Tomas

Any time an industry artist prevails over an industry wage fixer, is okay with me:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, organizers of the Oscars, announced the election results for its Board of Governors late-Thursday afternoon, and veteran animator Tom Sito emerged victorious as the winner of a seat on the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch.

Sito was one of four candidates running for the animation branch’s Board of Governors; the other three were Darlie Brewster, Bob Kurtz, and Ed Catmull. ...

Dr. Catmull was a late entry to the race, and technically not eligible for the board prior to some heavy lobbying from execs at Disney. (Leverage has its uses).

It's not that Dr. Catmull isn't a talented and intelligent man, because he is. It's that when you've been involved with suppressing the wages of artists working in the industry, you (maybe?) forfeit the right to sit on a board that influences the awards given to those artists.

My thought, anyway.

Indie Features!!

What with animation being a hot a commodity, it's not hard to see why a distributor would scoop up two CG comedy features when the opportunity arose.

Smith Global Media ... has acquired distribution rights to the animated family features Charming and Gnome Alone. Both hail from Shrek producer John H. Williams and are financed and produced by 3QU Media. ...

Smith Global Media plans a late 2017 theatrical bow for Gnome Alone and a Q2 2018 release for Charming. Smith said the dual acquisition “enhances our company’s position in the marketplace and illustrates our desire to be the home for the most acclaimed independent films worldwide.” ...

I guess we'll see how acclaimed these two pups are, after they get released.

Gnome Alone (not to be confused with the horror movie of the same name) and Charming are two of four features set up by 3QU Media, set up by Shrek producer John Williams back in '14. One is in the can and the other near completion. No idea what the status of the other two might be.

These two pictures are produced by 3QU Media and created at Cinesite in Montreal, where the Free Money tumbles down like flakes of December snow. Both features have budgets of under $20 million, but that's probably after the government kickbacks. (At this price range, the pictures should be in profits quickly if they get any kind of commercial traction at all. There are a lot of markets outside the U.S. where lower budget CG features play well).

Gnome Alone is described as an action comedy. As for Charming, writer-director Ross Venokur, who's been in the animated features biz a while, describes it thusly:

... I have spent years and years reading [my three daughters] bedtime stories. Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that, “Hey, Cinderella marries Prince Charming, and Sleeping Beauty marries Prince Charming, and Snow White marries Prince Charming… It’s the same dude!” And the story grew out of there. ...

So that's the story. Now, if the production values for Charming and Gnome Alone aren't too awful,there could be coin to be made.

A Brief History of "The Fox and the Hound"

I always thought The Fox and the Hound could have been darker and grittier than it turned out to be. But if it had been those things, maybe it would have made less money.

Whatever else TFATH was, among its distinctions are ...

Being Frank Thomas's, Ollie Johnston's and Woolie Reitherman's last Disney feature.

Being the FIRST Disney feature of Brad Bird, Chris Buck, Tim Burton, Ron Clements, John Lasseter, John Musker, Jerry Reese, and others I'm no doubt leaving out.

Multiple development and production hiccups. Brad Bird got fired. Woolie got pushed to the side by upper management. Don Bluth took a large chunk of staff and went off to make his own animated movie(s).

The feature was made in the midst of generational change at the House of Mouse. Staff that had been working for Walt Disney Productions since the 1930s was retiring, and a lot of twenty-somethings who would be Movers and Shakers in Cartoonland for the next thirty-plus years were getting their starts.

p>The Fox and the Hound could have been better. But it could have been one hell of a lot worse, too.

Late June Box Office

Two cartoons remain in the Big List, along with a sprinkling of half-cartoons (Transformers, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc).

THREE DAY GROSSES

1). Transformers: The Last Knight (PAR), 4,069 theaters / $15.65M Wed. (includes Tuesday preview of $5.5M) / $8.1M Thurs. / $13.7M Fri. / 3-day cume: $40.1M / Total cume: $63.9M / Wk 1

2). Wonder Woman (WB), 3,933 theaters (-85) / $7.3M Fri. / 3-day cume: $26.1M / Total: $319.4M / Wk 4

3). Cars 3 (DIS), 4.256 theaters (o) / $7.65m Fri. / 3-day cume: $25.6M (-52%) / Total: $100.3M+ / Wk 2

4.). 47 Meters Down (ENT), 2,471 theaters (+201) / $2.2M Fri. / 3-day cume: $6.9M (-38%) / Total: $23.7M / Wk 2

5.). All Eyez On Me (LGF), 2,471 theaters (0) / $1.89M Fri. / 3-day cume: $5.88M (-78%) / Total: $38.7M / Wk 2

6.). The Mummy (Uni), 2,980 theaters (-827) / $1.7M Fri. / 3-day cume: $5.8M / Total: $68.5M / Wk 3

7.). Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (DIS), 2,453 theaters (-68) / $1.6M Fri. / 3-day cume: $5.4M / Total: $160.1M / Wk 5

8./9). Captain Underpants (DWA/20TH), 2,328 theaters (-44) / $1.46M Fri. / 3-day cume: $4.8M / Total: $66.3M / Wk 4

Rough Night (SONY), 3,162 theaters (0) / $1.58M Fri. / 3-day cume: $4.8M (-40%) / Total: $16.7M / Wk 2

10). Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (DIS), 1,468 theaters (-72) / $876KFri. / 3-day cume: $3M / Total: $380.2M / Wk 8

Cars 3 is running at a bit more of half the pace of Cars 2's 2011 release. At present, foreign grosses are 29% of the world wide total. The feature has taken in $141,282,893 around the globe. (Cars 2's total at the end of its full release was $562,110,557, not one of Pixar's high grossers. But hey. It's about the merchandise.

