---

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.12 - MARCH 2001

The Challenges of the Big Screen Cartoon (continued from page 2) Warner Bros.' Batman: Mask of the Phantasm feature has Batman set to solve another mystery, but fails to prepare him for the big screen. © Warner Bros. All rights reserved. Although Batman: MOTP was not a disaster, it was a signpost to Warner Bros. regarding their philosophy of animated superhero movies. The subsequent Batman animated movie, Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero was a direct-to-video release, as was Batman/Superman Movie (a.k.a. World's Finest from the TV series), and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Any of these movies, especially World's Finest, could have made it to the big screen, but Warner Bros. chose the more innocuous route by releasing them to video. "I do think there is a market for superhero or action-adventure animation out there," commented Burnett. "It just takes someone who is willing to spend the money to produce something that is really fun and good looking." Nudging Along TV There is also the case of when cartoon movies advance the storylines of their TV shows in an exponential fashion. This can serve as a boost to a show which is becoming stale, or to a writing staff in need of new plots. Case examples of this are The Transformers: The Movie and G. I. Joe: The Movie. Within twenty minutes of The Transformers: The Movie, the two "stars" of the movie, Optimus Prime and Megatron, kill each other in battle. The result of their deaths and the onslaught of new villain Unicron led to a new breed of Autobots and Decepticons, led by Rodimus Prime and Galvatron respectively. This radically altered The Transformers TV series for the remainder of its tenure. As the tagline goes, "Beyond good. Beyond evil. Beyond your wildest imagination." The Transformers: The Movie succeeds in furthering the series' development. © DEG. In these tough financial days, studios will be wearier in how they produce these grand, cinematic cartoons. But the Rugrats features, along with the Pokemon movies, Beavis and Butthead Do America, Digimon: The Movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut and now Recess: School's Out have all been at least respectable at the box office if not smash hits, which means, of course, that there will be more! The brightest beacon on the horizon looks to be The Powerpuff Girls movie. It will be the first movie produced at Cartoon Network's new studio and is slated for Summer 2002. Once again under the crush of high quality demands and little time, Cartoon Network is taking a gamble that the Girls will still be hot in 2002. If it were released this summer, at what may be the peak of the show's popularity, it would be a guaranteed success...however, what results it yields in 2002, will be determined by the fickle demands of the pre-teen set. In the meantime, fans can enjoy their favorite shows on television and hope that one day they will be able to experience "the greatest adventure ever!" for that show. As Alan Burnett reminds us, "The primary goal is to cash in. It's a fine goal as far as I'm concerned. The problem is that [studios] want something as quickly as possible. You always want more time to make these films right." Whether animated or from the faster-paced live-action production realm, as Burnett is demonstrating through his involvement in the forthcoming Batman Beyond movie, fans will be waiting, and hoping, that their favorite show is next on the big screen gravy train. Gerard Raiti, a native of Baltimore currently residing in Nashville, has reported on animation, Broadway musicals and comic books for various publications including Fandomshop.com and Newsweek. He also holds the Diploma of the Royal Schools of Music, U.K. in classical piano and music.

1 | 2 | 3