Animation news, reviews and features from the BCDB blog, 2011 to 2017, kept here to read.
February 23, 2017 · Dave Koch
Get ready for a new digital platform for the art of visual storytelling. Aimed at animation professionals and fans, “Craft” is an online subscription-based platform that allows a user to access the art and conceptual…
February 22, 2017 · Dave Koch
The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF), North America’s leading animation film festival, is now accepting entries for competition in 2017. With over 8 categories of competition, animators and other creators…
February 7, 2017 · Dave Koch
The somewhat troubled path to release of the sequel to 2014's The LEGO Movie has bumped through another pothole. Warner Animation Group has announced that veteran animation and live-action director Mike Mitchell is taking over on the film at the helm of The LEGO Movie Sequel.
February 6, 2017 · Dave Koch
Lighthouse Studios is a newly announced animation studio to be based in Kilkenny, Ireland. A joint venture of Cartoon Saloon (also of Kilkenny) and the Canadian animation studio Mercury Filmworks, the new studio is expected to open up at least 140 new jobs in Ireland. Both partners will continue their own separate TV and film operations, and use the new studio to develop children’s and family TV entertainment, for multi-platform global distribution.
February 5, 2017 · Dave Koch
Zootopia took home six awards at last nights ASIFA-Hollywood’s 44th annual Annie Awards, which were presented at Royce Hall on campus of University of California, Los Angeles. In addition to Best Feature Film, the Disney film also won Best Director, Outstanding Achievement in Character Design, Storyboarding, Voice Acting (Jason Bateman) and Writing in an animated feature. This pushed Disney to eleven wins out of the 31 awards at the show.
February 3, 2017 · Dave Koch
Pixar has announced the new short to accompany the theatrical release on Cars 3 in June. The six-minute short Lou looks to be a journey into familiar territory for Pixar- toys being abused by a bully, and a good-natured hero teaching the bully a lesson.
February 2, 2017 · Dave Koch
Hal Geer, a film editor, writer, director and producer at both Warner Bros. and Disney, has passed away at this home in Simi Valley California on January 26. He was 100. Over the course of his career, Geer worked on 25…
January 24, 2017 · Dave Koch
This morning the nominees for the 89th Academy Awards were announced in Beverly Hills California. In animation, we saw a good mix of big budget, popular films and smaller film releases. Disney came in with two nominations for best animated film, and Pixar struck out after wining last year with Inside Out.
July 11, 2016 · Dave Koch
Illumination Entertainment's The Secret Life of Pets jumped through movie theaters this weekend, topping the record for the biggest opening weekend ever for an original animated film. With a weekend take of $103.17 million for its first three days, Pets surpassed the $90.4 million record made by Pixar’s Inside Out last year. Pets also had the widest opening ever for an animated film, opening in 4,370 theaters this weekend.
July 2, 2016 · Dave Koch
Disney announced via Facebook Live that Oscar-winning animated film Wreck-It Ralph will be treated to a sequel in 2018. Though currently unofficially titled Wreck-It Ralph 2, the film will see the return of John C. Reilly as Ralph and the anticipated return of Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch as Vanellope von Schweetz, Fix-It Felix, Jr., and Sergeant Calhoun, respectively.
May 8, 2016 · Pepa Llausas
It was not until 1934 when the things actually started to be serious about the code. Scenes, scripts, shoots even whole films were banned. Nude, violence, racial points of view or religious critics were cut. And, of…
May 5, 2016 · Big Cartoon DataBase
With the seeming unstoppable success of Disney's live-action adaption The Jungle Book, and previous box-office toppers Maleficent and Cinderella- Disney is sifting through a lot of old animation classics with an eye to live-action remakes. With the box office success of each successive live-action adaption, it is no surprise at all that we see more adaptions on the horizon. Now Disney is saying they are already working on The Jungle Book 2, with both director Jon Favreau and writer Justin Marks returning to the film.
May 2, 2016 · Dave Koch
The video-game inspired animated film Ratchet & Clank opened this weekend, but could not overpower the 1-2 punch of Disney animation. Despite opening on nearly 2900 screens, the Rainmaker Entertainment and Blockade Entertainment production could not overcome the almost universal panning by critics, and the film only took in 4.8 million, and coming in at 7th in the box office.
May 1, 2016 · Dave Koch
In a stunning shake-up of animation studios, NBCUniversal has picked up DreamWorks Animation for 3.8 billion dollars, in a deal announced April 28th. Comcast- the parent company of NBCUniversal- says that Dreamworks “will become part of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.
April 30, 2016 · Pepa Llausas
From the late 19th century everything had changed in the new world. The working class had been growing fed by thousands and thousands of new immigrants, who, unlike the first ones who came from Britain, Canada, Germany, Ireland and Scandinavia, these arrived from Hungary, Italy, Poland and Russian. The new immigrants were often Catholics and Jewish and, often as well, their cultural and religious heritage collided with the one of the first colonists.
April 16, 2016 · Dave Koch
ToonBox Entertainment's The Nut Job 2- originally to be released January 15th- is now looking at a release next month on May 19. The sequel to 2014's The Nut Job features the return of Will Arnett as Surly Squirrel.
April 13, 2016 · Pepa Llausas
The idea that cartoons are created only for children is a pretty common one. However you may find that this preconception is a lot farther away from reality than you would think. Disney became the king of cartoon- land, and in doing so turn animation into an integral part of the film industry, with his philosophy dominating the market until the end of the century. But animation- not even in Walt Disney original intentions- was never intended only for kids.
March 20, 2016 · Pepa Llausas
Zootopia is a classic lesson about cinema. Full of references to the history of Hollywood, its script is a good example model for teaching new writers. The story shows that the magic can only emerge when the whole set and the relationship between the parts are working in harmony.
March 3, 2016 · Big Cartoon DataBase
"Big Hero 6 The Animated Series" will be an animated television series for kids, tweens and families, and is based on Walt Disney Animation Studios' Academy Award-winning 2014 feature film, also titled Big Hero 6. The TV series has begun production for a 2017 premiere on Disney XD.
February 12, 2016 · Big Cartoon DataBase
Almost two years ago, Cartoon Network announced a reboot of the popular 1998-2005 Craig McCracken series The Powerpuff Girls at the 2014 Licensing Expo in Las Vegas. The new series is a little closer to it's June debut on Cartoon Network, and now we have a fully animated teaser video of the first episode to judge it by.