Frozen Wins Big at the Annie Awards

Disney's hot streak with Frozen is continuing into awards season now. The icy musical, which has now made $864 million worldwide (making it the third highest-grossing film of 2013), had a strong showing at the 41st Annie Awards (animation's self-titled "highest honour") a couple of nights ago, taking home, amongst other awards, Best Animated Feature! Check out our full breakdown of the results after the jump.

New Toy Story TV Special To Air This Christmas!

Credit: Bitten by the Travel Bug

Pixar might not be putting out a feature film this year, but they're not resting on their laurels. The studio will release a Monsters U short film with Muppets Most Wanted in March, and just announced a Toy Story holiday special for this Christmas: Toy Story That Time Forgot!

Toy Story of Terror! Review: Terrifically Fun!

Since Pixar closed the Toy Story trilogy (in magnificent fashion) in 2010, they have been very busy making sure that the beloved toys are kept in the audience's minds. Instead of producing a fourth film (thank God), they have given us short films that have always delighted and entertained without falling prey to the burden of meeting the impossibly high expectations of the original trilogy. We got two Toy Story Toons in 2011, Hawaiian Vacation played before Cars 2 and Small Fry before The Muppets; in 2012 we got Partysaurus Rex in front of the 3D re-release of Finding Nemo. But this year, instead of a theatrical short, they turned their focus to TV and made a Halloween special that debuted this past Wednesday on ABC. Here are my thoughts on it.

New Toy Story of Terror! Sneak Peek, Plus Soundtrack Details!

Pixar’s first television special is just around the corner and ABC just released a one-minute sneak peek to get us all excited (as if we weren't already) about the upcoming Halloween special featuring our favourite toys. Check the new hilariously horrific teaser below:

Six New Images From Toy Story of Terror! Show Off Combat Carl

We may not be getting a film from them in 2014, but Pixar are treating us this year. Last week we got a great trailer for the studio's first TV special, the spooky Toy Story of Terror! (Disney stylise it as Toy Story of TERROR!), and this week we got six great new stills, showing off the half-hour special's array of characters old and new.

This Week on A113Animation (16th - 22nd September, 2013)

Apologies that this is a day late, but we were recording our two-part (and thus rather long) Disney Renaissance podcast late yesterday, and frankly, if I looked at anything else animation related, I fear I may have imploded. Nonetheless, here's the recap of what was a very packed - if not all entirely cheery - week of animation news. Lots of Frozen stuff (you wouldn't have believed that a month ago), two hotly anticipated 2014 animation films pushed back to 2015, a spooky new trailer for Toy Story of Terror!, your usual features, some special editorials and a brand new interview/podcast all make this an exciting week! Check out what happened this last week on A113Animation.

Watch: First Trailer for Pixar's Toy Story of Terror!

Not all Pixar news is bad. Fresh off the announcement that Pixar won't release a film next year anymore, the studio softened the blow with a fun new trailer for the Halloween TV special, Toy Story of Terror! It's fun, it's funny, it's a little bit spooky, and, amidst all this kinda glum release date news, it's nice to be reminded just why we love Pixar so much in the first place.

We'll be reunited with the Toy Story gang this Halloween; the special airs in America on ABC on 16th October at 8pm. It'll air some point thereafter in the UK on Sky Movies | Disney.

Via Collider.

This Week on A113Animation (2nd - 8th August, 2013)

There wasn't an awful lot of news this week, but what news there was was pretty great - more exciting Star Wars rumours, Toy Story of Terror promotion, Marvel stuff, Disney stuff and more. In addition, we've got pretty exciting instalments of our features this week, with Munir's review of an underrated Disney classic and Damien's final Futurama mini-review. All that, and some John Lassetery goodness, is what you might have missed this week on A113Animation.

New Sky Broadband Ad Advertises Toy Story of Terror

This rather shameless new ad for Sky Fibre Broadband also sorta serves as our first promo for Pixar's Halloween special, Toy Story of Terror. No word on when the special (which airs in America on ABC on 16th October) will show in the UK yet, but I'd imagine it'll be before or on Halloween, and it will show on Sky Movies | Disney.

Be sure to check out the new poster we got earlier in the week too.

UPDATE - 07/09/2013, 21:29 (GMT): Some readers said they couldn't view the video from their country, so we've uploaded it to our channel; you should be able to check it out now.

Via Bleeding Cool

New Poster for Pixar's Toy Story of Terror TV Special

Pixar are voyaging into the realm of TV specials for the first time this Halloween, with the spooky Toy Story of Terror! (Ironic, of course, given that Toy Story itself started off as a planned half hour TV special continuation of their Tin Toy short film.) Entertainment Weekly have got a new poster for the special, which is set to premiere on ABC just before Halloween, on 16th October, at 8pm ET. Angus MacLane is directing.

"Heading to the small screen before Halloween, Toy Story of Terror features the gang taking a road trip to Bonnie’s grandmother’s house before everything takes an unexpected turn. On a detour leading them to a roadside motel, one of the toys goes missing, and the others find themselves caught in an eerie turn of events that must be stopped before they suffer the same fate," says EW's synopsis.

How are you feeling for Toy Story of Terror? Excited? Cautious? A little bit spooked?

Via Hypable

Disney and Pixar Tease Upcoming Movies at D23 Expo

The D23 Expo has just begun, and already big announcements are pouring in. Let's see what the Art & Imagination presentation had to offer.

Michael Giacchino to Score Toy Story of Terror

Randy Newman has been the definitive Toy Story composer since the original feature film in 1995, but all of the Toy Story Toons have been scored by others: Mark Mothersbaugh scored Hawaiian Vacation; Henry Jackman, Small Fry; electronic artist BT, Partysaurus Rex; now, Film Music Reporter says, Pixar veteran Michael Giacchino is to score the upcoming Halloween TV special, Toy Story of Terror.

[UPDATED] First Look: Toy Story of Terror

In October of last year, Animation World Network announced that Pixar were working on a Toy Story Halloween TV special, Toy Story of Terror, that was due this October. Since then, we haven't heard a peep about the project. Until now.

Rumour Overload: Toy Story 4 Confirmed For 2015? [UPDATED: No, it's not.]

Treat this one as a rumour until strongly indicated otherwise: some Colombian news outlets are reporting that Disney and Pixar have officially announced the long rumoured Toy Story 4 for 2015!

Toy Story of Terror! TV Special Coming Next Year!

We heard a few months ago that - as well as working on new Toy Story Toons, one of which was just recently released - "two new 22-minute TV specials are in the works for October 2013 and Spring 2014." And now we know what the first of those will be about.

Animation World Network announced that next Halloween, Pixar will release a Toy Story holiday special: Toy Story of Terror! The synopsis AWN provides is:

What starts out as a fun road trip for the Toy Story gang takes an unexpected turn for the worse when the trip detours to a roadside motel. After one of the toys goes missing, the others find themselves caught up in a mysterious sequence of events that must be solved before they all suffer the same fate in this Toy Story of Terror.

Sounds great! After Partysaurus Rex, it's great to see Pixar going a slightly different route with the Toy Story gang going forwards. Bryko from Upcoming Pixar raises a good point too; given Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich's famous love of The Shining, and Toy Story of Terror!'s very Shining-esque sounding story, it seems very likely we'll see him involved with the project in some way.

It's only fitting, given that Toy Story started life itself as a holiday TV special (A Tin Toy Christmas), that things are coming full circle with these Toy Story specials. And I, for one, can't wait!