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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 3 days ago

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Not news, only speculation and some reminiscing... A long post, too, heads up.

Maybe Disney Animation was mum on their 2026 movie at Annecy, despite Pixar all-out telling us what Summer 2027 Feature is (Enrico Casarosa's GATTO, complete with concept art and synopsis), as we have known what their two 2026 pictures are (HOPPERS and TOY STORY 5)...

Because of the switch of leaders?

Before this, since around the end of the 2010s, Disney Animation was quiet about what was *really* on the horizon other than "[x] director here is at work on a movie".

Jennifer Lee was named CCO in June 2018 after John Lasseter's protracted ouster. At the time, a few pictures had been scheduled, RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET was in its final laps, FROZEN II was over a year away, and something was set for the year after.

We didn't learn what that picture was until mid-2019, the company officially announced it was RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON, a little over a year away from its original projected Thanksgiving 2020 release date. Prior to that, it was known that its then-director Dean Wellins was working on something, at least since 2015, with Paul Briggs involved. (Wellins eventually got completely booted from the film, Briggs was demoted to "co-director".) Scooper sites had called the film "Dragon Empire" circa 2018-19. It's very possible it did wear such a working title at one point in time, or scoopers called it that so as not to get targeted. RAYA ended up coming out in March 2021 due to COVID-19 upending Disney's release schedule, a film - among a few others, like CRUELLA and BLACK WIDOW - used as an attempt to get movies back in theaters in some way before vaccines really rolled out.

We also knew that Byron Howard was at work on a Lin Manuel Miranda-captained musical, but the official title and premise wouldn't be officially announced by the company until December 2020, less than a year before its Thanksgiving 2021 bow. Reasonable though, due to COVID and whatnot, and still figuring out the release schedule as it was unknown what shape the world would be in by then. However... That same event in December 2020, Pete Docter straight up laid down the Pixar road going all the way up to mid-2022. TURNING RED and LIGHTYEAR were both announced and revealed to the world for the first time, while Disney capped things off at late 2021.

STRANGE WORLD was officially announced in the press - not a D23-esque event or shareholder conference or anything like that - a little after ENCANTO came out, less than a year before it hit theaters. Scoopers were telling us about that one beforehand, too, calling it "Searcher Clade". When I read that back in the day, I assumed that that name was referring to a ship or something. The airship appearing in the ENCANTO credits as an Easter egg seemed to indicate that to me, as well.

At the 2022 D23 Expo... Pixar reveals movies releasing all the way into 2024 (at the time, the studio's 2024 was intended to be a double header: Adrian Molina's original version of ELIO, and INSIDE OUT 2. Complete w/ renders and concept art shown.) WDAS caps off at WISH, Thanksgiving 2023.

So it seems the pattern is, Pixar announced what's out, a summer after the latest picture WDAS announces. Sometimes it's thought to be two in the following year, again, the planned duo of ELIO and INSIDE OUT 2, HOPPERS and TOY STORY 5 next year.

ZOOTOPIA 2 and FROZEN III are then officially revealed to the public months later, with WISH about half a year away from release. The announcement of those comes from a shareholder conference, where these kinds of things are usually unveiled. No release dates are given.

WISH arrives in November 2023, WDAS uncharacteristically is very very mum about what releases afterwards... ZOOTOPIA 2 and FROZEN III likely aren't ready for 2024, so it remains a mystery. Is it an original? A rumored Middle East-set fairy tale, perhaps?

February 2024, after much radio silence on what WDAS' November 2024 movie is... So close to release, at that... It's revealed that a MOANA series meant for Disney+ has been re-cooked into a movie sequel. ZOOTOPIA 2 is confirmed to be the studio's Thanksgiving 2025 release, FROZEN III is said to be eyeballing a 2026 release, but not specifically the Thanksgiving slot that the company already had locked for a WDAS movie.

So now, WDAS is about neck-and-neck with Pixar in terms of announced movies + release dates/frames. FROZEN III is up in the air, but it's within the 2026 range like HOPPERS (yet to be announced, but the March 2026 slot is already locked for it) and TOY STORY 5 are...

The mid-2024 D23 Expo happens... Pixar officially announces HOPPERS as their spring 2026 movie, all good all good. Then they say that INCREDIBLES 3 is in the works, no date given. That's assumed to be pretty far off, given director Brad Bird's continuing work on RAY GUNN up at Skydance. Assuming he was directing this film. Like, what frame was that feasibly aiming for? 2029-2030? Disney Animation... However... Announced FROZEN III for Thanksgiving 2027, and the quietly says an original movie is coming out in Thanksgiving 2026. No title, no director, no nothing...

It was an unusual presentation, to say the least. Weeks and weeks later, Jennifer Lee stepped down as studio CCO, with Jared Bush replacing her. Bush had already been directing ZOOTOPIA 2, Byron Howard joined the movie as director to help him get it to the finish line while he now leads a studio. Understandably, there'd be some rearrangement going on before announcing a movie set for 2026...

But as time went on, no word...

Pixar confirms COCO 2 is happening, and is eyeballing 2029, back in March. During, you guessed it, a shareholder conference.

And once more, there had been no word on WDAS 2026 throughout the spring. And especially no word on it during this past week at Annecy... Where Pixar, once again, told us what's up going into 2027, not counting undated INCREDIBLES 3 and TBD 2029 sequel COCO 2. To be fair, FROZEN III is scheduled to release *after* GATTO, but that's a sequel. Like, why couldn't WDAS say what the 2026 original movie is?

Are they gonna wait 'til the end of the year to finally say what this thing is, and then speedrun the rollout for it?

...

I then remember what things were like back in, say, mid-2010...

When TANGLED was coming out... As we got closer to its Thanksgiving 2010 landing... I was turning 18 at the time, and yes, following animation news via blogs and news sites and such, forums. Mere months before I got a Twitter.

On the horizon from Disney Animation was WINNIE THE POOH for summer 2011, and REBOOT RALPH for spring 2013. Nothing was scheduled for 2012, because Pixar had both the summer and autumn slots locked for pictures: BRAVE for the summer, MONSTERS INC. 2 (as it was then known as) for the autumn. CARS 2 was etched into summer 2011. NEWT was dead by then, and there was no word on what was coming out afterwards. Only some rumblings here and there.

TANGLED was an interesting point in time for a post-Eisner/post-Stainton Walt Disney Animation Studios. The larger Walt Disney Company's acquisition of Pixar in 2006 upended a lot of things at that studio, who were already having a hard time to begin with coming off of critical duds like BROTHER BEAR, HOME ON THE RANGE, and CHICKEN LITTLE. Films that didn't make Pixar numbers, for sure. A little-known story, after Disney bought Pixar, Steve Jobs had actually suggested closing down WDAS for good and having Pixar be the company's animation house... Imagine that! Luckily, he was vetoed by John Lasseter on that one.

Lasseter and Ed Catmull, now heading up WDAS in tandem with Pixar, started off with Stainton leftovers. A DAY WITH WILBUR ROBINSON is half-retooled and re-titled MEET THE ROBINSONS, and is rather tossed off in spring 2007, it doesn't turn any profit and gets lukewarm reception. Lasseter rids AMERICAN DOG of visionary Chris Sanders, and has it turned into BOLT, comes out Thanksgiving 2008, doesn't really make much of a stir. A 2D features revival with THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG in Christmas 2009 does so-so at the box office...

So, Disney Animation isn't fully back at this point in time. At least, at the box office. BOLT and FROG are critical hits and get nominated for Oscar in their respective release years, while previously announced projects like KING OF THE ELVES and THE SNOW QUEEN get dialed back. FROG's box office is blamed on the film being a "girly" fairy tale, and it's declared that TANGLED - originally titled, simply, RAPUNZEL - is to be the studio's final fairy tale movie... Imagine that?

So, the horizon was looking kinda slim in summer 2010... TANGLED doesn't inspire much confidence (those SHREK-y trailers worried a lot of animation fans, including me), a 2D WINNIE THE POOH is next and is scheduled for the same day as the last Harry Potter movie, and then there's video game movie called REBOOT RALPH... The studio possibly didn't have anything new, either. BIG HERO 6 was in its embryonic stage by the end of 2010, on the heels of Disney acquiring Marvel. KING OF THE ELVES and SNOW QUEEN were on hold. Though curiously, REBOOT RALPH was scheduled for release after MONSTERS, INC 2.... So they were a little ahead there.

