Personally, I'd rather see a Monsters, Inc. sequel rather than a prequel. I even have a story in mind: The up-to-no-good WolfsBain Capital does a leveraged buyout of Monsters, Inc., Sulley is fired as CEO, and the new management enlists Mike Wazowski and the rest of the employees to kidnap children and bring them back to Monstropolis so they can be used as cheap labor. Instead, Disney and Pixar have put together a much lighter Monsters-Inc.-meets-Animal-House precursor tale , called Monsters University, that, unlike my idea, might actually sell some tickets. more »
I guess it's not surprising that a movie franchise that relies on Randy Newman for its theme music would discover rave culture a couple of decades late. Then again, this Pixar Toy Story short is about a dinosaur. Partysaurus Rex finds the Wallace Shawn-voiced dinosaur Rex discovering a whole new group of wet and wild hipster friends when, after being deemed "Party-Pooper Rex" by the old gang, he's spirited off for some tub play by Andy. more »
I'll leave the jokes about how Monsters, Inc 3D has a new eye-popping look to Billy Crystal and, instead, ask if you remember where your head was at in November 2001 when this Pixar classic was released. If you lived in New York City and had a young child (as I did), you were probably extremely grateful for Monsters, Inc. because, even if your kid was too young to grasp what had happened at Ground Zero, you were not. more »
Attached to prints of Disney-Pixar's Finding Nemo 3-D re-release next month will be a new Toy Story Toon spin-off short starring the voice of Wallace Shawn as the adorably naive dino Rex, who goes from Debbie Downer to the titular Partysaurus Rex at bathtime. Cute enough, no? Watch a clip after the jump and tell us if the law of diminishing returns applies to stories built around second- and third-tier Toy Story characters.
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Pixar is at its best when it’s making movies about rats working in restaurants and families of superheroes with not-so-super powers; not so much when it's spinning cautionary environmental tales with robots-in-love subplots and sentimental weepers about grumpy codgers “learning to love again.” Somewhere at the more golden end of that yardstick is Brave, in which a peppery redheaded Scottish princess from days of yore named Merida – her voice is provided by the wonderful Glasgow-born actress Kelly Macdonald – decides she doesn’t want to marry from the selection of gents her parents have chosen for her and would much prefer traipsing through the forest with her trusty bow-and-arrow.
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Critics will argue over Disney-Pixar's 11th century Scottish princess adventure Brave, but there's one thing we can all agree on: That redheaded Merida chick has one fantastic head of hair. And as the Wall Street Journal reports, it wasn't easy to do the 'do. "Merida's hair is made up of 1,500 individually sculpted curves, distinct points in a three-dimensional space, that are programmed to bounce and interact in relation to one another via a new software system, says [Pixar simulation supervisor Claudia Chung]. Another software program was created to make the hair react more realistically to the character's movements and surroundings." Not bad for a girl born nine centuries before the invention of Herbal Essences. [WSJ via Movie City News]
Too cute not to share: Pixar has cut a very special Brave promo, just in time for Father's Day, celebrating all that fathers teach us — how to acquire an inner strength and confidence as children that carries us into adulthood, how to shoot arrows, how to ride horses and become deadly sword-fighting killing machines... you know, the basics.
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Pixar Animation storyboard artist Emma Coats took to Twitter last month to share the storytelling tips she's gleaned during her time at the Oscar-winning animation house, and taken together they comprise one of the most comprehensive, sensible, must-follow rules for writing you can find. (Ridley Scott, Damon Lindelof, whoever's working on the next Prometheus -- are you listening?)
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With John Carter currently drawing both mixed reviews and potentially catastrophic early box-office returns, Movieline today revisits our conversation with director Andrew Stanton and producer Lindsey Collins about the film's troubled back story — and what they and Disney really have to lose. - Ed.
A trade report last month suggested that Disney’s March sci-fi tent pole John Carter was in serious trouble owing to Pixar vet Andrew Stanton’s relative inexperience directing live-action film, citing rumors that production reshoots and late-game rejiggering had bloated the budget from $200 million to as much as $300 million. Speaking with press Thursday, Stanton called the report “a complete and utter lie,” insisting that he stayed on time and on budget – but it’s easy to see how the Pixar way of moviemaking may have made for a bumpy transition for the filmmaker.
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Fingers are crossed that Pixar bounces back from the uncharacteristic critical disappointment that was Cars 2 with their next effort, Brave -- a foray into Disney princess territory about a headstrong young Scottish lass (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) who defies tradition in her parents' kingdom. A new trailer for the animated adventure promises no small measure of spunky girl power as our heroine Merida upends an archery contest where doofus candidates are vying for her hand in marriage.
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Last summer’s Cars 2 marked a notable footnote in the history of Pixar Animation, just not a good one; despite opening to the studio’s sixth-highest worldwide take to date, the sequel to 2006’s Cars earned middling reviews, prompted critics to deem it a commercial cash-grab, and eventually – maybe most shockingly, given the studio's track record – became the first Pixar film not to nab an Oscar nod for Best Animated Feature since the category was inaugurated. Could it be, as Pixar producer Lindsey Collins suggests, that Cars 2 was Oscar-snubbed because of anti-Pixar backlash?
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The year is drawing to a close, which means that it is time to start thinking about all the things you did not accomplish in 2011. (That Ghostbusters 3 script? Still unread. That copycat Wedding Crashers crime you committed in college? Still unresolved in court.) But before you do that, let's take a look back at some of my favorite Movieline stories that punctuated this remarkably unproductive calendar year.
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Welcome to fairy tale trailer week! Yesterday, Movieline previewed Mirror, Mirror, Tarsem Singh's hammy Snow White adaptation which features Julia Roberts as an ineffectively evil queen who worries about age lines and financial security (just like you!). Today, Pixar has unveiled a full-length trailer for the company's first foray into fairy tale territory, the much more promising Brave.
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Because it looks complicated to make, has very limited mobility, and is kind of super creepy, this homemade Pixar-inspired costume -- a full-body reconstruction of the anthropomorphic Pixar Luxo lamp logo -- may not be the best costume idea for your Halloween movie-related revelries. But you've got to see it in action. Shivers. Check it out and stick around for your daily Buzz Break.
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"Look at this stuff, isn't it neat? Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?" Insert "piles of The Lion King 3D cash" for "stuff" and you'll see why Disney's planning to roll out even more retro hits in similar fashion in the next few years. Why leave those catalogue classics in the vault when they can bring in as much as $80 million more a pop?
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