Brand New Plot and Character Details For Disney's Big Hero 6

Those ever more popular Rotoscopers guys have teamed up with the always reliable Bleeding Cool to bring us all exclusive, brand new details about the characters and plot of Disney's hotly anticipated 2014 release, Big Hero 6!

Directed by Winnie the Pooh's Don Hall, Big Hero 6 will be Walt Disney Animation Studios' 54th animated feature film, and an adaptation of the lesser-known Marvel comic of the same name. The details come in video form, so check out Morgan Stradling (who wrote a great guest piece for us recently) giving you the lowdown below. Apparently it's spoiler free!

[UPDATED] Watch: Leaked Trailer for Disney's Frozen

The first full trailer for Disney's Frozen is due to land online in less than a week (26th), but if you can't wait that long, and don't mind low-res quality and a very shaky camera, then the trailer's been leaked online already! The trailer is playing in Australia in front of Disney's Planes (which has just opened there), and one Tumblr user recorded it (tut, tut. But thanks.) and it's since made its way onto YouTube. Check it out in all its icy glory above!

Guest Editorial: Is Disney Animated Princess Marketing Sexist?

Disney's next princess movie, Frozen. Note the lack of focus on, y'know, the
princesses.

This is a guest post by Morgan Stradling, of The Rotoscopers.

It seems every time a new Disney animated princess film rolls around nowadays that people pick up their pitch forks and begin chanting the war cry that Disney is sexist. That “they’ve forgotten their core audience,” “they are catering to the boys,” and have ignored the women.

French Frozen Stuff: Trailer and Poster

The ice has thoroughly started to thaw on Disney's Frozen, as we're week-by-week getting more and more from the studio's 53rd animated feature film. After revealing a Japanese trailer last week, Disney today revealed roughly the same trailer, but in French, alongside a brand new poster.

DreamWorks Heading Down Under to Make Larrikins

DreamWorks have a heck of a schedule at the moment: sequels including How to Train your Dragon 2, Kung Fu Panda 3 and Puss in Boots 2, original films like B.O.O. and Trolls, and musicals like Mumbai Musical, are all on the way. And a few days ago, they announced another film on the horizon, Larrikins.

Watch: New Sneak Peek at Planes

Disney are sure promoting Planes rather heavily; last week they rolled out extensive voice cast details and a fun new poster. Yesterday, the studio released a "special sneak peek" at the spin-off from Pixar's Cars, which is being handled by DisneyToon Studios.

The clip features Dane Cook's Dusty showing his racing prowess against a couple of jets. Sure, the dialogue and voice acting is a bit cheesy, but the animation's superb, the tone and music are very well handled and the creative, plane-inspired backgrounds are very clever. All in all, Planes is looking set to be a surprise hit when it opens in August (9th in US, 16th in UK).

Want to know a bit more? Our friends over at The Rotoscopers have put together a podcast about their impressions from the test screening. Check it out here.

New Poster for DisneyToon's Planes

Yesterday we got a healthy helping of new casting details and character posters from DisneyToon Studios' extension of the Cars universe, Planes. Today, we also get a new poster for the film (which hits cinemas in August).

It's a fun poster that shows off bad-guy Ripslinger (vocie of Ultimate Spider-Man's Roger Craig Smith) centrally, flanked by main character Dusty (Dane Cook) and his Mexican buddy El Chupacabra (Carlos Alazraqui). If nothing else, the film looks set to be entertaining and colourful.

Although, it seems as though it may be something beyond just that: Morgan from The Rotoscopers was able to check out a test screening of the film and seems to have actually quite enjoyed it, saying it's "just a lot of good-humored fun," and giving it an overall positive review. Morgan's post about it also comments that, unlike Pixar's Cars, Planes is (at least in part) a musical, saying the film features two songs. Check out their full breakdown of the screening here.

I'll admit, my interest for Planes has been piqued in the last couple of weeks. Now if only Disney would work as hard on marketing Frozen...

Check out my guest appearence on The Rotoscopers' Animation Addicts podcast, talking animation news and Toy Story 2, here.

William Talking Toy Story 2 With The Rotoscopers

Continuing my recent podcast tour (you can check out my guest appearances on The Scotty Jo Podcast here and here), I was very happy to be welcomed onto The Rotoscopers' Animation Addicts Podcast last week, talking about my favourite animated film, Toy Story 2. The episode is available now, and you can download it from iTunes, or listen to it here.

