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Tag Archives: Pixar
Pixar, Adobe, Apple and Others Form Alliance For OpenUSD To Drive Open Standards For 3D Content – Slashdot
- Pixar, Adobe, Apple and Others Form Alliance For OpenUSD To Drive Open Standards For 3D Content Slashdot
- Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk & NVIDIA Form OpenUSD Alliance to Drive Open Standards for 3D Content Animation Magazine
- Apple’s Vision Pro platform joins Pixar’s bid to standardize 3D content The Verge
- 3D’s MIDI moment: Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA rally around OpenUSD – CDM Create Digital Music Create Digital Music
- 5 companies form Alliance for OpenUSD for 3D graphics standard VentureBeat
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3D’s MIDI moment: Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA rally around OpenUSD – CDM Create Digital Music – Create Digital Music
- 3D’s MIDI moment: Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA rally around OpenUSD – CDM Create Digital Music Create Digital Music
- Apple plays nice with others for an OpenUSD metaverse Computerworld
- Enter a New Dimension: Groundbreaking Alliance Breaths Life into 3D and Augmented Reality Tech. Softonic EN
- Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk & NVIDIA Form OpenUSD Alliance to Drive Open Standards for 3D Content Animation Magazine
- Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Nvidia, and Pixar come together to promote and develop OpenUSD 3D standard The Indian Express
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Disney Streaming Strategy: CEO Bob Iger Tells Shareholders Marvel, Star Wars, Disney And Pixar Titles Will Stay Exclusive, But Others Could “On Occasion” Be Licensed To Third Parties – Deadline
- Disney Streaming Strategy: CEO Bob Iger Tells Shareholders Marvel, Star Wars, Disney And Pixar Titles Will Stay Exclusive, But Others Could “On Occasion” Be Licensed To Third Parties Deadline
- Disney CEO Bob Iger Doubles Down on Inclusivity and Diversity During Shareholders’ Meeting WDW News Today
- Highlights from The Walt Disney Company 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders The DIS
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D23 Expo reimainging, sequel, Pixar, and more news roundup
Now that another Disney+ Day has come and gone, we can get on to the meat of Disney’s big weekend: The D23 Expo, where the greatest fans in the world can get a look at the stuff they’ve already seen before but now reimagined.
Kicking off the day was Cynthia Orivio, our new Blue Fairy, who reminded the audience that there was a new version of Pinnochio currently being memory-holed on Disney+. Continuing the theme that these sorts of things were now the order of the day, Disney Studios chairman Alan Bergman took the stage to remind us that these reimaginings, such as The Lion King, Beauty And The Beast, Cinderella, and Cruella, were “iconic.” We assume he meant that the movies use “iconic imagery,” but regardless, more of these iconic reimaginings and sequels are coming down the pike.
Bergman then brought Walt Disney Studios president Sean Bailey out to take us through the upcoming ways they’re reviving old brands.
Don’t worry: Hocus Pocus 2 and Disenchanted are still coming
First up were the sequels. Hocus Pocus 2 debuts later this month, and since we already shared the trailer, we’ll move on to the other big sequel announcement: Disenchanted. Don’t get it twisted with Matt Groening’s Netflix comedy Disenchantment. This is a sequel to the wonderful Amy Adams comedy Enchanted from 2007. The whole cast is back, including Adams, Patrick Dempsey, Adele Dazeem Idina Menzel, and James Marsden. They’ve upped the ante by adding a Maya Rudolph, too. And now, there’s a trailer.
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Disenchanted lands on Disney+ on November 24, 2022.
Reimagining the past is Disney’s future
The presentation was done round-robin style, with Bailey shuffling VIPs on stage for about five minutes, playing a clip, and then shuffling them off. So next up, Jude Law and the cast of Peter Pan & Wendy took the stage.
Directed by David Lowery, who directed one of the best films of 2021, The Green Knight, and Disney’s delightful remake of Pete’s Dragon, Peter Pan seems a bit more stylish than the other movies announced today. It’s still filled with nostalgic images pulled straight from the Disney vault, but also a distinct visual style, location shooting, and a fish-eye lens that won’t quit. So how will this differ from literally every other revisionist Peter Pans from the last 20 years? Those got theatrical releases.
