Film Dreamworks Animation Future Slate

[lordcookie]

Because the studio seem to be announcing so many films lately, some of which don't need a dedicated thread at this early stage, I thought a similar thread to the Pixar one would make sense.

An overview of the films currently in production.

Kung-Fu Panda 2: The Kaboom of Doom - May 2011

A sequel to the surprisingly enjoyable original with the original cast all set to return along with a bunch of new characters. Plot: Po (Jack Black), Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), Master Tigress (Angelina Jolie), and the rest of The Furious Five will join forces with The SoothSayer (Michelle Yeoh), Master Skunkman (James Woods), Master Croc (Jean-Claude Van Damme), and Master Thundering Rhino (Victor Garber) on their quest to defeat Shen (Gary Oldman), a powerful warrior and save Kung Fu from being destroyed. Charlie Kaufman has also rewritten the script.

Puss in Boots - November 2011

This Shrek spin-off has been rumoured ever since the characters appearance in the second film. Finally, with the original franchise put to bed, he gets his own outing. Plot: The film follows Puss in Boots as he tells the tale of his early adventures. He teams with mastermind, Humpty Dumpty and the street-savvy Kitty to steal the famed Goose that lays the Golden Eggs that could make Puss and his counterparts rich.

The Croods - March 2012

Plot: Surviving in a volcanic world is tough enough, but caveman Grug (Cage) gets a rude awakening when an earthquake forces him to leave behind the only world he knows. With his family in tow, he ventures out into the volatile world in search of a new home. The situation becomes even more complicated when Grug's family - in particular his eldest daughter - become smitten with a nomad (Reynolds) they encounter on their dangerous journey. This quirky, imaginative stranger's search for 'tomorrow' is at odds with Grug's reliance on the traditions of yesterday. Directed by Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon), perhaps the studios biggest coup to date, this film will surely be one of the most anticipated due to the director's record and the involvement of Nic Cage and Ryan Reynolds on vocal duties.

Madagascar 3 - Summer 2012

No real news other than it is being made. After the first two films does anybody really care?

The Guardians of Childhood - November 2012

Based on the William Joyce books and starring Leonardo DiCaprio the film features a group of heroes from various childhood stories - Santa (Christopher Lee), the Easter Bunny (Seth Green), the Tooth Fairy (Miranda Cosgrove), Genie (Hank Azaria), the Sandman (Andy Samberg) and Jack Frost (Leonardo Dicaprio) - who join together in an adventure to stop Pitch the Boogeyman (George Lopez) from sending the world into "eternal darkness".

How to Train Your Dragon 2 - 2013

A follow-up to the studios first truly exceptional film. This time DeBlois goes it alone as director but with the rest of the cast returning and plenty of stories from the books to tell, I have high hopes for this.

The Pig Scrolls - 2013

After all the Olympian gods go missing, Sibyl has a premonition in which the sun god Apollo tells her to find "the talking pig". Sibyl then sets out looking for the talking pig, Gryllus. She finds him at Big Stavros's Kebab bar where he is forced to entertain customers. Together they set off for the temple at Delphi. Apollo informs Sibyl that she and Gryllus must find a goatherd boy living on top of a mountain. Once Sibyl and Gryllus find the goatherd, (who turns out to be the god Zeus) they set off once more for Apollo's temple at Delphi. It is there that Gryllus, the talking pig, must save the world from utter destruction.

Additional: What the author had to say about his work:

“I got the idea for The Pig Scrolls when I was rereading Homer's Odyssey and found myself more interested in some of the non-heroic characters in the background. Working on the book gave me a chance to revisit a world I have always loved—that of ancient mythology and history. And, of course, in order to research the character of Gryllus fully, I was forced to eat a huge number of pies.”

The Pig Scrolls is set in Ancient Greece, and is about a pig named Gryllus. Gryllus, who was once a member of captain Odesseus’ famous crew, was transformed into a pig by the enchantress Circe. Gryllus, enjoying his quiet life in the woods is soon captured by local hunters when they realize he can talk, and is soon “rescued” by a junior prophetess in training (Sibyl). Sibyl informs Gryllus of a premonition showing her the end of the world. Gryllus believes her to have lost a couple of marbles and escapes, so Sibyl kidnaps him. On their journey to the temple in Delphi, they encounter monsters, gods, a strange goatherd and a scientist who has invented the awesome Atomos Device. Gryllus comes to realize that the entire universe is in the trotters of one talking pig, himself...

