Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem

Back in 2010, Universal threw themselves into the world of animation, with the first theatrical release of their own dedicated animation department, Illumination Entertainment: Despicable Me. Despicable Me was a huge success, taking over $543 million worldwide and inspiring an upcoming sequel. However, arguably the biggest hits to come out of Despicable Me were the adorable minions.

Everybody fell in love with the minions and Universal clearly recognises that, as, following three dedicated Minion mini-movies on the Despicable Me home media releases, the minions are now even getting their own attraction at Universal Orlando!



The ride is called "Minion Mayhem" and, according to the official press release, sees you enter Gru's house to be recruited as a minion. Read an extract from the press release below:

"This brand-new ride combines the outrageous humor and memorable characters of Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment’s blockbuster film Despicable Me, with an all-new storyline, incredible new animation and the latest 3-D technology to create a wildly hysterical theme park experience.

Families will watch in amazement as they are transformed into minions, laugh together as they train to join Gru’s minion army and boogie down during the world’s-first minion-inspired dance party. Despicable Me Minion Mayhem is hilarious and heartwarming fun for the entire family."

You can see some photos from early runs of the attraction here, as well as a video (above) showing the mischievous minions causing havoc at Universal Orlando. "Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem" opens officially on 2nd July.

Also, you can check out a Facebook app with the minions, "Dance Party Marathon", similar in idea to Disney's "Mahna-Mahna" app for The Muppets a few months ago: you have 10 seconds to record yourself dancing. Hundreds and hundreds of such clips from around the world are then spliced together with some minion dancing (Universal seem really rather fond of making the minions dance) acting as an interlude.

Between this and Disney's Cars Land, studios definitely seem to understand how crucial good advertising and film-based theme park attractions are to business success!

Despicable Me 2 is released on 28th June, 2013 (UK) and 3rd July, 2013 (US), let's hope this pacifies us until then.

Theory: Monsters University Has the Potential to Beat Toy Story 3

A few days ago, I posted a theory: that Pixar's purportedly shelved film newt, wasn't in fact cancelled, but rather, just hibernating. A couple of weeks ago, the first teasers for the Monsters, Inc. prequel, Monsters University, appeared online, to a huge response. "Monsters University" trended on Twitter, worldwide, all day, and fans across the web and across the world were enthralled. It really struck home for me, once again, how insanely popular Pixar is, and how Monsters, Inc. is one of its most beloved properties.

Back in 2010, after an 11 year break since Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3 arrived in cinemas, and went on to become the highest grossing film of the year, the highest grossing animated film of all time, and the 5th highest grossing film worldwide, ever (now down to 8th). This got me thinking, it'll have been almost 12 years since Monsters, Inc. when Monsters U premieres, so: does Monsters University have the potential to out-gross Toy Story 3?

Coming Soon: Disney Animation Studios to Make an Animated Marvel Film!

Yep, you did read that right. Almost 3 years after Disney bought Marvel Entertainment, and after much speculation that we might see this, Honor over at Blue Sky Disney tells us that Walt Disney Animation Studios are working on an adaptation of a Marvel property!

Rather than focus on the more mainstream Marvel heroes like Iron Man or Hulk (mainly because they're prominent in The Avengers) Disney are instead opting to adapt and animate the Marvel super-team, Big Hero 6. The film is to be directed by Winnie the Pooh co-helmer, Don Hall, and is tentatively due for 2014.

This is a huge move undoubtedly for Disney, Marvel are enormous at the box-office, as are Disney; this may be a more obscure Marvel team, but this will certainly be a smash-hit nonetheless! This marks, that I'm aware of, the first time Disney will have worked with another studio on an animated release; their first superhero film; the first Marvel film in the Disney Animation canon, and so much more. This promises to be an extremely exciting project and it seems a perfect fit for Disney right now. Following on from the very modern-minded Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6 looks to continue a new trend for Disney.

The Little Mermaid directors Ron Clements and John Musker are developing a new hand-drawn animated film, and that and Frozen will presumably keep Disney's princesses in fine form, but this and Wreck-It Ralph balance it out perfectly.

If there were doubts previously, let them be now allayed, the third Golden Age of Disney Animation has arrived.

Disney Holiday Toy Line Confirms Toy Story Toon Rumours

Yesterday, The Pixar Times posted an extensive look at the upcoming Disney Store Holiday Line, mixed in amongst lots of great Brave toys, some new Cars and Toy Story toys, and the Finding Nemo Blu-ray, is one surprise that sheds some clear light on a rumour that's been circling around the past few months.

A while back, we were told that techno/dance artist BT had just worked on a Toy Story short called Partysaurus Rex, but nothing was confirmed.Then at the start of the month, we found out that three new Toy Story Toons were on the way. This lent credence to the belief that the first of these Toons would be Partysaurus Rex.

Again though, no confirmation. I emailed Pixar to follow up on this, and they commented that "We haven't officially announced any additional toons, so Partysaurus [Rex] is just speculation at this point." It seems, however, that this speculation was correct, as The Pixar Times also posted a couple of pictures of a Partysaurus Rex bath set. If this set is going to be included in the holiday line, then it certainly seems that this will be the first of the upcoming Toy Story Toons - possibly even paired with Finding Nemo 3D, or certainly on Pixar Short Films: Volume 2.

Excited? I certainly am! See the rest of the great line at The Pixar Times.

First Look at Disney's Paperman

A lot of hype has been surrounding Disney's latest short film as of late. Paperman, directed by John Kahrs, - who worked as an animator on a number of Pixar films, before moving to Disney where he acted as an animation supervisor on Tangled - has been received to a rapturously positive response by those privileged to see it already. The film screened at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival a few weeks ago and Tweets about it passed enthusiastic and bordered on frenzied.

The short film, which is set to precede Wreck-It Ralph later this year (or the start of next year in the UK), is making waves for its revolutionary animation technique, which fuses hand-drawn animation with computer animation, combining "the dimension and depth of digital animation with the abstract warmth of traditional line-art. The result is a world seemingly sculpted out of sketches."

That description comes via Entertainmexnt Weekly, who also provide us with our first look at the highly anticipated short, with 3 exclusive stills.

The article also offers up some insight into, and the inspiration for, the techniques behind the short's animation:

“Drawing can have a really powerful, visceral effect on the viewer. You can create anger and surprise or anguish with just a few lines of a pencil,” says director John Kahrs, an animator on The Incredibles and Tangled. “But it can’t just be the same thing it was. I think for 2-D to be revitalized, you have to figure out a way to make it new again.”

It also provides some insight into the animation software behind Paperman, Meander:

"Disney used new in-house technology called Meander to build the world of Paperman. First the characters and backgrounds were rendered digitally, and then hand-drawn art was layered over those shapes, giving the figures a kind of 3-D quality unseen in old-school animation. “What you’re seeing is a very stylized CG layer [underneath], but the feel of the image is very flat and lives in between the two,” Kahrs says."

Finally, I'll leave you with perhaps the most telling comment of all, from producer Kristina Reed:

“If this short had come out with The Little Mermaid, everyone would be excited about the CG,” says Reed with a laugh. “Now here we are in the early part of this millennium, and what we’re celebrating is going back to the handcraft.”

It's a fantastically rivetting read and Paperman promises to change a hell of a lot for animation at Disney! Be sure to read the full article over at EW.