Monday, November 16, 2009

Despicable Me

Another trailer came out for Despicable Me a week or two ago. For those living under a rock, this is a film through the new animation arm of Universal called Illumination Entertainment. The actual animation production is being done at Mac Guf Ligne, a studio in France.

I really enjoyed this trailer. It was well done on all fronts. Upon reflection, the first trailer was pretty good as well, but I was a little wishy-washy on the character design. However, this latest one makes me want to see more. The two "villians" look entertaining enough.

IE is banking on a different production model then Pixar/Disney/DWA/Blue Sky/etc. They come up with the ideas and farm out the actual animation production. Not unlike what Sony Pictures Animation is doing with Open Season 3 (and did with OS2). Frankly, I think this is a smart decision from a business standpoint. While I hate outsourcing to foreign lands, the reasons are obvious for IE. France offers tax breaks.

As the economy straightens itself out, and if the US doesn't go bankrupt thanks to some idiotic government spending, we may see more of this as banks begin to hand out money again.

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