But Lasseter-Catmull's Disney Animation needed a box office hit and a kind of confidence needed to keep going, to show that they can indeed coexist with Pixar. TANGLED cost $260m to make, most of it accumulated from thrown-out versions of the movie dating back to the late 1990s. The movie makes about $590m or so worldwide, which doesn't really turn a profit, but that it made the 2nd biggest amount for a Disney animated movie - unadjusted - behind THE LION KING... They were happy nonetheless. We're not in that era anymore. Iger and co would call that a flop now, but in 2010/11, it didn't matter if it wasn't 2.5x the bloated budget... They were happy to see a movie of theirs crack $500m+ worldwide for the first time in over 16 years.

THE SNOW QUEEN went back into development in spring 2011-ish, TANGLED's director Byron Howard pitched some ideas and got to work on a project combining a few of them, rather animal-themed ones. TANGLED's other director Nathan Greno pitched a Jack and the Beanstalk retelling. REBOOT RALPH moved up to fall 2012, was retitled WRECK-IT RALPH, which pushed MONSTERS, INC. 2 - now confirmed to be a prequel, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY - to summer 2013. So by the end of 2011, all this combined with the Marvel movie about the marshmallow robot, WDAS was finally going full-steam ahead into the future. Almost all of those movies happened and did well!

Where is Walt Disney Animation Studios right now? Jared Bush assumed leadership right before the release of the hastily-reassembled MOANA 2, which expectedly did great box office but got okay reviews and no Oscar nomination. He got promoted, while neck-deep in directing a ZOOTOPIA 2 sequel, so his mind is understandably very occupied right now…

Disney Animation got impacted by COVID-19 and former CEO Bob Chapek's handling of their releases, not too long after Jennifer Lee was made leader AND was tasked to come up with stuff for the then-new Disney+. RAYA has to be excepted because it was rolled out in a hybrid release strategy, when vaccines were *just* rolling out for elderly age groups. It was critically-acclaimed and got an Oscar nom, ditto ENCANTO later that year, which got a fuller release but was more impacted by how much choosier theater-goers are now.

Where things really slipped was STRANGE WORLD in fall 2022. Got decent reviews and no Oscar nom, was left to die after poor test screenings, was embroiled in right-wing rage, and posted an enormous loss. WISH bombed a year later, and it was known in animation fan circles that the filmmakers at the studio were being stifled. Notes and test screenings and focus groups, used against them and to dilute their respective visions. In the films, it showed. This same nonsense sabotaged a Middle Eastern-set fairy tale that was being directed by Suzi Yoonessi, which was originally aiming for a fall 2024 release... The cancellation left the slot vacant, until the leadership hastily decided to make a MOANA Disney+ series into a movie. A crunch production, at that... Lee stepped down before MOANA 2 came out, but she is still at the studio as a filmmaker.

A lot happened, and now they have a new leader, and he's already trying to figure things out while still having *something* ready for release every calendar year... I get it...

Maybe Jared Bush and company want to make sure that the fall 2026 movie actually happens in the first place, instead of announcing it only for something to compromise it... And they have to cancel it, or put something else in its place. It would certainly stink if that movie got put on ice, and FROZEN III got moved up to fill the gap... Making for three sequels in a row: MOANA 2, ZOOTOPIA, FROZEN III...

There are still some events where it could be announced. San Diego Comic-Con maybe? New York Comic-Con? Usually Disney would roll out some kind of Marvel news there, but even then, with D23, they usually don't need to at this point. The next D23 Expo likely happens late summer 2026, in Cali. Maybe a Brazilian one a little afterwards, too, like last year. Maybe the closer ZOOTOPIA 2 gets to completion, we learn what it is, who is directing it, what it's even about, etc.

It would just be kinda weird to cut it so close yet again, like ENCANTO was, like STRANGE WORLD was, like WISH was... Like MOANA 2 *especially* was... ZOOTOPIA 2, FROZEN III, and FROZEN IV by contrast were known about looong before release...

I know I'm being like so impatient about this WDAS movie, but I do come from an era where we knew about these films about a year and a half away from release. We’re a little past that point now with this film. A year and five months off, June 2025 to November 2026…

Hope it’s in good shape!

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 3 days ago

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And in other good news today... Hideo Kojima's DEATH STRANDING video game series is getting an animated movie adaptation - happening alongside the live-action film being done by A24 - from writer Aaron Guzikowski (known for creating the HBO Max sci-fi show RAISED BY WOLVES), one that's described to be a bit like recent adult animated features PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS and the upcoming JOHN WICK anime film.

That's a big to-do for adult feature animation, an adaptation of a more recent popular video game. For adults! And it's sci-fi, too! We saw an animated video game movie adaptation, THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE, do gangbusters. While some future adaptations announced in the wake of its behemoth success - like Wes Ball's LEGEND OF ZELDA movie - are going to be live-action, I'd say it really did open the door for animated video game movies in many ways. Even if some already did exist beforehand (i.e. both ANGRY BIRDS movies). Like, I need animated CRASH BANDICOOT and SPYRO THE DRAGON movies yesterday, let's go lol. But to see an adult video game series get the animated movie treatment? That gives me a good feeling, and it'd be super-neat if this one goes to theaters. Does well, even, and really shows that there's a market out there for this kind of thing.

This film won't follow the games themselves - which I oughta try out now - closely, but instead a new story set within that universe full of strange beings that come out of a realm where near-death experiences occur. (Am I getting that right? It's pretty complicated lol.) Line Mileage, an adult animation venture made up of four animation and video game industry vets - including one from a studio called Powerhouse, will provide the services.

One to keep an eye out for.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 3 days ago

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Here it is, finally... Deadline's got some real tracking on ELIO's opening weekend. Internationally, they say it's in the $50m region, with over $20m of it coming from the domestic front...

Yeeeah, uh...

Well, here's what caught me by surprise in Deadline's report... The reporting on these numbers is surprisingly very... Optimistic?

They've noted that the pre-sales beat ELEMENTAL's, indicating a domestic opening of over $29m. Writers Anthony D'Alessandro and Nancy Tartaglione put:

While $20M stateside is nothing to brag about, this is the new paradigm for original animated movie openings, and the importance, given matinee business during the week for families, is the leg-out factor.

Oh my god, THANK YOU. Only what I've been screaming on here and elsewhere for a few years now. This is the kind of reporting I like to see!

Also of note... The budget on this confirmed to be... $150m...

That's right, $150m, despite the director change, delay, and subsequent re-tooling. They got this one UNDER their usual budgets, which is damn impressive. ELEMENTAL cost $200m, TURNING RED around $175m, LUCA's is unknown, SOUL was around $150m... Very good, thus it doesn't have the steepest mountain to scale! All those fan-blog rumor-mill trash sites, peddling that $300m figure that they all just pulled out of their collective asses... How silly y'all look, huh?

In traditional Hollywood math, 2.5x the production (NOT w/ marketing) budget... ELIO will have to make $375m to break even, truly. ELEMENTAL made $496m off of great word-of-mouth in a very crowded summer 2023... Can this? It might have a good shot. Can Pixar films finally cost this much or less going forward? That'd be really, really smart of them. WDAS, too.

Deadline seems to think ELIO can really leg it out like ELEMENTAL did, scoring the rare 5x multiplier. ELEMENTAL did just that *with* a string of tentpoles and competition right behind it (LITTLE MERMAID, ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE) *and* ahead of it (INDIANA JONES 5, RUBY GILLMAN, BARBIE, HAUNTED MANSION). Audiences actually really liked that movie, despite what armchair animation "experts" online kept squawking... ELIO could do it too... Despite HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON '25, LILO & STITCH '25, JURASSIC WORLD 4, SUPERMAN, and FANTASTIC 4 ONCE MORE surrounding it... if audiences really dig it.

Let's say this opens with $35m minimum, domestically, and scores the 5x multiplier... $175m domestically, another $200-250m worldwide, we could finally be looking at a successful Pixar original post-COVID outbreak? Possibly???

But again, we gotta see if audiences dig it. The CinemaScore oughta give us a solid idea of that.

Some previous Pixar CinemaScores and multipliers, originals and theatrical only, minus ONWARD because it was literally cut off by the pandemic one week in...

INSIDE OUT: A, 3.95x, $90m OW to $356m DOM

GOOD DINOSAUR: A, 3.15x, $39m OW to $123m DOM

COCO: A+, 4.2x, $50m OW to $210m DOM

ELEMENTAL: A, 5.31x, $29 OW to $154m DOM

We shall see.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 4 days ago

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I'm reading some of the early, finally-published ELIO reviews...

