Feature Films — Look Ahead and Back

The 2003’s buzz bordered behemoth Nemo and bohemian Belleville. Finding Nemo © Disney Enterprises Inc./Pixar Animation Studios. All rights reserved. The Triplets of Belleville © 2003 Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.

2003 was the year that traditional animation cried “uncle.” And, unfortunately, Uncle Walt and his nephew Roy, left the building.

On the whole, sequels and TV spin-offs did OK at the box office, while big budget hand drawn films performed only fair to poor — but of course, a little CG fish swam on to become the highest grossing film of the year.

What does this signal to Hollywood? You guessed it — computer generated animated features are hot, with pre-sold TV and toy properties the only valid option left for 2D.

Thus, as 2004 begins, classic theatrical hand drawn character animation — for the first time since... well frankly, for the first time since animation began — is no longer being produced in Hollywood.

What went wrong? What went right? Let’s take a look.

Disney and Nick learned that low budget sequels & TV spinoffs — Jungle Book 2, Piglet’s Big Movie and Rugrats Go Wild respectively — have a box office ceiling that averages around $40 million in the U.S. The main audience — kids — were quite loyal, but then no real attempt to lure adults was expended on these matinee flicks.

The good news: Miramax’s Pokémon Heroes tanked. The fifth feature length Pikachu epic nails the coffin shut on that annoying TV fad — at long last. Anime, however, is very much alive and kicking, big time. The theatrical billboard release of TV anime hits Cowboy Bebop [1], Patlabor and Sakura Wars spun off into huge profits on DVD.

[2]

Brother Bear proved that 2D is only dead in the minds of some executives. © Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. All rights reserved. [2]

The biggest surprise last year was the box office performance of Disney’s Brother Bear [3], grossing more than $80 million. No one was more surprised than Disney — they expected it to die — but its performance proved that a well crafted, sincere traditional cartoon feature can still get a gross. The problem for Brother Bear — and every other 2D animation project this year — was the phenomenal success of Finding Nemo [4].

If one wants to know where the heart of Disney animation went — it moved to Emeryville California. Pixar has now become the studio Disney once was. Finding Nemo, written and directed by Andrew Stanton, demonstrates the studio’s strength in blending computer graphics, classical character animation and good ‘ol cartooning.

Pixar’s films — all of ‘em — connect with audiences. It ISN’T the computer animation — Pixar will be the first to tell you that — it’s the relatable stories, the appealing character designs and the innovative visuals. Hollywood is learning all the wrong lessons from Pixar’s success — and that’s great news for Pixar. They’ll continue to lead the pack — deservedly so.

The year’s biggest box office disappointments were DreamWork’s Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas [5] and Warner’s Looney Tunes: Back In Action. Sinbad was actually a pretty good film — in my humble opinion — but the core audience for this “comic book” styled adventure film didn’t turn out for it. This was the year that two other seafaring period films broke box office records — Pirates of the Caribbean and Master and Commander — but even that couldn’t help poor Sinbad, nor the public’s perception of hand drawn animation.

Joe Dante and Eric Goldberg made a silk purse from a corporate “sow’s ear” with Looney Tunes. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd returned in a wild adventure which I believe will be appreciated “as time goes by” — as audiences will discover this zany gem on video. But its dismal box office showing didn’t help matters. Warner’s foolishly marketed this film as strictly a kids flick — but its on-screen sensibilities were clearly adult. I urge you all to give it a chance on DVD.

Traditional animation isn’t completely dead. Animators Mike Judge and Don Herzfedlt started distributing their own short film compilation festival last year and garnered rave reviews and respectable box office. Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville [6] and Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress [7] wowed the critics and have a real chance for Academy Award gold. Quentin Tarentino included an amazing tour-de-force anime sequence (from Japan’s Production IG) as part of his Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and the original home video release of The Animatrix [8] was a solid success (even if the two live-action sequels disappointed the die-hard fans).

It will be a tough feat for Shark Tale’s fish (left) to out swim Nemo. Warner Bros. hopes to cash in once again on its venerable Scooby-Doo (right) franchise. Shark Tale © DreamWorks. Scooby-Doo © Warner Bros.

Where Do We Go From Here? The coming year will demonstrate if CG can keep hold of the audience’s imagination. Big-ticket releases, like DreamWork’s Shrek 2 and Pixar’s The Incredibles, are highly anticipated — and expected to be huge hits. Star power will fuel Shark Tale (Robert DeNiro) and the mo-cap production The Polar Express (Tom Hanks). Live-action/CG animation “Hybrids” (Garfield and Scooby-Doo 2) are still potent novelties, appealing to movie goers of all ages; clever TV series spin-offs (and I have to admit these two look pretty good), Disney’s Teacher’s Pet and Nick’s SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, come prepared with a large built-in audience; and potential anime classics, Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle and Production IG’s Innocence: Ghost In The Shell 2; along with independent animator Bill Plympton’s latest, Hair High will thrill the art house crowd.

In 2004 we enter a new phase — a time of transition. Corporate Hollywood has turned its back on classically animated feature films. Disney’s April release of Home on the Range is the studio’s 2D swan song. Artists let go from Warners, Disney and other animation factories are banding together to form new independent studios. And while the road they travel will be a hard one initially — it’s a path previously traveled by pioneer animation cartoonists Walt Disney, Max Fleischer, Paul Terry and Walter Lantz. The seeds are planted for a new generation of cartoon pioneers — and for the sake of our favorite art form, I wish them luck.

[Editors note: The outlook for 2D animated films in Europe is good as Philippe Moins reports in his “Panorama of the European Feature Film” [9].

Jerry Beck has a nifty Website at www.cartoonresearch.com [10] and had two books published in 2003, Outlaw Animation from Harry N. Abrams and Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide from Dorling Kindersley.