Captain Underpants now has a worldwide gross of $71,946,630, with only 8.6% ($6,203,454) from overseas. If the big infant bumps up against a $100 million domestic gross, it'll have to hold a lot better than it's holding now.

Rick, Morty and the Slows

So Dan Harmon, co-creator of Rick and Morty, explains Rick and Morty's Season Three hiccups:

... Justin [Roiland] and I are very regretful about the season taking way too long. I want to explain "what happened" because it's way less dramatic than you might ever imagine. Post internet TV audiences are so used to finding out there's an intriguing/confusing/intense reason 4 delays. And Christ knows if you've ever seen MY name on the internet I've only got myself to blame for an association with intrigue/confusion/drama.

But the truth in this case is so very boring. I will put it to you as objectively as I can, though we aren't talking about an auto plant. The reason S3 took long is because it took long to write, because it was S3 of a show that we were scared to make worse than S2 or S1. It's a common yet odd phenomenon. Tail-chasing, perfectionism, overthinking? One prob is that any description you pick for it is going to have a falseness. If I say "we overthought" someone else could say "well, no, we thought the right amount," it's like talking About religion or something. It feels I think, to writers, sacreligious and ineffective to open the creative process and poke and label.

But don't worry about the content, because, the reason overthought slows you down is, you just do way more versions of stuff than needed. You usually end up back where you started. So as far as I can tell, although I'm too close to it, it's just another good season of RAM. That took way too fucking long to write because it just seems like the same stuff that took way less time to write. That's it. Boring answer.

As I speak, more articles are coming out about me and Justin fighting. Because it's a less boring reason for a season to take long, and because I'm Dan Harmon, so it's a smart fucking first guess, it just happens to be hilariously not true even in the slightest. If you do know of me at all you know that if Justin and I HAD ever fought, not only wouldn't we be able to keep it secret, we'd be all too eager to share it with you. ...

Thing about making cartoons, sometimes they take way longer to create than you would guess (or hope). False starts. Potential story arcs that dead-end. Writer's block. Stuff happens. What's important (in the end) is that the shows are being made and people are working.

Happily, this is one of the Adult Swim shows that's union.

"Despicable Moi" Vs."Cars"

So it appears that another long-form cartoon might dethrone Pixar's latest offering.

... Illumination Entertainment’s “Despicable 3” opens June 30; ... early estimates suggest it’s the Minions that will rule the world. And if that’s the case, Universal could become the most successful animation distributor in domestic box office.

Disney still holds sway on a global basis; over the last five years, Disney-distributed animation has grossed just over $5 billion to Universal’s $3.35 billion. However, as a producer Illumination’s box office is bigger than either Disney or Pixar, domestic and foreign, and with this latest round it could become more successful than both entities combined at the domestic box office. ...

Chris Meledandri started in live-action at Disney, working at Dawn Steel's company. He moved on to Fox Animation, where he oversaw multiple failures from Fox's Phoenix studio before hitting his stride at Blue Sky Animation and then his own company, Illumination Entertainment.

Meledandri was the first animation producer who oversaw a successful animated feature that was created overseas. Prior to Meledandri, a succession of studios had offshored feature animation and fallen on their corporate faces. Even so, Illumination isn't using a low-rent studio in a Third World nation, but making its movies in Paris, France. Though the company receives Free Money from the French government, the IE pictures are not inexpensive. They're just less expensive than much of the competition.

And while the grosses of the Despicable Me series have gone continually up, the three Cars epics have done the reverse.

H/t to Justin Hunt.

ESCORTED TO THE AIRLOCK

It appears that two feature animation directors who have been helming a high-profile, big-budget space epic will not be bringing the project into the landing dock.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are no longer directing the Han Solo Star Wars spin-off.

"Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are talented filmmakers who have assembled an incredible cast and crew, but it’s become clear that we had different creative visions on this film, and we’ve decided to part ways. A new director will be announced soon," said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm in a statement. ...

Chris and Phil have a long history in animation. They brought the Sony feature Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs back from the dead. They launched the LEGO franchise at Warner Bros (the Warner Animation Group, specifically). They have been involved with live action shows and movies for years, and they have deals everywhere.

Since February, they have been in London shooting the Han Solo picture for Lucasfilm, and there are only weeks to go before the picture wraps. It would be nice to know what caused their exit. Was it the dailies (too comedic and light-hearted?). Was it their vision for the overall film? Did Kathleen Kennedy dislike the baked goods they brought in for the crew each morning? What??

Mopefully one day we'll find out, but it might not be soon. Everybody likes to be well-mannered where Diz Co. is concerned. Why do something to damage a career that's rolling along nicely, especially if you don't need to?