It's possible that I myself - after I see it on Friday morning, hopefully - may think the movie is unsatisfactory or could've been way better, or that it really shows signs that the original director Adrian Molina's vision was compromised by Disney suits, BUT...

Some reviews I've skimmed through, as per usual, reek of the same cliches you often see in Pixar movie reviews:

"It isn't like RATATOUILLE, WALL-E, UP, and INSIDE OUT, so it's a letdown - even if it's still good... I expect better of Pixar..."

As if Pixar is one single human being - a Mr. Pixar or whatever - making all of these movies, and NOT, ya know, individual directors and their respective crews. We're still doing that with animated movies, huh? We're still not looking at these movies as made by directors and not an imaginary magical can-do-no-wrong wizard collective?

That genre of review, and also the air you get from some reviews of Pixar films, which often go hand-in-hand w/ the "Pixar standards" reviews... It's as if some critics go into these things thinking that they're gonna be Cocomelon-style junk, ready to put a gun to their head. So that it BETTER have something in it that's specifically "adult" for them, or else, it's a finger-wagging B Minus Minus. And even if it does meet their expectations, it's still merely just "good for a cartoon" anyways...

Like I said, I may or may not like the movie. I may love it, I may outright dislike it... But, I'm also neck-deep into animation, so I don't do the whole "Pixar is supposed to be 15-out-of-10 with every movie they make or else I'm gonna be all down on it". They never really were that in the first place, IMO, and this is coming from someone who has LOVED many of their movies since when I first got MONSTERS, INC. on DVD in late 2002 and spun it endlessly... No, most of these people, I suspect, just want another Lasseter-Stanton-Unkrich-Bird-Docter-type movie.

Ditto w/ any other studio. Like, I don't expect every DreamWorks movie to be - say - THE LAST WISH, because that's one filmmaker/team. Another DreamWorks movie by another set of filmmakers should not be expected to be someone else's movie... and also, the crew behind the beloved movie in question: Their next movie doesn't have to be a copy of that movie either.

I need any movie to be something I myself like, that's all. That I get something out of it, personally. What it means to me. Not "does it hit this specific bar that I only measure these films to?"

It's more genre-izing of animated movies, still happening in twenty-twenty-five.

Anyways, Friday's morning's the plan, given my schedule. I hope I really enjoy it.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 6 days ago

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Extreme minutiae warning for this post.

I watch this movie, GOLGO 13: THE PROFESSIONAL, quite often. It's a 1983 anime film based on the long-running manga GOLGO 13, animation services by the legendary TMS (Tokyo Movie Shinsha), and directed by Osamu Dezaki.

Visually, the thing is neon '80s porn all over with some flourish happening every few minutes, such beauty whammed up against such graphic and sometimes disturbing violence. Not a dull second there, even the 'Money For Nothing' music video-looking CGI scene of the combat helicopters and whole blocks of New York City (Impressive! This was only a year after TRON came out.) just adds to it, there's something eye-grabbing happening all the time over the course of 80-or-so minutes.

I'd imagine vaporwave or whatever you call it came from movies like these, or it somehow influenced all of it. You know how some recent stuff portrays the '80s as more colorful and neon-like than it really was? It can be argued that the way some anime made back then and its portrayal of the era had a lot to do with the influencing of that 21st century aesthetic. Or maybe not!

Anyways, this one frame was something I wanted to look into...

In the middle of the film, Duke Togo/Golgo 13 - the titular master assassin - pulls off an improbable hit in San Francisco. In order to do that, he positions himself atop a bank tower with this ginormous Times Square-esque "Super Beer" ad atop it. In a scene that sort-of resembles what SKYFALL did with that jellyfish billboard some 29 years later, there's lots of shots of Duke under the sign, the many colors it projects and how the artists use them to amplify the look of the shots. Absolute cinema. Kino. B-bioscoop? I lost you, didn't I?

Anyways... That shot above is the only time we see the sign showing that image of a bottle cap and bursting beverage... "Shupon!"

What the heck is "Shupon!"? What does it have to do with "Super Beer"? (Super Beer is kind of a funny name for a generic American beer, to begin with.)

I found out that it's a particular kind of Japanese sake, which is a fermented rice alcoholic beverage... Which I've HAD before, both on its own and cooked into something. I'm sure if you've been to a hibachi place, you've had it too. The chef likely squirted it right into your mouth, lol. Apparently "Shupon" comes from the word that's used to denote the sound of something fizzing after the cap has been popped. "Shu!"

Every other scene with this big-ass sign doesn't show that, that's the only scene that has it, and it's for like a split-second. Possibly an Easter egg? A beer ad, but also mentioning Shupon. The More I Know.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 6 days ago

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We knew it was coming. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON '25 opens with $83m here and about $198m everywhere, has great exit scores, will likely be super-leggy like the original one was.

The original HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON was one of those animated movies that opened good, but I do remember the hubbub being that it was a fairly disappointing opening for a DreamWorks picture. $43m, a cut below MONSTERS VS. ALIENS ($58m), KUNG FU PANDA ($60m), and a handful of their then-recent non-sequels. That was the second DreamWorks movie to be released in 3D, and it was released in the immediate aftermath of AVATAR.

Of course, AVATAR and its use 3D arguably got audiences hyped about the format, even though it had been around for some time. Again, DreamWorks had already utilized it for MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, which came out about 9 months earlier. 2009 also had other 3D films, like CORALINE, UP, even a small horror movie like MY BLOODY VALENTINE. It was bubbling up around the time, and AVATAR brought it to a boil... So then, what was the next big movie that would also be in 3D? Disney's new ALICE IN WONDERLAND directed by Tim Burton, and that expectedly did huge business. To the tune of a billion. Even without the 3D, that movie still would've done pretty great on name value alone: Burton and an iconic surreal classic, instant hit. I remember predicting back then that it would open w/ $70m-ish, and it ended up taking in $116m, completely blowing my predictions out of the water.

That was the first weekend of March 2010... A couple weeks later, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON comes out. You'd think the 3D craze, it being a new animated family film from the SHREK and KUNG FU PANDA house, *and* its promise of flight spectacle would've propelled that thing to at least $60m on opening weekend... But no, it took in a relatively soft $43m... The 3D craze might've ended right as it boiled, because ALICE's 3D was nowhere near the level of AVATAR's, and then a hastily post-converted CLASH OF THE TITANS the weekend after HTTYD kinda sealed the deal there.

Luckily, audiences loved HTTYD so much, they kept going back to it, weekend after weekend. The film made a rare 5x its opening weekend gross, immediately locking a sequel or two for Hiccup and Toothless. Animated movies typically have to work in the long haul to get to where they get, and HTTYD is a fantastic example of that. Usually those things don't open so huge out of the gate, but they stick around as other movies come and go.

I'd imagine that opening weekend gross from March 2010 adjusts to somewhere in the 60s today, so that's not too far below the estimated $83m this almost verbatim shot-for-shot remake took in. It's only so high because of how much time has passed + inflation, and the sequels oddly stayed kind of flat. HTTYD2 came out 4 years later, opened with $49m, not that much higher. No SHREK 2-style bump, despite the original being so leggy and catching on after the fact. HTTYD3 opened in spring 2019 with $55m.

So now that hyperrealistic Toothless has arrived, now ELIO is next, and I wonder if that can weather the storm just fine against HTTYD '25 on its second weekend. Remember, ELIO originally had this weekend to itself, until Universal moved HTTYD '25 to it and initiated a chicken game where Disney and Pixar blinked. None of the trades are even tracking ELIO, and it's the week of... They're tracking JURASSIC WORLD 4 and SUPERMAN already, but they've been radio silent on ELIO. There are some pesky rumor-mill sites making up numbers (like a $300m budget), but I ignore those. BoxOfficePro predicts somewhere between $28m-40m. I honestly couldn't tell you, myself.

All I can tell you is, what I see at my theater that I work at... People seeing the banner and posters, and expressing some kind of interest in it. More than enough, for sure. It's catching their eyes, and I'm sure an ELIO trailer is attached to *all* LILO & STITCH prints - currently on its way to a billion. Sometimes, that means the movie opens pretty good. I'll tell you a little story, actually. I'll use a specific movie as an example... A lot of the very online animation community, largely on Twitter, were certain that the DreamWorks movie THE BOSS BABY - when it was coming out in spring 2017 - was gonna be a big bomb. And yet, at my Cinemark, the lobby display - which was just the titular baby in his booster seat against a white background - got a lot of interest from my customers: "We gotta see that Baby Boss movie", "What's that Baby Boss movie? That looks good"... The thing opened w/ $50m, did great, spawned a sequel lol.

