Happy Belated to Mr. Lusk

Five years and two days ago, I put up an interview with THIS fine man. ...

Cartoon veteran Don Lusk (animator, story man, and director .. from Disney on Hyperion to Hanna-Barbera on Cahuenga) turns turns ten decades old today.

To celebrate, we present you with the Don Lusk 100th birthday interview, which covers his career from Disney in 1933, to Hanna-Barbera in 1993. (Sixty years of work seems to be sufficient, wouldn't you say?) ...

Don is now 105 years old, and the last of Disney's "Golden Age" animators.

He started at Disney-Hyperion in 1933, departed in 1960 (and let's be upfront about this: Don was fired. He went out on strike in 1941 and Walt never forgave him.)

Don went on to a long career at Hanna-Barbera. He retired at age eighty in 1993, and has been busy for the twenty-five years that have elapsed since then. Happy 105th, Don. May your next 105 years be eqully memorable.

You will find Parts II and III of this interview here and here.

Halloweenie Box Office

Jamie Lee Curtis perches at the top of the box office, while Lady Gaga's Star continues to shine at #2. And the animated feature clinging to a spot on the Big List is fading a bit, but fading slooowly.

Three Days of Grosses

1) Halloween -- 3,990 (+62) -- $32M (-58%) -- $126.7M

2) A Star Is Born -- 3,904 (+20) -- $14.1M (-26%) -- $148.7M

3) Venom -- 3,567 (-320) -- $10.8M (-40%) -- $187.2M

4) Goosebumps 2 -- 3,723 (+202) -- $7.5M (-23%) -- $38.3M

5) Hunter Killer -- 2,720 $2.5M -- $6.6M -- $6.6M (1st weekend)

6) The Hate U Give -- 2,375 (+72) -- $5.1M (-33%) -- $18.3M

7) First Man -- 2,959 (-681) -- $4.9M (-31%) -- $37.8M

8) Smallfoot -- 2,662 (-370) -- $4.75M (-28%) -- $72.5M

9) Night School -- 1,991 (-305) -- $3.2M (-33%) -- $71.4M

10) Mid 90s A24 -- 1,206 (+1,202) -- $3M (+1063%) -- $3.3M

Remakes and sequels currently rule the roost (and, of course, the usual super hero movie). The well-reviewed Smallfoot has been only a mild performer at the U.S. and Canadian box office. The bulk of its revenue (over 56%) has come from overseas. Its worldwide total now comes to $167,591,050

Animation Guild Ratifies New Contract

Slightly old news (but still) ...

Members of the Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839, have voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new film and TV contract. The vote to approve the three-year deal with management’s AMPTP was 868-213 – an approval margin of 80.3% to 19.7%.

Of the guild’s 3,695 eligible members, 1,081 (29.3%) cast ballots. ...

There was campaigning between pro-ratification and anti-ratification Guild members during the ratification process. In the end the "Yes" votes were in line with previous ratifications. The number of ratification participants was similar to earlier election cycles, though the vote totals were higher because the membership of TAG has grown over the previous decade and a half.

Hiccup of History

A high profile writer (Terry Rossio of "Shrek", "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Lone Ranger" fame) points out a discrepancy that's been around sine the 1930s.

So strange that literally tho only words spoken in the new "Aladdin" trailer happens to be a rhyme that my writing partner and I wrote and Disney offers zero compensation to us (or to any screenwriters on any of these live-action remakes) not even a t-shirt or pass to the park.

As I used to tell angry writers: the reason they get shafted is because of a hiccup in history. Back when entertainment guilds and unions were being formed and scrambling for jurisdiction, animated cartoons were not something the Screen Writers Guild thought much about. The stories, after all, were worked by people that DREW PICTURES.

But things changed as things so often do. Story work for animated features and shorts devolved to the Screen Cartoonists Guild and then The Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists (now known as Tne Animation Guild), part of the IATSE, which represents below-the-line crafts in movies and television. And here we are.

