Megamind

A new teaser came out for Megamind. Amid over at Cartoon Brew has some hate for it. He doesn't seem to be much of a fan of DWA, so I'm not surprised.

IMO, the teaser is okay. The character design is interesting, but is a little bland. Reminds me of the Great Gazoo from the Flinstones. The animation however, is pretty nice. I like it.

I don't know what to expect from this movie, but it is a little hard to make much of it from this one little teaser. I'm not ready to flame it until more can be seen.

Reel FX CG Feature

It was only a matter of time. Reel FX has been doing outsource work for other studios for quite some time. They did a lot of Open Season 2, and are doing most of Open Season 3. They've done bit parts on a few other studio films. While the work on these projects haven't been all that great, the studio is capable of nice stuff.

An announcement came yesterday that they have $35 million to make their first CG feature. Now, that may not seem like much. But keep in mind, these guys are in Dallas, not San Fran or LA. Open Season 2 & 3 budgets were under $5 million. I'm confident these guys can really stretch the dollar nicely.

Of course, that is if they can keep the production in control. Meaning, don't fall into the same trap that Disney/DreamWorks/Pixar does. And that is re-working the story until everyone is blue in the face. Those other studios have the $$ to do such a thing. But at $35 million, you can't do it. And especially, you can't go back and rework the story after production begins.

We'll see in a few years how this all pans out. But for now, I bet they'll be able to do a lot with the $35. Hopefully they can find a distribution partner that can get it in front of faces.

Around the Horn

Lost interest in this blog. I'm back for another post. No promises for when the next will come.

ImageMovers shuts down its Novato studio. Sorry for the people working there, but I'm not sorry to see the company go. Now, if only we could get Zemeckis out of animation for good.

"Princess-Frog" came and went. Yawn.

Pixar releases promo still for its new short that will play before Toy Story 3. Has some 2D animation in it. Will save my comments until after I've seen it. I'm a big fan of studios doing shorts, but this one doesn't have me all that excited.

Snuck into Disney to see some footage of "Tangled". Incredible animation. May be some of the best CG animation I've seen to date. The look is great too. Can't wait to see the finished movie. Before you ask, yeah the name change is stupid and from a business standpoint, I really don't think it will make an iota of difference.

"Up" won the Best Animated Film category. No surprise there. Good film. Not great imo, but good. The release schedule from Pixar is peppered with sequels. Bummer. Are we out of new film ideas already?

Heard that Core is closing. This is the same Core that produced that butt ugly CG film "The Wild". Tough times!

"How To Train Your Dragon" will be out soon. This looks pretty entertaining. Early reviews are overwhelmingly positive. I'll probably go to the theater for this one. If for no other reason, to look cool in those 3-D glasses.

That's it for now.