Maybe what I'm seeing at my cinema job indicates what's going to be up with ELIO. All those patrons seeing the poster and going "Yeah, that looks pretty good. We gotta check that out"... It's almost like field work, on-the-ground research lol. I've been working there since August of 2015, sooooo I've got nearly a decade of that in my resume haha.

Anyways, I hope it does good, I hope it doesn't repeat ELEMENTAL where it opens low and then has to work like hell to make a lot of money, only to still be considered a misfire. It'd be amazing if this pockets a good gross right out of the gate, but there's next to no word here, and that sucks. Disney has given it trailers and such, some other promo here and there. The premiere was a few days ago, but no word, no reviews let out... It's like they know it cost a lot and has no hope of getting that back in theaters, and that they're ready to write that predicted loss down, to tell Pixar "don't make this kind of movie again", and then move on to FANTASTIC 4 and FREAKIER FRIDAY.

We shall see! I'd love to see an original spacebound animated adventure like this defy the current odds of the post-COVID outbreak theatrical landscape, but I suspect it'll be another Disney-engineered failure because they just don't realize that these kinds of animated movies don't make the numbers they used to make. Release ELIO in 2015, it's probably an easy $50m OW/$200m DOM hit, not so much nowadays. Disney doesn't play accordingly w/ animated movies anymore, whereas Universal and others do.

Fingers crossed.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 8 days ago

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Oh wow, been a long time since I updated this lol...

Despite a much different marketplace, there are still some big things happening here... The Top 10 now looks a little different than it did in late 2022...

And some of these movies indeed cracked it...

1. NE ZHA 2 - $2.2b

2. INSIDE OUT 2 - $1.699b

3. THE LION KING (2019) - $1.657b

4. FROZEN II - $1.450b

5. THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE - $1.361b

6. FROZEN - $1.280b

7. INCREDIBLES 2 - $1.243m

8. MINIONS - $1.159b

9. TOY STORY 4 - $1.073b

10. TOY STORY 3 - $1.067b

Like... Yeah, the two TOY STORY sequels now round out the bottom, they used to be more towards the middle.

Last fall's MOANA 2 almost cracked the Top 10, w/ $1.059b. Just billion-dollar animated movies everywhere, and we saw NE ZHA 2 just upend everything with 95% of that gross coming from China. Like, they didn't need us, or all of Europe, or anywhere else, lol. That record may remain unchallenged for a long while.

What *could* shake up this Top 10? Why, some movies that are out later in the year and next year have a shot, and the next few years at that...

ZOOTOPIA 2 - Thanksgiving 2025 - I think is a good candidate. The original made $1.025b.

SUPER MARIO WORLD could make a play the Top 10 next spring, or it could make less than the original simply because the first movie was the first all-animated, game-faithful Mario movie. Might be an EMPIRE STRIKES BACK/SPIDER-MAN 2 situation where the first one did soooooo well, the sequel may not come close to that.

TOY STORY 5 has a shot as well, but maybe make a little less than the last two. Hard to say, are audiences gonna flock to this one the way they did the last two? I still expect it to be big, though.

MINIONS 3/MEGA MINIONS (is it actually called that?), self-explanatory, though MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU and DESPICABLE ME 4 did miss the big billion... But not by much, maybe this goes back up?

SHREK 5... I think this one is destined to be ginormous. Maybe not NE ZHA 2 big, but INSIDE OUT 2 might be toppled there. SHREK 5 will be the first mainline SHREK movie - should it keep that release date - in over 16 years, and the original SHREK will be over 25 by that point. You just know, *that* nostalgia factor will kick in.

ICE AGE 6, likely vacating Christmas 2026... The last ICE AGE - which was titled COLLISION COURSE - did so-so. The biggest movies in the franchise - third movie DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS and fourth movie CONTINENTAL DRIFT - individually made an astounding $875m+ worldwide. Much like SHREK, the first ICE AGE will be over 24 by the time this out, and it will have been a decade since the fifth movie. Wouldn't count this one out.

SPIDER-MAN: BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE... Hmmmm... So, as we all know, ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE was a massive leap from its predecessor domestically. The original INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE opened w/ $35m here, the sequel $120m. However, ACROSS only did decent enough overseas, bringing its final total to about $690m off of a $381m domestic haul. Still great for this kind of movie, but it's surprisingly below the lowest-grossing live-action Peter Parker Spider-Man movie: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2, which made $708m in 2014 dollars. But maybe, maybe BEYOND could get a bump because it's the final movie in this story, and it's following up a hell of a cliffhanger. I included it, but I'm not sure I see it getting there. Would love for it to do that, though.

FROZEN III. Almost confident to say this one's locked. Plus it'll have been 8 years since FROZEN II.

No dates for these, but...

INCREDIBLES 3. Look what the last one made, plus a possibly 10 year wait.

COCO 2. The original made over $800m worldwide back in 2017, and will be about 12 years old when this hits. Might see an INSIDE OUT 2-esque bump.

SING 3 is said to be a thing. SING 2 was affected by the Delta/Omicron variants of COVID-19, the original made over $600m back in 2016. Given that this is Illumination, it could circle the big billion, maybe not.

MOANA 3, not announced, but likely happening given how the sequel ends - and did. Maybe, maybe.

Or maybe, another NE ZHA 2-type movies comes along in China, and just rewrites the script yet again.

Or some non-sequel movie completely surprises, like FROZEN did back in 2013. Movies would have to be more affordable or the trip be more worth it for that to happen this decade, I think.

Your guess is as good as mine. But through all the parts of this I put together, it's always fun to see what the Top 10 looks like year after year.

Tracking a Post-Walt Top 10 Box Office, Part 6

Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 here…

So now we’re here… In the final month of 2022… It’s been nearly three years since the end of 2019, and because of **everything** that has been going on since then… From the COVID-19 pandemic and its many effects on the business, to other world events…

The Top 10 remains the same…

The Lion King (2019) - $1,657m

Frozen II - $1,450m

Frozen - $1,280m

Incredibles 2 - $1,243m

Minions - $1,159m

Toy Story 4 - $1,073m

Toy Story 3 - $1,067m

Despicable Me 3 - $1,034m

Finding Dory - $1,028m

Zootopia - $1,023m

Most animated features released theatrically during the pandemic haven’t even crossed $200 million worldwide. Many of them went straight to streaming, even in an era where box office and business are back in many ways. (See, Pixar’s TURNING RED going straight to streaming three months after the release of SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, which collected nearly $2b in its gargantuan run.) It is often argued that the streaming release patterns and alternate release windows of these films have trained audiences, especially families who have to shell out maybe $60-100 on tickets and some concessions alone, to wait until they leave theaters.

In this year alone, we saw LIGHTYEAR - a spin-off of the massive TOY STORY movies - collect an utterly terrible $226m worldwide… That’s only a little bit more than what TOY STORY **1** made at the domestic box office in 1995/96… While MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU reached $937m worldwide, nearly making it towards Top 10. Families are definitely choosier, and eventual streaming landing dates certainly could be impacting box office… It makes me wonder if the next highest-grossing animated movie won’t be for a loooong, looooong while… And what it could possibly be.

Are any other upcoming animated movies candidates for breaking the Top 10 as it currently stands?

Out later this month is DreamWorks’ SHREK-adjacent PUSS IN BOOTS sequel, THE LAST WISH, which did quite well in its preview screenings and on top of garnering strong critical reception, looks to be a decent-sized hit in its own right. Could it challenge MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU for this year’s animated movie gross crown alone? Who knows! PUSS IN BOOTS Uno, despite arriving just a year or so after SHREK FOREVER AFTER when that franchise’s fatigue was kicking in, was still able to clock in at over $550m worldwide. Again, in 2011… PUSS IN BOOTS Dos could either repeat that, or even if double it, because time has made a difference. With countless memes and nostalgia, the public is arguably hungry for another SHREK movie, even if it’s one without Shrek himself in it… That could *really* benefit PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH, among the other things going for it. DreamWorks appears to be pushing it as a sort-of “reset” movie, after a lengthy transition following their merging with Comcast/Universal.