Dinotrux - TBA

Written by Chris Gall, the book takes place in a fictional prehistoric age, when the world was ruled by Dinotrux, creatures that were part trucks, part dinosaurs, with species like the Craneosauraus, Garbageadon and Tyrannosaurus Trux plowing and bulldozing their way across the terrain.

Gil's All Fright Diner - TBA

In the backwoods southern town of Rockwood, a vampire and a werewolf in a run-down old truck come across Gil's All Night Diner, a 24-hour restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Nearly run out of gas, they stop in at the diner only to discover it is the target of zombie attacks, hauntings, and occult activity.

The manager of the diner, Loretta, offers them a job helping her out around the diner, and maybe help solve her zombie problem. In exchange, she'll give them money to help them on their way. They accept.

Good Luck Trolls - TBA

Yes, there will be an adaptation of the troll dolls that were popular in the '70s and '80s.

Boo U - TBA

Seth Rogen provides his vocal 'talents' in a film directed by the man responsible for the mediocre, Igor. Rogen will play a ghost who is forced to return to ghost school and improve his haunting skills.

Truckers - TBA

Yes, it is an adaptation of the Pratchett novels. Rllmuk Thread

Imaginary Enemies - TBA

The new project will be told from the point of view of the imaginary friends who had long been used as scapegoats by unscrupulous children looking for someone else to blame for their misdeeds. Eventually fed up, those imaginary people come looking for some payback when the kids are grown up. This could be the studios first CGI-live action hybrid.

Trollhunters - TBA

Produced by Guillermo del Toro. More info in the dedicated thread: here.

Alma - TBA

See next post.

[lordcookie]

I have mentioned the short film in the Great Animated Films thread and it seems to be getting the feature film treatment (lets hope it turns out better than the last short-to-feature film, 9).

The story centers on a young girl who gets lured into an enchanted toy store, drawn in by its beautiful collection of dolls, including one that looks just like her. She discovers only too late that the shop is nefariously intent on adding her to its permanent collection. It was a really well judged short film that probably has enough scope to still work at feature length. Guillermo del Toro will produce the film whilst Rodrigo Blaas (the man responsible for the short) will write and direct.

Hopefully they will keep the art style and quirky sensibility. Considering how full the studios slate is I have no idea when we will see this but it could be as late as 2016.

[Blobcat]

The Pig Scrolls remind me a little of the plot of Disney's The Black Cauldron.

[Harsin]

The Croods - March 2012

Plot: Surviving in a volcanic world is tough enough, but caveman Grug (Cage) gets a rude awakening when an earthquake forces him to leave behind the only world he knows. With his family in tow, he ventures out into the volatile world in search of a new home. The situation becomes even more complicated when Grug's family - in particular his eldest daughter - become smitten with a nomad (Reynolds) they encounter on their dangerous journey. This quirky, imaginative stranger's search for 'tomorrow' is at odds with Grug's reliance on the traditions of yesterday. Directed by Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon), perhaps the studios biggest coup to date, this film will surely be one of the most anticipated due to the director's record and the involvement of Nic Cage and Ryan Reynolds on vocal duties.

This should be one to watch. Sanders is hitting two for two in the directings stakes.

It was a real shame that Disney ganked American Dog and turned it into Bolt, but at least we got How to Train Your Dragon out of it, which was excellent and probably the best thing to come out of Dreamworks animation.

[lordcookie]

Some info on Kung Fu Panda 2:

Plot synopsis: Po is now living his dream as The Dragon Warior, protecting the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, The Furious Five – Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. But Po’s new life of awesomeness is threatened by the emergence of a formidable villain, who plans to use a secret, unstoppable weapon to conquer China and destroy kung fu.

It is up to Po and The Furious Five to journey across China to face this threat and vanquish it. But how can Po stop a weapon that can stop kung fu? He must look to his past and uncover the secrets of his mysterious origins; only then will he be able to unlock the strength he needs to succeed.

And the logo

[Goose]

I like the sound of Gil's All Fright Diner.

[Vemsie]

Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom teaser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LaYnU0AIWU&feature=player_embedded

Might be interesting to see what Charlie Kaufman's script doctoring brought to the table as well.

[NecroMorrius]

Looks like Disney have nicked the Dreamworks face for 'Tangled'.

[roskelld]

I have mentioned the short film in the Great Animated Films thread and it seems to be getting the feature film treatment (lets hope it turns out better than the last short-to-feature film, 9).

