed, as the security stopper wasn't removed for some reason, so we had to pry the box open) and Kung Fu Panda 2 (which seems even more awesome than it did when I first saw it). While I loved these films and would have been more than content with these, two of the best presents I got were in the form of the Disney classics, Peter Pan and 101 Dalmatians, two of the films that helped form my childhood; utter classics in every form, it meant even more as a present, given that they had to be, not cheaply, purchased second hand as they're in the Disney Vault at the moment.

In terms of other knick-knacks and whatnots, I also received official Wallace and Gromit slippers and an alarm clock, and Muppets socks and a T-shirt (not pictured), all of which were just brilliantly fun and quirky presents to receive.

As I'm sure you can tell, I loved these presents and this is just the animated portion of them, it was a great horde of gifts to receive this Christmas and one that I fully appreciated.

Feel free to share your own lists of presents and what you're thankful for this Christmas, I hope the season treated you all well.

2nd Annual A113Animation Awards Nominations

I've just revealed the nominations for the 2nd Annual A113Animation Awards, to praise and reward the very best of animation from the past year, to be handed out on the 29th December.

Cars 2 and Rio got the most nominations at 8, Kung Fu Panda 2 got 7, The Adventures of Tintin and Tangled got 6, Rango got 5, Puss in Boots got 3, Winnie the Pooh got 2 and Gnomeo and Juliet got 1.

The 5 films nominated for the top award, Best Animated Film, are:

• The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
• Cars 2
• Kung Fu Panda 2
• Rio
• Tangled

Also, note, Tangled is nominated for awards as, although it came out in November last year in America, it arrived over here in the UK in January 2011. For the whole list of nominations, head on over to the A113Animation Awards page.

Also, remember to vote in the poll to the right, to decide the People's Favourite Animated Film Award.

Madagascar 3 Trailer

DreamWorks have revealed the first trailer for the third instalment in the Madagscar franchise, Europe's Most Wanted, via Yahoo! Movies.

The previous two entries into the franchise weren't brilliant, although 2, for me, marked a definitive improvement on the very clunky first one, and, from this trailer, Madagascar 3 looks very witty and fun. Obviously, it doesn't look entirely heartfelt or deep like The Lorax trailer Yahoo! also brought us earlier in the week, but DreamWorks have been amazing the last couple of years, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

From the look of the trailer as well, it doesn't look entirely like the first two films, it looks rather like Blue Sky Studios' Rio to me. Also, it seems to have a slightly higher focus on the penguins, presumably to help segway into their upcoming spin-off feature film.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted hits cinemas on June 8 next year.

The Oscar Race Begins - 18 Qualify

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently revealed the 18 feature films that have qualified for consideration in the Best Animated Feature Film category for the 84th Academy Awards - to be hosted by Eddie Murphy, the voice of Donkey in Shrek.

These feature films are (links lead to our reviews of the highlighted films):

"The Adventures of Tintin"

"Alois Nebel"

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked"

"Arthur Christmas" (to be released on November 11, review to follow the week after)

"Cars 2"

"A Cat in Paris"

"Chico & Rita"

"Gnomeo & Juliet"

"Happy Feet Two"

"Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil"

"Kung Fu Panda 2"

"Mars Needs Moms"

"Puss in Boots"

"Rango"

"Rio"

"The Smurfs"

"Winnie the Pooh"

"Wrinkles"

Providing that at least 16 of these films make the necessary theatrical runs to qualify, then there will be five nominees for the prestigious award this year, as opposed to the three we saw last year.

2011 has been a very good year for animated film, with all major studios (and some minor ones) bringing out brilliant films (personally, as it came out in January over here in the UK, and not November 2010 as it did it in the US, I also count Tangled as from this year). So, it's going to be a very competitive year, with the usual Academy favourite, Pixar, churning out, what was viewed as, a weak entry into their canon, it's likely that Cars 2 won't win this year, but, from the films I've seen so far, my five to be nominated would be:

• The Adventures of Tintin
• Cars 2
• Rio
• Rango
• Kung Fu Panda 2

With Tintin probably coming out on top; those predictions are based upon now and, not necessarily my personal opinion, but what I believe the Academy will choose. Also, this is discounting films not yet released and ones I haven't seen; also, it's hard to count out Aardman, so I wouldn't rule out Arthur Christmas yet (stay tuned for a review of that in two weeks).

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, we're only at the start of the journey now anyway.

Thanks to The Pixar Blog.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn Review - Steven Spielberg Delivers a Perfect Performance (Capture)

This latest review is of a film that, although widely anticipated by oh so many, I hadn't heard about until very recently, despite it being the incredibly high profile first voyage into the animated realm by renowned director, Steven Spielberg, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Arguably the world's most famous director sets foot into the ever competitive field of animation for the first time, flanked by an all-star team, including: co-producer Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings), writers Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Sherlock), Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) and Joe Cornish (Attack the Block), and an all-star cast, lending their physical performances as well as their voice talent; this hugely influential, talented and insightful crew provide a brilliant, animated adventure film with real heart and comedy.

Rio Coming to DVD and Blu Ray

Blue Sky Studios have just uploaded the official trailer for the DVD and Blu Ray release of their latest film Rio.

The film was fantastic, certainly one of Blue Sky Studios' best films (my review's here) and if you didn't get the chance to see it in cinemas, I'd certainly suggest that you buy it when it's released on DVD and Blu Ray on August 2.

"Scrat Continental Drift"

You may recall a while back, I told you all about a clip from a planned Blue Sky Studios short film, Srat's Continental Crack Up, starring Scrat from the Ice Age franchise. The clip garnered attention as many thought it a teaser trailer for Ice Age 4, rather than a short film, my theory was that it was both, and I appear to be right.

The full short, embedded above, premiered with select showings of Guilliver's Travels and Rio and acts as a promotional trailer for Ice Age: Continental Drift, due out in July of next year.

Most recently, artist and animator Ric Sluiter (who was part of the team for the original Circle 7 planned Toy Story 3) posted the above picture on his blog, citing it as "Scrat Continental Drift Colour Key"... What?
This seems a tad conflicting, as this appears to be a shot from the above short film, called "Scrat's Continental Crack-Up", whereas Ice Age 4 is to be subtitiled, "Continental Drift", the title on this colour key is a combination of both. This could be an error on Ric's part or perhaps, if the short film really is nothing more than a teaser trailer, a hint that scenes from the short will feature in Ice Age 4.

Hmmm... I guess we'll have to wait to see.

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.

Angry Birds Rio Review - No Need to be Angry, This Bird Can Fly

Following up from my review last week of Doodle Jump Hop, I have decided to write my second ever A113Animation Game Review. This newest review is of Angry Birds Rio, a continuation of the wildly successful Angry Birds franchise, to help promote Blue Sky Studios' next animated film (out next month), Rio.