So far, Universal are the ones leading the charge with animation at the box office in the post-outbreak era. Among the highest-earning titles worldwide are MINIONS Deux, SING 2 ($407m), THE BAD GUYS ($250m), and THE CROODS: A NEW AGE ($215m). The latter of those four films opened when theaters were doing limited seating, and before a VOD release, a rollout that worked wonders for the movie. Two Disney releases, ENCANTO and LIGHTYEAR, made it past the $200m threshold. From across the Pacific, the DEMON SLAYER movie, with a not-so-shabby domestic release from by FUNimation, made it past $400m. On the Disney side of things, STRANGE WORLD completely flopped and RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON got a simultaneous PVOD/theatrical release before vaccines rolled out (managing to eke out $130m), the three original Pixar movies went straight to streaming. It’s unknown how LUCA and TURNING RED could’ve performed, but I’d imagine they would’ve pulled ENCANTO/BAD GUYS numbers at best.

Next year looks to have a few animation blockbusters. Illumination/Nintendo’s THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE is likely to be the highest-grossing video game adaptation for sure, and could make a good play for $1b. Maybe not! But I imagine it’ll be big. Ditto Sony’s SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, which looks to build off its fresh original’s sleeper-hit status and outgross it by a wide margin, a la SHREK 2 and DESPICABLE ME 2. Disney Animation’s WISH could be their first bonafide blockbuster since FROZEN II. Pixar’s ELEMENTAL could be their first original blockbuster since COCO, all the way back in 2017. (ONWARD opened right before the pandemic.)

In the next few years, there will be sequels and franchise entries that are sure to pocket some good change, such as KUNG FU PANDA 4, DESPICABLE ME 4, INSIDE OUT 2, another SPONGEBOB feature, SPIDER-MAN: BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE, SHREK 5, presumably a MARIO movie sequel. Sometimes a not-sequel comes out of nowhere and takes the crown in an era where franchise entries usually dominate (as we saw with FROZEN in 2013).

Of course, with everything that has been going on, it’s okay if an animated film doesn’t crack the Top 10. It’s totally okay if a lower budget movie makes back its money despite the overall total (see THE BAD GUYS, once again), in fact that’s where things should be heading. Animation should **not** be required to be franchises and big-arse things, we need more lower-budget and riskier endeavors to succeed and be given reasonable parameters to work within… That strengthens the medium, it diversifies and offers us a large range of voices to see and hear from…

… but I’m just curious… Can something make a crack at the Top 10 again? If not the top spot? The Top 10 is currently all films released in the 2010s… Nothing from the 2000s or the 1990s. Does a new trend take over one day and what’s in the Top 10 now is out of it by the end of the decade? Who the heck knows!

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 8 days ago

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There it is... Pixar's summer 2027 movie is Enrico Casarosa's sophomore feature. Knew it! (Yeah, sometimes I like to pat myself on the back for getting predictions right.)

Originals remain alive and well at the studio. ELIO and HOPPERS back-to-back, this new movie after TOY STORY 5.

GATTO. A Cat in Venice. Not Paris. Different movie, different studio hehe. Black cat Nero and all related superstitions, loves music and hates water, owes a feline mob boss, gets adopted by a street artist, Venice itself being something of a character- Oh, and it's going to use a very painterly art style, test animation was shown to the Annecy attendees confirming that this will be a stylistic breakthrough for them. I'd imagine it's their answer to SPIDER-VERSE and THE LAST WISH in this regard, though the previous originals were a stylistic break from their house style, particularly in Casarosa's own European comic-esque LUCA, and TURNING RED's more '90s exaggerated anime-inspired look.

Footage from ELIO, HOPPERS, and TOY STORY 5 were shown. HOPPERS, from various footage descriptions, apparently hasn't axed its environmental themes at the behest of Trump-pleasing Bob Iger, so that's a plus. As for TOY STORY 5, Bonnie's tablet is a character, but it's not who Conan O'Brien is voicing, it's named Lilypad. The outer-shell of the tablet is the character, it isn't an app that talks to the toys as I speculated it could be:

Word is that Lilypad will be the film's antagonist, a piece of tech who feels she knows what's best for Bonnie and not the toys. So, literally, toys vs. tech. Like in lots of sci-fi movies, particularly last year's THE WILD ROBOT and also WALL-E, where the rogue AI determines what's what and that's that about that. As for who could voice her, Anna Faris was cast a while ago but the character wasn't named. She could be it.

All of that, but next to nothing from Walt Disney Animation Studios on the slate side of things after ZOOTOPIA 2. That was it, just ZOOTOPIA 2... However, there was something really big unveiled...

Ron Clements... Who directed, let's see... Little-known Disney films like... THE LITTLE MERMAID, ALADDIN, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, and MOANA... Is rejoining the studio, which is humongous news. No John Musker at his side though, but he's back, and that's really rad.

He and John had left after the release of MOANA mostly due to having frustrations w/ John Lasseter's micromanaging, they then tried to get an adaptation of DC's METAL MEN to happen at Warner theatrical animation (must've died in the temporary Discovery merger), and then went elsewhere... His role will be that of a mentor to the next generation of filmmakers, so that's actually a perk-up. Jared Bush, currently CCO of the studio, must be doing something right if Clements - aged 72 - is back at the studio in some way. And him being mentor to the people who will take the torch? That's nice. It'd be cool if more old guys and gals were there, too... Much like how they were circa 1977 for a younger Ron Clements. Maybe more will be wooed back, maybe not, but this is good nonetheless. I don't think it means a 2D comeback, but it'll be good for the filmmakers.

As for the future WDAS movies... Pixar detailed what's happening all the way up to mid-2027, WDAS is curiously mum once more. Even before getting a new leader, they were often quieter about their future pictures... Wonder why that is? Being THE bedrock of the Disney enterprise and why that whole company is even a thing, you would think they'd be showcasing confidently what they have on the horizon as well? (Outside of scheduled sequels, that is. I know FROZEN III is penciled in for Thanksgiving 2027.) Nah, for the last couple of years, you'd be lucky to even hear a morsel about their next feature AFTER the movie that's - at that time - right around the corner... So, no word on the 2026 movie. Jared Bush must be busy running that studio AND directing ZOOTOPIA 2 to be stacking the future or feeling like announcing much of it to the public... That's just my guess, though...

Now in addition to the great Pixar news, it seems like Laika's original movie that's being directed by Pete Candleland (known for his work with Gorillaz) and written by John August (CORPSE BRIDE, FRANKENWEENIE) is full-steam ahead. Either after WILDWOOD comes out, or THE NIGHT GARDENER. It still has no known title, but it's about a theatre teen who gets pulled into a "mystifying, never-ending bacchanal" as she seeks out her missing mother. Sure to be every bit as gorgeously hand-crafted as the studio's other stop-motion films, sure to be something interesting at that. I wonder how they'll juggle, production and release-wise, their animated films and their planned live-action films. The live-action films are smart in a way, that they'll attract top talent and probably help keep the animation side of things afloat... Ya know, if the place being run by a nepo baby with plenty of sneaker money somehow can't. It does kinda of remind me of Walt Disney fully venturing into live-action by the late 1940s-early 1950s, films that were there in case the more expensive animated endeavors didn't go over. Like, for example, ALICE IN WONDERLAND bombed back in 1951, but Walt could make up for that with TREASURE ISLAND and THE STORY OF ROBIN HOOD.

Laika still has previously-announced pictures in the works, such as one from the Headless team, Victor Maldonado and Alfredo Torres (NOCTURNA, LOVE DEATH & ROBOTS, TROLLHUNTERS), and a picture called PIRANESI. WILDWOOD is still without a U.S. distributor and release date, but it's in the works, as footage was attached to last year's anniversary screenings of CORALINE. Speaking of special theatrical screenings, their 2nd feature PARANORMAN returns to theaters around Halloween... With a new short featuring the characters, though it's a CGI effort. Anna Kendrick returns as Norman's older sister Courtney, Finn Wolfhard looks to be taking over from Kodi Smit-McPhee - who is 29 now - as the titular boy.

That's pretty cool that that film gets a continuation of sorts. PARANORMAN wasn't exactly a box office hit, grossing $107m against a $60m budget. The only Laika movie to have kinda turned a profit theatrically was CORALINE, but it matters not, because - again - how it exists and what keeps it alive. But a re-release of PARANORMAN can boost its overall lifetime box office much in the same way all of CORALINE's re-issues have done. CORALINE's re-releases were all pretty popular, last year's being the biggest... showing what life it had beyond its original release, I suspect the same could be said about PARANORMAN and those who discovered it at home as kids flocking to see it on the big screen all grown up. I was turning 20 when it came out, and saw it on original theatrical release. Some of my co-workers at my movie theater job, who are around 20-22 now, have told they saw CORALINE when they were very young and were scared by it. I joking tell them, "Oh I was in high school when that came out."