The story centers on a young girl who gets lured into an enchanted toy store, drawn in by its beautiful collection of dolls, including one that looks just like her. She discovers only too late that the shop is nefariously intent on adding her to its permanent collection. It was a really well judged short film that probably has enough scope to still work at feature length. Guillermo del Toro will produce the film whilst Rodrigo Blaas (the man responsible for the short) will write and direct.

Hopefully they will keep the art style and quirky sensibility. Considering how full the studios slate is I have no idea when we will see this but it could be as late as 2016.

I didn't like that. It was a pretty horrible story without any pay off. I know that short stories often go for that tired old twist ending, but I'd rather have seen something like that than the sign posted story that we got.

I wasn't greatly fond of the art style too, well, I liked the scenery and the dolls but the main character design didn't look very appealing, the eyes were too far apart and the form reminded me of those rad skateboard graffiti characters. like this:

The pinched in neck and wide feet.

The music was nice, though it felt like a track lifted straight from Up.

[lordcookie]

I'm sorry you didn't like it, Roskelld.

Anyway, it looks like the studio is continuing to milk their franchises - 4 Madagascar, 3 How to Train Your Dragon and 6 Kung Fu Panda.

HTTYD is based on an existing source where there are 8 books already so a trilogy of films sounds okay but SIX Kung Fu Panda sounds ridiculous, and I quite enjoyed the first film.

[lordcookie]

Another new Dreamworks film announced (even at two films a year their slate is really full).

Me and My Shadow is about Shadow Stan, an extremely frustrated shadow who yearns for a dynamic life but happens to be stuck with Stanley Grubb, the world’s most boring human. Finally pushed to the brink, Shadow Stan breaks the singular rule of the Shadow World (“They lead, we follow”), and takes control of Stanley!

Press release:

Mark Dindal (Chicken Little, The Emperor’s New Groove) is the film’s director and Melissa Cobb (Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda 2) and Teresa Cheng (Shrek Forever After, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron) are serving as producers. Shane Prigmore (Coraline, “The Lord of the Rings”) is head of story and Scott Wills (Monsters vs. Aliens, “Ren & Stimpy”) and Raymond Zibach (Kung Fu Panda, The Road to El Dorado) are production designers. Nick Fletcher (Shrek Forever After, The Prince of Egypt) is serving as editor. The screenplay for Me and My Shadow, which was originally penned by both Steve Bencich and Ron Friedman (Chicken Little, Open Season), is currently being revised by writing team Tom Astle and Matt Ember (Get Smart).

The idea sounds ever so slightly like Hans Christian Andersen's The Shadow, one of my favourite fairy tales.

[Kinketsu]

Press releases always make me laugh

The Road to El Dorado

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

The Prince of Egypt

The Emperor’s New Groove

Get Smart

All fantastic titles you'd want to be credited with

[lordcookie]

The Emperor's New Groove is a really underrated film (sure, from a commercial standpoint you might not want the association but it is a great film nonetheless). Actually, Road to El Dorado, Spirit and Prince of Egypt are all solid films too, much better than 90% of the output from Dreamworks animation department so far.

[Headache]

The Emperor's New Groove is one of my all time favourite animated films. The humour is just spot on all the way through.

[lordcookie]

Kung Fu Panda 2 TV Spot

[lordcookie]

Dreamworks developing a musical, Monkeys of Bollywood, based on the Ramayana story.

http://www.slashfilm.com/dreamworks-animation-announced-monkeys-bollywood/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+slashfilm+(/Film)&utm_content=Google+Reader

If they want to do the Ramayana story then they should just do a faithful adaptation of Sanjay Patel's Divine Loophole version.

[lordcookie]

Yet another Dreamworks animated feature was announced today, probably due sometime in 2048.

Robert Downey Jr voicing Mr Peabody in film adaptation of Peabody and Sherman

A modern audience will probably think Peabody is a rip-off of Brian from Family Guy.

[Chosty]

Wow, those Divine Loophole pics are amazing! The middle one especially.

[lordcookie]

It is a great book and well worth tracking down, especially as you like picture books.

[Chosty]

Definitely.

The style and colour palette reminds me a little of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

[lordcookie]

Puss in Boots Teaser

[DarhkFox]

Press releases always make me laugh

The Road to El Dorado

The Prince of Egypt

The Emperor’s New Groove

All fantastic titles you'd want to be credited with

whats your point? these three (not seen spirit) are all pretty ace films.