Our new Captain Hook, Jude Law, said that this version gets into the “backstory a little more” when Peter and Hook “were once friends.” But, again, it remains to be seen how this one will differentiate itself from the numerous other Peter Pans.
Perhaps the trickiest aspect of the movie is Tiger Lily, a character that hasn’t been treated with much respect by Disney in the past. Nevertheless, newcomer Alyssa Wapanatâhk said she was very “excited to have the honor” of playing Tiger Lily. “To be able to tell the story for her, that was phenomenal for me.”
Peter Pan & Wendy [sigh] hits Disney+ next year.
After pushing Peter Pan back to Neverland, Sean Bailey introduced the trailer of The Haunted Mansion and announced that Winona Rider was joining the cast. Director (and former Disneyland employee) Justin Simin also mentioned that “according to TikTok,” Jared Leto is playing the Hatbox Ghost. We await the horror stories from his fellow castmates about how hard he tried to fit into a hatbox for the role. But really, this one is for the real Hatbox heads.
“That script was funny and filled with interesting characters, but it had a little bit of like a dark edge to it,” Simin told the crowd at D23. “I just really related to it. I felt like I knew how to make it. I felt like I understood New Orleans. And, of course, I’m a fanboy. So I felt like I understood the ride, and I felt like I got a responsibility here to make sure all the little details, all the Easter eggs are there because I’m a nerd for real.”
Bailey brought out Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins for a sneak peek of Mufasa: The Lion King. Jon Favreau’s The Lion King made over a billion dollars, so that means people liked it. However, the “live action” animation in Mufasa probably won’t convert anyone turned off by the last trip to Pride Lands. Still, then again, Barry Jenkins is very good at making movies. Here’s what Barry Jenkins said about the film:
Mufasa is the origin story of one of the greatest beings in the history of the alliance. Mufasa, all caps. It’s a story told in a few different time frames. Rafiki, Timon, and Pumbaa, who we all know and love, are relating the story of Mufasa and how he came to a very beautiful, awesome, fantastic young cub. It’s a story about how Mufasa rose to royalty. We assume he was just born into his lineage. But Mufasa was actually an orphaned cub, who had to navigate the world alone. And in telling this story, we get to experience the real journey of how Mufasa found his place and the circle of life. It is pretty awesome.
I felt I had to make this movie because when I was 14, I was helping raise two nephews. And there was a VHS tape that we watched maybe 95 times in the span of 20 days. So I really knew this character. I loved him. But then as I was reading this wonderful script, I was thinking about Mufasa and why he’s great and how people become great. And it’s crazy. I am not a king, but when I make my movies, I was on stage at the Oscars with Moonlight, and I was there and five of my best friends from college were also there. And what you are learning the story is that Mufasa is who he is. He is great because of the family and the friends he has with them. And so I saw myself in that. I thought, this is a really beautiful story to tell.
For Marc Webb’s Snow White, Gal Gadot and Rachel Zegler took the stage to show some footage. There are no dwarves yet—and seeing as they were cut from the title, who knows what their role will be. Thus far, it looks similar to the other remakes, recreating the look of the animated classic. But we’ll need to see Dopey to know how scary this thing is going to look.
Similarly, Rob Marshall invited Halley Bailey on stage to show off The Little Mermaid teaser and a clip of “Part Of Your World.” It doesn’t look like all the effects are done yet, but right now, it’s reminiscent of Avatar and the “merman” commercial from Zoolander. On the other hand, Marshall did promise four new songs from Alan Menkin and Lin Manuel Miranda, so that’s something.
Pixar on Disney+
The director of The Good Dinosaur, Peter Sohn, is back, and he brought some clips and concept art for the next Pixar movie Elemental. Sohn described the film as “very personal” and that the germ of the idea came from his parents. “We immigrated to the U.S. from Korea in the early seventies,” Sohn said. “They had no money, no family, no English. But they managed to create a life in New York.”
Similarly, Elemental files a “fire family” assimilating in Element City, “where Earth, air, water, and fire are characters in our community.”
More Pixar is coming in 2023 as we got a little more information on Win Or Lose, the studio’s first television series. The show stars Will Forte as the coach of a ragtag little league baseball team, the Pickles, and the week leading up to their big game. Each episode will focus on a different character’s perspective, allowing for various animation styles.
Pixar also announced two new features Elio and Inside Out 2, which we wrote about here.