After that, I wonder if Laika and Fathom Events will do the same for the other movies. THE BOXTROLLS was a break from the PG horror of CORALINE and PARANORMAN, and got a more mixed reception, but it's still worthy - I feel - of a re-release. KUBO & THE TWO STRINGS combined creepy elements and fantasy-adventure, it got a warmer welcoming, I suspect that will definitely get a re-issue. The timing is perfect, because 2026 is when it turns 10! MISSING LINK, much like BOXTROLLS, didn't do the horror thing either, and was also kinda looked down a bit. It's as if Laika is synonymous w/ horror, but they can do other genres too, and maybe those two movies could get a second look and subsequent reappraisal of sorts.

Elsewhere at Annecy, rounding things out...

Fortiche's new '80s new wave-inspired series MISS SATURNE, based on a book about some teens who flee their home lives in Nice, France via train... All set to a sure-to-be-banger mixtape, it sounds like it's the right fit for them. What with dynamic visuals (likely lots of '80s neon and glow, a vaporwave fever dream perhaps) and music-based storytelling, it's sure to do cool new things with the medium, which their feature PENELOPE OF SPARTA also looks to do. Not dissimilar to their work on ARCANE and its incredible visuals and its use of music to emphasize the world and characters. MISS SATURNE debuts some time in 2027, with production beginning in full next year.

Paramount Animation has assigned Josh Cooley to a new film, not - unfortunately - a TRANSFORMERS ONE sequel, but instead an adaptation of the book I EAT POOP.: A DUNG BEETLE STORY. I shit you not. Ryan Reynolds' production company is involved, Pasek and Paul are also attached, though the project doesn't seem to be a musical? It might be, but, yeah. The gist of the book is that the main character is picked on by the other bugs, but his "difference" ends up having to save the day. Not sure how they'll spin a movie out of this one successfully. But Josh Cooley is two-for-two for me (yeah, I actually like TOY STORY 4), maybe he can do something interesting with this? I don't know, the premise just does not appeal to me lol. And there's a big if, as in... If it even makes it past development. Plenty of other Paramount Animation films have been announced before this one, w/ directors and crews, and then radio silence thereafter... So I have no idea whether this one makes it or not. Paramount Animation has always been weird w/ non-massive franchise movies, like how they dumped RUMBLE and THE TIGER'S APPRENTICE to streaming, and gave UNDER THE BOARDWALK the shaft and then a quiet, weird rollout somewhere before sending it to digital and streaming.

Genndy Tartakovsky returns to the [adult swim] world HEIST SAFARI, which sees frog brothers rob a bank and the execution is "fucking special", an "animated high-octane action comedy". That Genndy, always doing something really cool, and no surprise incorporating action elements into his latest work. In Warner/DC animation corners, MISTER MIRACLE is confirmed as the next animated series in James Gunn's new DC universe, following the success of CREATURE COMMANDOS and showing Gunn's commitment to having animation share the space with the live-action likes of SUPERMAN.

All good stuff, lots to crow about.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 10 days ago

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At Annecy, upon revealing 30min of THE BAD GUYS 2, director Pierre Perifel briefly talked about the relative lack of big-time theatrical animated movies from the giants - Disney, Universal, Paramount, Warner, Sony - this year... He's the not only noticing, either. I remember thinking it looked quite sparse, too.

He did point out, being French himself, that Illumination unusually didn't have a movie for this year. Next year, they have two with SUPER MARIO WORLD and MEGA MINIONS. They didn't have an animated feature locked for summer 2025 for a while, so it just so happened... That they were going to take a year off, the first time they did so (not counting 2020, because the pandemic, MINIONS 2 and SING 2 were originally supposed to hit that year) since 2014.

But like, DreamWorks has three total this year w/ BAD GUYS 2, DOG MAN, and GABBY'S DOLLHOUSE (which is a hybrid). Paramount has SMURFS and SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS, the Diz has Disney Animation's ZOOTOPIA 2 and Pixar's ELIO.

Outside of those, we also had Ketchup Entertainment's release of Warner Bros. Animation's THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP, but no animated theatrical release from Warner Bros. themselves. THE CAT IN THE HAT - opening February 27th - will be their first theatrical animated film since this past Christmas release THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM.

There was also stuff like NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCALYPSE, SNEAKS, KING OF KINGS, etc., from all the smaller distributors and such...

So the absence of an Illumination film is definitely kinda felt. Usually they have a movie every calendar year and usually it's a big ol' box office smash... but I feel that the year also feels kinda quiet because of the lack of a Sony Pictures Animation film in theaters. Sony is theatrically releasing anime movies this year, but that's about it. KPOP DEMON HUNTERS and FIXED are going to be on Netflix, their next big theatrical animated film is GOAT, which opens February 13th... That's their first theatrically-released big animated movie since... SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE... All the way back in June 2023...

I'd imagine the writers' and actors' strikes of 2023 had some kind of effect on the slate this year, and these things constantly moving in general...

I remember at least one film being slated for this year once upon a time, such as Paramount/Avatar Studios' inaugural film THE LEGEND OF AANG. ELIO wasn't supposed to be here at first, summer 2025's Pixar film probably would've been HOPPERS if ELIO hadn't been pushed out of spring 2024. Rumor had it that SHREK 5 was initially aiming for this year (some intern made that error and quickly retracted it), but I never thought that was so. 2026 was the earliest year for it, given that DreamWorks already had DOG MAN and BAD GUYS 2 slated for this year. Laika's WILDWOOD was hoping to hit this year - as the movie is/was in production and footage was attached to last year's CORALINE re-release, but now it's TBD 2026. Still no distributor on that one.

No, interestingly, 2025 kind of belongs to small movies: Again, DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP, the theatrical releases of the new DEMON SLAYER, DANDADAN and CHAINSAW MAN movies, Mamoru Hosoda's SCARLETT, KING OF KINGS, etc.

Next year is locked and loaded, by contrast: Two Pixars, one Disney Animation, two Illuminations, two DreamWorkses, two Paramounts, two Warners - one from Warner themselves and the other from the condiment rescue distributor - and a Sony. Complete full-course meal this time. And probably some other cool stuff sprinkled in-between, maybe even some stuff not even announced yet.

But, I think it's important that a variety of smaller movies do get released on the big screen. It can't just be the biggies' game every year, especially when said biggies - Warner Bros., looking at you - aren't interested in releasing what they have on hand.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 11 days ago

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Additional INCREDIBLES 3 thoughts, now that we know Peter Sohn is directing the film and not Brad Bird...

What will Brad Bird be up to next, then? Prior to getting RAY GUNN back on track at Skydance, after decades of it languishing, he was working on an original live-action musical with roughly 20 minutes of animation. Frequent collaborator Michael Giacchino was attached, and Sony was supposed to release it, but it fell to the wayside.

He also tried very hard to make the novel adaptation 1906 happen, at one point a collaboration between Disney Pictures, Pixar, and Warner Bros. An epic about the San Francisco earthquake, something once thought to be a next TITANIC of sorts.

Now, The Hollywood Reporter scoop on INCREDIBLES 3 had supposedly mentioned that 1906 was back at Disney and that Bird was circling it, but that detail has since been removed from the article from what I can see... I'd be surprised if Disney lets Bird make 1906, considering that their theatrical live-action output is largely remakes (LILO & STITCH, MOANA) and reboots and sequels (FREAKIER FRIDAY)... And it would likely be extremely expensive, as it would've been back when he was attached to direct it in 2005. Though Disney Pictures' current head could break us out of the previous guy's remake binge and give an auteur like Bird another chance at a live-action film there, given how badly TOMORROWLAND went over. That'd be great for Brad, because he's been trying to make that - much like RAY GUNN - for ages. And if Disney Pictures needs anything to break themselves out of the stale funk they've been in for over almost a decade, it's an all-out Brad Bird dream project! And the actual TRON 3 that Joseph Kosinski was all lined up to direct, but I won't go there at the moment.

Bird has also wanted to make an animated Western, and an animated horror film. Stories of genres that would break animation past its perceived trappings, as Bird is one of the loudest and proudest voices in the "animation is NOT a genre" and "animation is not a children's medium" departments, almost viciously so - and I've always liked that. Another unmade project of his is an adaptation of THE SPIRIT, which he and producer Gary Kurtz took a go at in the early 1980s. Only one theatrical movie based on THE SPIRIT exists, and that's the 2008 film that Frank Miller directed and was a huge bomb. Maybe he could make that next, who knows. It'd be yet another superhero movie for him, though...

