Disney’s Marketing Problem…

Back in April of 2013, Disney had excitedly announced at the annual CinemaCon expo that their plan was to release at least *eight* tentpole films every calendar year. This was when movie division chairman Alan Horn - pictured above - was relatively new to the studio. A veteran from Warner Bros.' heyday, Horn was the …

A Better Beast?

The 2017, Disney-made live-action Beauty and the Beast remake is only happening for one reason, and it rhymes with honey. Disney's animated adaptation of Beauty and the Beast is still loved 25 years after its 1991 theatrical debut, and is often called one of the greatest animated films. Of course Disney wants to mine from …

2016’s Animated Oscars… Hard to Predict?

The Oscars... The Best Animated Feature category... Who is in the running? I think this year, we don't have too many definite answers. This is a bit premature, because four more major animated features are left, one of which comes from the on-a-roll Walt Disney Animation Studios. The features are Warner Animation Group's high-flying comedy …

Why I’m Looking Forward To ‘Cars 3’, More So Than ‘Toy Story 4’…

Update: In late October, Pixar played musical chairs with Toy Story 4 and The Incredibles 2. Toy Story 4 is now slated to come out in summer 2019, with The Incredibles 2 opening in summer 2018... Pixar's future slate, a line-up peppered with sequels, is a complicated discussion. Another story for another day, but so …

The Animation Box Office Crown

This summer's Finding Dory, interestingly enough, broke the record for highest grossing animated film in the domestic market. For 12 years, the crown was held by DreamWorks' Shrek 2, which was actually one of those rare sequels that outgrossed its predecessor by a wide margin. Finding Dory of course got to that point due to …

Breaking Down Disney’s “Dark Age”: Aftermath and Conclusion

  In the previous part, I looked at The Black Cauldron, the film that is seemingly the poster child of everything wrong with the company before the esteemed Renaissance. It's also often looked at as a low point for theatrical animation, but was it really, truly that bad? In my review I gave the verdict, …

Breaking Down Disney’s “Dark Age”: Part 2

In the last part, I took a look at the first films that entered production after Walt Disney's passing in 1966, The Aristocats and Robin Hood. These were two very compromised films, the filmmakers behind them had to be very budget-conscious all the while delivering fun films that would get The Jungle Book's success, and …

Breaking Down Disney’s “Dark Age”: Part 1

It is often stated that Walt Disney Animation Studios went through a prolonged "Dark Age" after the death of Walt Disney and the posthumous release of The Jungle Book. A dark age that would end with The Little Mermaid in 1989, often called the start of Disney's Renaissance... What is true is that the studio …

DreamWorks’ Future

DreamWorks has a complicated history, and can be a complicated studio to talk about. Being over 20 years old, they've seen their ups and downs. Jeffrey Katzenberg formed DreamWorks SKG with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, after storming out of The Walt Disney Company in the autumn of 1994. Naturally, given his success with Disney's …

Flop Talk: The Inconsistent Reporting on Box Office Failures

Box office flops... One thing they are good at: Making the press race to do autopsies. "What went wrong?" they bellow, "here are the reasons!" they declare. Let's look at two box office flops: The Good Dinosaur and The Legend of Tarzan. Let's look at a film that performed similarly to them, but broke even …