Because of that hiccup, animation employees are shoe-horned in with grips, make-up artists and camera people (among others) and labeled "below-the-line" which is a lousy term to start with. Cartoonists have tried to get re-use residuals multiple times without result. Times being what they are, it might be a while before they achieve them.

The Box Office of Middle October

Man on the moon

The super hero continues to charge along (though dropping by more more than half, weekend to weekend), while the space opera about the first man on the earth's orbiting orb lands at third.

Three Days of Grosses

1) Venom -- 4,250 -- $35.7M (-55%) -- $142.8M

2) A Star Is Born -- 3,708 (+22) -- $28M (-35%) -- $94.1M

3) First Man -- 3,640 -- $16.5M -- $16.5M (1st weekend)

4) Goosebumps 2 -- 3,521 -- $16.2M -- $16.2M (1st weekend)

5) Smallfoot -- 3,606 (-525) -- $9.3M (-35%) -- $57.6M

6) Night School -- 2,780 (-239) -- $8M (-36%) -- $59.8M

7) …El Royale -- 2,808 -- $7.2M -- $7.2M (1st weekend)

8) The House… -- 2,791 (-672) -- $3.9M (-46%) -- $62.2M

9) The Hate U Give -- 248 (+212) -- $1.76M (+245%) -- $2.4M

10) The Nun -- 1,174 (-1,090) -- $1.3M (-49%) -- $115.9M

Smallfoot (from Warners) has collected $14.5 million in international markets even as it collected $9.3 million from the U.S. an Canada. (Grand total to date: $110,208,221).

Hotel Transylvania 3, though pretty well over domestically, earner another $2.8 millio overseas. It now has a $350 million total in foreign markets, and a global gross of $516,735,989.

THE REBOOT

The removal of properties from the vault continues ...

Will any of the creators of the original blockbuster get any profit-sharing on this one?

Will Walt rise again?

The original's story director, an artist named Ed Gombert, told me how difficult it was to put together the first version, how Howard Ashman's treatment got changed, and then the whole plot had to be reworked in a short time span to meet the release date, and he had NO idea how they would hit the mark.

But they did.

Per director Ron Clements, when the crew moved into production after "Beauty and the Beast" wrapped, nothing was ready but two of the songs .... so the songs went into animation first.

And now comes the remake. All hail the Mouse.

What's Jeffrey K. Been Up To?

Mr. Katzenberg hasn't let the grass grow under his feet. He's been raking in bucks for his new "short content" enterprise.

Media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and veteran tech executive Meg Whitman used the prominent platform of Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit to announce the name of their new mobile video startup and drop the names of four high-profile Hollywood players who will create content for the subscription service.

Filmmakers Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro and Antoine Fuqua and noted producer Jason Blum will all create shows for the new mobile subscription service, which launches next year.

“These people are so excited about doing something new. They want to be the pioneers. They want to be able to show the path in doing this,” said Katzenberg. “We are going to do be able to do extraordinary storytelling.” ...

Jeffrey has come full circle.

Back in the early eighties at Paramount, he was overseeing live-action features. Then he moved with Michael Eisner to Disney, and supervised live-action and (as a side show) the studio' animated features.

Initially Mr. Katzenberg found success with both live-action and animated movies, but over his ten years at Disney, it was animated product that took flight. He was an unqualified success with Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Lion King but the offerings with flesh and blood actors foundered. In '94 Disney President Frank Wells died and Jeffrey grabbed for that brass ring. Michael Eisner pushed him overboard and he became the junionr partner of DreamWorks SKG.

For twenty years Jeffrey oversaw a string of animated features, then he sold out to Comcast Universal and dove back into live-action. Mr. Katzenberg is now a billionaire, but his day-to-day reality will be superintending (again) live-action. The difference this time around? The product will be 8 to 10 minutes in length, instead of two hours.

Progress. (I suppose).