So, I'm guessing 1906 will be next for him? If not, then my nonexistent money is on that musical he was making. Not directing INCREDIBLES 3 really frees him up...

Now, INCREDIBLES 3's release date...

Pixar's runway so far looks like this...

03/06/2026 - HOPPERS

06/19/2026 - TOY STORY 5

06/18/2027 - Undetermined

06/16/2028 - Undetermined

TBD 2029 - COCO 2

So we have two untitled slots sandwiched between two sequels, they open 3 years apart from one another.

COCO 2 has its directing crew, so I think it'll make it to its 2029 release, presumably the summer.

Summer 2027 would put INCREDIBLES 3 right after TOY STORY 5, a sort-of reverse of how INCREDIBLES 2 and TOY STORY 4 released back to back. If INCREDIBLES 3 is summer 2028, then it's possibly back-to-back with COCO 2, unless Pixar slots in an original for spring 2029 if they don't do so for even-number year 2028.

And funnily enough, INCREDIBLES 2 was the movie after COCO on the release slate.

Either way, it's gonna be two sequels in a row somewhere down the line. I think 5 years is plenty of time for Sohn and crew to get INCREDIBLES 3 together, soooo I'm thinking it takes 2028...

03/06/2026 - HOPPERS

06/19/2026 - TOY STORY 5

06/18/2027 - Untitled Enrico Casarosa Film

06/16/2028 - INCREDIBLES 3

Summer 2029 - COCO 2

I chose Casarosa's film because he's been working on one, and LUCA came out all the way back in 2011. Long overdue. I have no idea where any other previously alluded-to Pixar original is at. Kristen Lester (PURL) was said to have had something brewing since 2018, but radio silence since. Ditto films from Brian Fee (CARS 3), Aphton Corbin (TWENTY-SOMETHING), Rosana Sullivan (KITBULL), and that mystery film that supposedly will have a Romani cast.

Stuff that's likely not here until 2030 at the earliest, despite being announced way back in like 2020/2021. These things take time, and Pixar's only one building. Previous attempts to double-head (like in 2010, with Pixar Canada in Vancouver) ended up folding.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 11 days ago

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WHOOOAAAA...

Okay, so maybe this movie could come out sooner than I expected.

INCREDIBLES 3 will NOT be directed by Brad Bird, a first for the series. Given that he's pretty busy with RAY GUNN up at Skydance, and given that the second movie will be turning 10 in a few years, Pixar has tapped someone else to direct it... None other than, ELEMENTAL and THE GOOD DINOSAUR director Peter Sohn. Bird still writes and produces.

Did. Not. Expect. That.

But, good for him. And it makes sense, because Sohn and Bird go way back. Before Pixar, even. Sohn was an in-betweener on THE IRON GIANT, and served as a story and production artist (and additionally, an animator and the voice of the mugger) on the first INCREDIBLES. He also was a story and production artist on Bird's RATATOUILLE, in addition to voicing Remy's brother Emile, and was a consultant on INCREDIBLES 2.

Yep, if it was anybody Bird had to hand the torch (pun not intended) to, it was Sohn. Sohn could bring something different and new to the third film as well. Sohn's two features have a curiously lyrical quality to them, something you don't often see in recent talky, plot-heavy animated movies. GOOD DINOSAUR moreso than ELEMENTAL. ELEMENTAL was a little too on the move for most of its 90-or-so-minute runtime, but when it had those wordless scenes that used visuals and flourishes to tell its story? Good stuff. He has often cited the earlier, quieter Disney animated features like DUMBO and BAMBI as inspiration, and it often shows... Maybe he brings that to Bird's superpowered family. I wouldn't be surprised if, within a year or so, we find out it's heading for a 2028 release. Sohn finished up ELEMENTAL back in 2023, so he's had plenty of time to get this one together, if he was attached a while before this announcement.

And again, I'm happy for him because neither of his movies were the hits Disney wanted them to be. THE GOOD DINOSAUR, which he took over from Bob Peterson, was the first Pixar film to lose money. The thing didn't even double its budget, and it's often called the nadir of the studio's output. (I get why some may not like it, but I always thought it was a pretty solid movie.) ELEMENTAL, as we all know, opened "badly" due to how original animated movies now fare in a post-COVID outbreak world, but it fought like hell to get to $496m worldwide despite every movie - from still-playing hits like ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (which Sohn stars in, funnily enough) to new arrivals like BARBIE - in its way... And did *monster* numbers on Disney+, got an Oscar nomination at that, but nope. Disney thinks it's a failure and has since mandated that Pixar's originals be "less autobiographical" going forward (we know what that really means, don't we?), so, there's that. I was wondering what would be next for Sohn, since he's been at Pixar for a long time, starting on FINDING NEMO. I was wondering if he'd leave, he'd be sent away like Angus MacLane was after his LIGHTYEAR bombed... But no, he's staying... And now gets to direct INCREDIBLES 3. What a gig!

I'll miss Bird at the helm. I had always theorized that if he weren't to make either INCREDIBLES 2 or 3, then they'd tap someone like Teddy Newton to take the reigns, but this is a *great* choice. Really looking forward to it still!

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 12 days ago

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What's that? The Warner Bros. Discovery sorta-split is finally happening? Something about movies and streaming stuff being under one roof commandeered by David Zaslav, and the rest (sports, news) under someone else? That we're back to HBO Max and Discovery+ now?

Makes me wonder why there even was a merger in the first place. All those tax write-offs of movies/shows, all those losses, all that gutting... For nothing! The biz!

Oh yeah, speaking of Warner... Another animated movie of theirs has been given a concrete release date, this time it's Locksmith's adaptation of the sci-fi fairy tale novel series THE LUNAR CHRONICLES. It's penciled in for November 3, 2028, which is currently a year and a half after the planned release of their original film BAD FAIRIES. BAD FAIRIES will be their first film since THAT CHRISTMAS, which Netflix released last fall, and the film before that was 2021's RON'S GONE WRONG. With that, it looks like they'll be easing into a one-a-year schedule. And apparently WED WABBIT, announced a long time ago, is still on the rails but won't be a Warner Bros. release. A few months ago, they were shopping that around in Europe.

Anyways, the tarmac once more - films being *released* by Warner Bros. themselves...

02/27/2026: THE CAT IN THE HAT

07/23/2027: BAD FAIRIES

11/05/2027: MARGIE CLAUS

03/17/2028: OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

06/30/2028: DYNAMIC DUO

11/03/2028: THE LUNAR CHRONICLES

DYNAMIC DUO currently shares a release date with an untitled Illumination movie. If the Illumination movie is another DESPICABLE ME/MINIONS endeavor, I expect DYNAMIC DUO to move. If it's original, I think DYNAMIC DUO stays in place, being a DC adaptation. Illumination usually isn't one to give up that juicy pre-4th of July slot, though. We'll see, we'll see.

MEET THE FLINTSTONES has a crew and all, and finished footage was apparently presented not too long ago, yet it still does not have a concrete release date. I'd imagine late 2026 is where Warner could feasibly trying opening it, but again, we'll also see on that one. Maybe the footage in question was "test" footage to give whoever was at that expo an idea of what the movie could look like, and that the earliest we'll see the movie is in 2029.

Otherwise, it looks like the rest of the game plan is "Super Secret Looney Tunes Movie", THING ONE AND THING TWO, MEERKAT MANOR, David G. Derrick Jr.'s untitled original film, TOM AND JERRY, and EMILY THE STRANGE...

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 12 days ago

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I know folks are upset about how LILO & STITCH '25's gross has well smashed the box office take of the original 2002 animated movie...

Domestically, LILO & STITCH took in $145m in the summer-to-fall span of 2002 - which adjusts to about $283m today, and by the end of its international run, it had collected about $273m altogether. It was the second highest-grossing animated movie release of 2002 behind ICE AGE, which crossed the $300m threshold. It opened 2nd place to the Tom Cruise-led MINORITY REPORT (coincidentally, the remake opened next to MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING), missing #1 by a hair... but it managed to outgross that film stateside because of the strong word of mouth, a 4.1x multiplier.