Rich Moore Talks Wreck-It Ralph 2

Late in January, Rich Moore spoke to The Huffington Post about all things Wreck-It Ralph: the production of the film, his reaction to its Oscar nomination and a few more teases about the possible sequel.

Paperman Composer to Score Frozen

Disney are set to continue their love affair with Paperman, as Film Music Reporter tells us that Christophe Beck, who composed the delicately enchanting score for the Oscar-nominated short, has signed on to compose the score for the studio's next feature, Frozen!

Frozen is directed by Chris Buck (Tarzan) and Jennifer Lee (screenwriter, Wreck-It Ralph), with the latter co-writing the film with Shane Morris; it's produced by Peter del Vecho (Winnie the Pooh) and John Lasseter. Original songs are being written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Winnie the Pooh). The film, based loosely on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, is certainly taking shape and Beck is sure to add a great deal to an already exciting movie. Beck also scored The Muppets and Pitch Perfect.

Frozen hits cinemas in the US on 27th November and UK ones on 6th December.

Via The Rotoscopers.

Laika's Next Film Is The Boxtrolls, Due 2014

Fresh off the critically acclaimed ParaNorman, Laika are looking to the future, and have just announced that their next film will arrive in October of 2014 and will be The Boxtrolls.

The Boxtrolls, per Laika's official press release, is "a 3D stop-motion and CG hybrid animated feature based on Alan Snow’s bestselling fantasy adventure novel Here Be Monsters." In our interview with Pete Oswald, a visual development artist who worked on ParaNorman, a few months ago, he mentioned that Laika's next film would be Here Be Monsters (which is now obviously going by The Boxtrolls), saying "While I was working on ParaNorman I saw some development art. It's fantastic." Check out one such instance of that development art down below.

Wreck-It Ralph Voice Cast News

Last week, out of the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con international, we learned that Firefly's Alan Tudyk would be voicing King Candy in Disney's next animated feature, Wreck-It Ralph. And today Entertainment Weekly brings us a far more extensive voice cast reveal!

• Dennis Haysbert (24, Kung Fu Panda 2) voices General Hologram, of the "Hero's Duty" section of the film.
• Adam Corolla and Horatia Sanz voice King Candy's security guards, in the "Sugar Rush" section of the film.
• Mindy Kaling (The US Office) voices the memorably named Taffyta Muttonfudge, a mean-girl from "Sugar Rush" who bully Sarah Silverman's Vanellope.
• Edie McClurg (Minny in the Cars franchise) and Rachael Harris (The Hangover) voice two Nicelanders, the citizens of Fix-It Felix, Jr., the game that Ralph inhabits.
• Ed O'Neill (Modern Family) voices one of Wreck-It Ralph's few human characters, the owner of Litwak's Family Fun Center and Arcade, which the film takes place within.
• Stefanie Scott (Disney Channel's A.N.T. Farm) voices another human character, Moppet Girl, a gamer at Litwak's who notices Ralph's game jumping.

The film has been generating a lot of buzz for the video-game cameos that populate the film (look at the picture at the top to see just a few), so, in addition to the film's original characters, EW bring us the voice cast for some of the film's highly anticipated cameos:

• Roger Craig Smith (Ezio in the Assassin's Creed series) voices Sonic the Hedgehog, a character he currently voices in Sonic video games.
• Gerald C. Rivers, Reuben Langdon and Kyle Hebert voice their respective Street Fighter characters: boss M. Bison, Ken Masters and Ryu.

Alan Tudyk and these latest additions join the main voice cast of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jane Lynch and Jack McBrayer. Wreck-It Ralph is due in US cinemas on 2nd November, and here in the UK on 15th February, 2013.

Via The Rotoscopers.

Disney Screens Wreck-It Ralph

Disney held recent test screenings for its latest animated feature film, Wreck-It Ralph. We've heard a lot of hype as of late for the film, with it being touted that it "does for video games what Toy Story did for toys".

One group of lucky people who got to see some footage from the film are the guys at The Rotoscopers, who seem rather taken with the film. Saying particular points of enjoyment from the, unfinished, footage were the cameos from real-life video game characters (a la Barbie in Toy Story I imagine), and the focus on Ralph's character driven motivation in the film. The Rotoscopers awarded the footage 4 stars, and an assessment of "Very Good".



I also found the above video from D23 last year. It may be slightly dated now, but it shows a mock-up video game that Disney had on hand of Fix-it Felix Jr., the game in which Ralph is the villain. It gives some interesting insight into the world of Wreck-It Ralph.

It looks promising!

Via Blue Sky Disney.