[lordcookie]

Dreamworks slate is looking ridiculously full at the moment, they have to have the next ten years mapped out based on the number of new films they've commissioned lately. The newest film is My Unwilling Witch (The Rumblewick Letters) based on the books by Hiawyn Oram and Sarah Warburton, which tells of a witch’s cat whose owner no longer wants to be a witch.

Rumblewick sounds as if it’ll be a bit different, however, if still set in that same general world. It is being written by Tim Johnson (Antz) and Jim Herzfeld (Meet the Parents) with Tim Johnson directing. According to a press release, “Rumblewick will follow the adventures of a magician’s rabbit for whom the invitation to learn real magic and train as a witch’s familiar seems like a dream come true! But the dream becomes a nightmare when he discovers he’s really a pawn in a game between rival witches. Having learned the hard way that when something seems too good to be true it probably is, he must outsmart them both to save his fuzzy little hide.”

[lordcookie]

Here is the (US) release schedule for the next couple of years:

Kung Fu Panda 2 - May 26, 2011

Puss In Boots - November 4, 2011

Madagascar 3 - June 8, 2012

Rise of the Guardians - November 21, 2012

The Croods - March 1, 2013

Turbo - June 7, 2013

Me and My Shadow - November 8, 2013

Mr. Peabody & Sherman - March 21, 2014

How to Train Your Dragon 2 - June 20, 2014

Good to see more than half of those aren't sequels or spin-offs and, if truth be told, at least one of those sequels is a film I'm really looking forward to seeing (HTTYD 2 obviously).

[Nick R]

Not really sure if this is the best place to put this (maybe the HTTYD thread?)...

Cartoon Brew recently posted a news item about an illustrated story Chris Sanders made in 1989 as an allegory for the role of writers in animation. It was scanned and posted here, but you can't read it at the moment as the images have exceeded their bandwidth on Photobucket.

So then Chris Sanders replied with two detailed comments about it:

Golly, I never thought I’d see that thing on the internet. I really wish I could re-do those drawings right about now.

I read some of the comments earlier, and I think I can provide some perspective as to what I was up to, and what was happening at the time I wrote this.

It was created for a Disney offsite. I wasn’t invited to the retreat, but anyone could write their thoughts down and submit them, and they would be copied and bound into a folder that would accompany the attendees. The hope being that all this stuff would be read carefully and thoughtfully and then discussed by the attendees at the retreat.

I wanted to submit some thoughts of my own, but from the size of some of the notes being submitted by my fellow artists, I thought it was unlikely anyone would really read all that material. We’re talking dozens if not hundreds of pages of thoughts/complaints/suggestions in that folder.

So I decided to submit mine in the form of this little picture book – so it might stand out. I’m not sure if it worked, but if someone found a copy of it twenty years later, at least one person must have read it.

Anyone who read the story would see that I wasn’t a proponent of the removal of writers from the development process. But I was focusing on the quantity of writers, the quality of the writers, and the unwillingness of writers to partner with the artists they worked so near. And, I would say, the artists they needed to make their material work. In feature animation a great deal of the finished film, if not the bulk of it, is written by the story crew. And I mean entire scenes, not the occasional gag that is transcribed back into a script. As head of story on Mulan, I received a writing credit for that very reason.

The other thing I was concerned about was the ever-growing complexity of our films, and what I saw as an emerging pattern they were all cut from. A lot of our films fell into a well-worn groove. Different characters, but similar roles. It didn’t seem like we could get away with that forever. I felt we could be more inventive. I felt that a film with a smaller crew and lower budget could be successful.

While the story crew was debating how we would kill the villain at the end of Mulan, we began reflecting on how strange it was that we spent so much time trying to find fresh ways to kill characters in Disney films. In Mulan we (the story crew) came up with the idea that the villain could be blown to bits by fireworks, rather than falling to his death as was written in the script. A lot of those villains fall at the end of Disney films. Some get stabbed first, but a whole lot of them fall. There was almost always a death at the end of our movies. It was one of those patterns I worried about.

That’s where Lilo and Stitch came from. At its base, Lilo and Stitch is a story about a villain who becomes a hero. A redemption story. A story that diverged from the pattern.

At the time I wrote that document, the suggestion that Disney could be surpassed by another studio seemed outrageous. Impossible. But a studio or company that feels secure, is slow to innovate and has trouble with self-examination can certainly be surpassed by something fresh, small, and fast.