Being a Florida production, LILO & STITCH had cost $80m, while the heavies in Burbank were using up all the rest of the cash - ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE (released the previous summer) cost over $100m and TREASURE PLANET posted a then record-breaking $140m budget. Both of those lost big action epics money, while STITCH, a B-team sort-of production all the way on the East Coast where the filmmakers had a little more say and really got to make the weird little movie they wanted to make, pulled through and was a respectable hit for itself.

Of course, its success meant little for 2D animation in American theatrical films. The previous three films done largely in that technique at Disney Feature (because let's be real, the films from around 1990-onwards use a lot of CGI, to the point where some of them nearly become hybrid films, like TARZAN and its extensive use of Deep Canvas), lost money at the box office. Those direct-to-video movies that got upped to theaters could only do so much, too. Other studios were having trouble, a sorry pattern of films like THE IRON GIANT, THE ROAD TO EL DORADO, TITAN A.E., and - from the same year as LILO - SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON. So, in summer 2002, LILO & STITCH did good. Very good, but it wasn't the size of a typical CGI adventure-comedy picture. ICE AGE made more than that, and that $273m gross paled in comparison to the then-monster grosses accumulated by TOY STORY 2, SHREK, and MONSTERS, INC.

Really, LILO & STITCH's success was like a last dying gasp of sorts for American 2D animated features. Sometimes one single film is blamed for the demise of 2D animated features - whether it's SHREK or MONSTERS, INC. or even the original TOY STORY. Films like TREASURE PLANET have been blamed, too. Audiences are said to have lost interest in 2D films... I think a lot of things played a part, but I've come to believe that it was mainly this: Disney's animated movies grossed less and less after THE LION KING came out, while the CGI movies were on the rise, and other companies often walked into rakes when planning/readying their 2D pictures circa 1998-2001. For example, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman were supposedly told by executives during development of TITAN A.E. to make a picture for "10-13yo boys", which the two warned wasn't the brightest idea, Bluth particularly voicing concerns that that was an audience that was growing out of watching PG cartoons... The movie was a big flop that shut down the animation house it was made at - Fox Animation Studios.

Then you have CGI movies being easier for execs to micromanage, easier for execs to fuck around with during actual animation production (which is in turn a bigger nightmare for a 2D film). We see this happen a lot, and even nowadays: John Lasseter did that to so many movies at both Pixar and Disney Animation. Phil Lord was having stuff changed on ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE in the final laps of production... That did it, too. CGI movies were a novelty in the early 2000s, so that also helped.

In March 2001, which was a few months before ATLANTIS came out, and over a year before LILO & STITCH released, a memo was issued to Disney Feature Animation. Downsizing was imminent, lots of cuts, lot of staff being let go. That right there, I think, spelt the end of 2D features. Particularly at Disney. This came off of their pretty disappointing 2000, the year where FANTASIA 2000 played in IMAX only for a while before getting a muted general release, the year where they dumped THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE and it came up short. A year where the low-budget THE TIGGER MOVIE - a Disneytoon production - made its money back, but wasn't necessarily a massive movie. And this followed, again, the majority of the post-LION KING movies not making the greatest numbers. Then, cue ATLANTIS' release a few months later, it bombing... And next door is competitor SHREK, on its way to a near-$500m worldwide gross... It was on its way out back then, and somehow, LILO & STITCH managed to not get knocked down in the way TREASURE PLANET, BROTHER BEAR, and HOME ON THE RANGE were. Jeffrey Katzenberg over at DreamWorks also infamously rung the death bell when their SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS sunk in summer 2003, which too followed a double-dose of 2D flops: The aforementioned EL DORADO and SPIRIT.

LILO & STITCH really got by on many things in 2002. For starters, its legendary and clever all-timer marketing positioning the scrunkly little weirdo as the bold new addition to the Disney stable...

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... and then the film being as good as it was, being unique and feeling quite "real" in its storytelling and modern-day setting. Not feeling like a typical hokey Disney film in the way ATLANTIS and TREASURE PLANET (which was left to die anyways) might've come off as. It took people by surprise.

Disney really lucked out here! Any wrong move, and this film could've been another money-loser for the studio.

Like, I want to emphasize how much of a relative bright spot LILO & STITCH was for these kinds of movies back then... And then when it came to DVD around Christmas of 2002? That's where it really, really took off. By 2003/2004, Stitchmania was inescapable. I know, because I was there. I was a preteen at the time. I remember when he was EVERYWHERE, to the point where I kinda got burnt out on that whole franchise.

One really cool thing the movie's success *did* do, outside of spawning a massive franchise in the TV/direct-to-video realm and tons of theme park stuff/merch, was immediately securing director Chris Sanders a second feature, and one where he would've looked to have had as much as say, to make it as weird as he could in comparison to the other films in development at Disney Animation at the time. A movie titled AMERICAN DOG... But then in 2006, the Disney enterprise bought Pixar, John Lasseter and Ed Catmull took over Disney Animation and removed Sanders from his project, and had a different team make a new, completely different version of his little dog story without him. The end result was BOLT, which is a movie I still really like.

If Disney wasn't entrenched in their direct-to-video sequel phase and still largely refusing to do in-house theatrical sequels at the main studio circa 2006, we possibly could've gotten a LILO & STITCH sequel that would've performed amazingly. Would've been a TERMINATOR 2/SHREK 2-style leap in gross. But, we got three direct-to-video pictures (series pilot STITCH! THE MOVIE, STITCH HAS A GLITCH, and LEROY & STITCH) and multiple shows...

Now, in 2025, we have a live-action remake that's almost verbatim the original minus some controversial changes... And it's going to make a billion, easily. Again, WAY more than what the original made adjusted in theaters...

But that's simply because of how beloved the original is, and a lot of its fanbase arguably grew *after* its pretty successful theatrical run in 2002. A sort-of SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION situation where the thing is massively popular after its first run in theaters. Again, I was there. I remember LILO & STITCH being somewhat popular when it first came out. I saw it in theaters in June 2002, yes. I recall some people quoting "Ohana means family" and "Blue punch buggy!" and some other lines like that. It existed, sure, but by mid-to-late 2003? After the DVD had been out for quite some time and the series was on its way? That's where it **really** started to pick up in my neck of the woods. Hence my theory that if they made a theatrical sequel AT Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2D and released it theatrically around 2005/06? That thing would've made absolutely-bonkers numbers, simply because of how beloved the original is.

We never got a second theatrical film out of this franchise until now. That remake is likely getting a theatrical sequel, at that. Much in the same way LION KING '19 got MUFASA.

These remakes often make me wonder how ACTUAL sequels to these movies would've done theatrically. I know THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER's run in 1990 put the kibosh on these kinds of continuations, save for Roy E. Disney being given the permission to get FANTASIA 2000 off the ground, and I know RETURN OF JAFAR solidified the whole "direct to video sequel" trend...

But sometimes I wonder what would've happened if, say, THE LION KING got a theatrical sequel that came out in - say - fall 1998, sharing the year with MULAN. Unlike RESCUERS DOWN UNDER, this would've been a sequel to a very recent and very popular movie. The original RESCUERS was over 13 years old by the time DOWN UNDER came out, and while that was a good-sized hit on its first release, it arguably didn't cement itself as a timeless Disney classic a la BAMBI and CINDERELLA by the late 1980s. Its final re-issue in 1989 didn't do all that great, which was what prompted Disney to lose any and all confidence in DOWN UNDER. Whereas something like THE LION KING... Let's pretend it's 1998 and a sequel is coming out, to theaters. It may or may not be the same storyline seen in the real-life LION KING sequel SIMBA'S PRIDE. The original LION KING held the highest-grossing animated movie record at the time ($760m+), this would've easily replicated that I think. SIMBA'S PRIDE is actually largely seen as one of the better DTV films, I think if we got that film with a higher budget (and probably some differences here and there) that looked every bit as big-screen caliber as THE LION KING... That thing could've possibly challenged TITANIC, even.

Not like today, where a big animated movie usually gets a theatrical sequel within a few years. A very different '90s could've seen theatrical sequels to BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, and THE LION KING. And, LILO & STITCH could've gotten one, circa 2005/06.

So, in a way, I see it all as that. LILO & STITCH was a moderate hit in 2002, but exploded after its home video release and built a large fanbase thereafter that remains a thing some 23 years later. Like, talk about a shelf life! It never got a theatrical follow-up in the immediate aftermath of its release due to Disney's weird thing with sequels at the time... So, now, this thing comes out and it's the first Stitch anything in theaters from the company... Yeah, I think it kinda makes sense, honestly. It's only doing so great because the original is beloved.

#Youtube

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