Anyway, that’s where the little story book came from. To my surprise, it made the rounds. In the years that followed I got the occasional call from people at other companies that asked if they could use it for a presentation. I guess it was vague enough that it could apply in other places. Including Lockheed, to my surprise.

I’m glad this forum has generated such passion – it’s so nice to hear so many perspectives. The only thing I’d add at this point, is that I don’t assume anything about writers. All my experience with the writers I was referring to was first-hand.

Again, I like writers. The good ones. The ones that aren’t just good at structure or inventive dialogue or the rhythm of a scene – but the ones that are also good in a room. The ones that are friendly, energetic and collaborative. The ones that can adapt quickly to a change and don’t have a problem editing their own pages. The ones that think visually, and understand when to let the characters shut up and let the score do the talking. And the ones that do their job without arrogance or ego. One thing I’ve learned – if someone tells you they are a great writer, they probably aren’t a great writer. At the very least they are a writer who’s better off mailing their pages in because you probably don’t want them around.

When I talk about writers I’m talking about the ones I actually worked with. In development my room was right next to theirs. A whole slew of different writers passed through that room – none of them stuck around very long. Some were silly, some were lazy, some were arrogant, and some were just plain mean. One group yelled at our PA because their phone cord wasn’t long enough. Another set spent the entire day wadding up fresh pieces of typing paper and throwing them at a wastebasket till it was buried, then took a three hour lunch. They came back for an hour before they left for the day. One came into my room, complained about my drawings, then took a piece of paper from me and scribbled the most terrible little drawing. He gave it to me and said, “There, that’s how the villain should look.”

Boy, I wish I kept that drawing. Once, while in a very tense meeting, our writer banged their head on a table, burst into tears, and ran out of the room.

And I listened to them all day long. That’s why I wrote what I did about them. I actually heard the stories they were hatching. It was pure insanity. The Sound Of Music set underwater with Nazi sharks. I saw them watch a Goofy cartoon and one of them asked why Goofy was acting so dumb. They thought they could probably fix that, because, well, I guess they thought the way Goofy was acting must have been some sort of mistake.

The ones I worked with, especially in development, didn’t belong there. They had no love for animation. In fact there was usually contempt for it. They wasted our time, money, and seriously stressed everyone out because we fretted that one of them might actually be assigned to one of our films and we’d have to carry them all the way through.

To the fellow who joked that I should have hired a writer for my story, I would say it already had one – me. I thought it up. I wrote it. And I drew it. It may not be perfect, but it exists solely because I made it. And it still seems to have some ability to start conversation, which is what I wanted it to do when it was written twenty years ago.

The implication of course that a “real” writer could have done it better. But as usual, when I was making it, there weren’t any around. All the “real” ones had gone home at 4:00. So I did it. And it got done.

One final note – I’ve written scripts and I’ve drawn story boards. I’ve even boarded my own pages. And when I board my own pages I change about the same amount of stuff I do when working from other writers pages. Even I can’t foresee all the adaptation a scene will need until I actually start drawing it. So if you’re writing for feature animation, don’t be too quick to feel upset if things get changed in boards. As soon as I sit down to board my own pages, I’ll think, “Well this doesn’t work.” Or, “I can dump half of this, what the hell was I thinking?”

Boarding is physically more demanding than writing. It just is. Write a battle scene, then try boarding it. A single paragraph of a script can stretch into hundreds of drawings. Feature animation is ultimately written on the boards. Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, are all massive collaborations. Scenes are written, boarded, pitched… and then the real work begins. Those meetings can last days, and the story artists, directors, and writers are all in that room together. Writers return to their computers alone, but they are carrying all the material generated in those story meetings. So be careful not to imagine a pristine process where a writer sends pages along, and they simply get made into a movie.

It's nice to know his position is a little more nuanced than that of John "writers who can't draw are EVIL" Kricfalusi.

[lordcookie]

I really can't be bothered making a dedicated topic for this as I hated the first two...

http://youtu.be/OKsTmYSZm9k

My overriding thought is why is their fur not wet when they emerge from the water?

[Goose]

As a counter - A Q&A on how Pixar Short Films Get Made -

http://www.slashfilm.com/qa-pixar-short-film/

[lordcookie]

[Vemsie]

I may be the only one, but l really dig that poster.

[Smitty]

I always see this thread and think that Dreamworks are making a sci-fi film called Future Slate.