Wait! Disney also has some cartoons to share
Disney Animation Studios will not be outdone. Today, they showed clips of their upcoming series Zootopia+ and Iwájú.
Zootopia+ is a six-part series that, like Win Or Lose, focuses on a different character and genre in each episode with various animation styles—some of which look really cool and others like Pixar.
On the other hand, Iwájú is a downright historic collaboration between Disney and an outside animation studio. Jennifer Lee, the Chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, retold the story of how she had read about a Nigerian animation studio that was going to take down Disney. So she did like many Disney execs before her and bought the competition.
With the team from Kugali, Disney will premiere the futuristic sci-fi series Iwájú next year.
Finally, Lee brought out the cast from their upcoming 61st animated feature, Strange World. Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Jaboukie Young-White, and Lucy Liu star in an outer space adventure about a dysfunctional group of explorers. This one comes out on November 23.
“Our film is inspired by some of the great adventure stories that we grew up with,” said co-director Don Hall. “Specifically stories about a group of explorers that stumble upon a hidden world.”
What are we most excited to discover? Jaboukie Young-White’s character, Ethan Clave, which Young-White described as “the vibe master” who makes “the vibe great.”
And that’s everything from the D23 Expo Disney Animation Studios and Pixar presentation. Check back tomorrow when Disney tries to bury us under a mountain of Star Wars and Marvel announcements.
Oscar-Winning Pixar Animator Ralph Eggleston Dead at 56
Longtime Pixar animator Ralph Eggleston — the Oscar-winning director behind the 2000 short film For the Birds who also worked in the art departments of films like Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles — has died.
Eggleston died in San Rafael, Calif., on Monday of pancreatic cancer at the age of 56, according to Variety.
Pixar Animation Studios confirmed Eggleston’s death in a statement released on Twitter Monday. “In memory of Ralph Eggleston — animator, director, art director, storyboard artist, writer, production designer, and our dear friend. Pixar and the world will be forever grateful,” the studio tweeted.
Among his colleagues, Jorge R. Gutierrez, director of The Book of Life, also honored the moviemaker with a tribute.
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“Adios Maestro Ralph Eggleston. A true titan of our art form. He reached out to me after Book of Life and I will forever cherish our conversations. Before many knew he was sick he was trying to donate his spectacular art book collection to a Mexican animation school. That’s Ralph,” Gutierrez wrote.
Besides his Oscar, Eggleston received numerous other accolades along his career path, including four Annie Awards, which honor excellence in animation. His work on Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Inside Out were recognized by the awarding body of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood.
He stayed with Pixar for three decades, beginning in 1993, according to the Cartoon Brew blog. He’s also credited for helping come up with the original story of 2001’s Monsters, Inc.
When Andrew Stanton struggled to find a production designer for 1995’s Toy Story, due to the fact that the industry at the time was transitioning to computer-generated imagery or CGI, he shared his relief when Eggleston accepted his job offer, according to Cartoon Brew.
“The only person out of all those people I called that said yes right away was Ralph Eggleston, who came in to be our production designer,” Stanton said. “And thank goodness, because he really became a cornerstone of the look of our films.”
A Review Of Apple+’s Luck
Hugely innovative on both a technological and narrative level, Pixar helped advance the medium of animation, and destroy once and for all the notion that mainstream animated films couldn’t be complex and ambitious without alienating or excluding their (usual) core family demographic. John Lasseter, as the director of Toy Story and Chief Creative Officer of Pixar, was at the forefront of this sea-change.
It’s especially perplexing, then, that Luck, the shockingly dismal debut feature from the new, Lasseter-run Skydance Animation, arrives with such a thud. The movie’s slipshod reasoning and grating rhythms suggest strongly that Lasseter’s ignominious professional defenestration (he was driven from his perch in 2017-18 amidst allegations of sexual misconduct) has impacted his storytelling judgment, the expertise and skill level of people who wish to work with him, or both.
Aging out of the group house she’s long called home, 18-year-old orphan Sam (Eva Noblezada) gets her first apartment and a job. Gifted a magic penny which for several hours reverses her seemingly perpetual haplessness, Sam makes plans to give it to young friend and fellow orphan Hazel in advance of the latter’s meeting with a potential adoptive family—only to lose the coin at the last minute.
When Sam again crosses paths with the Scottish black cat, Bob (Simon Pegg), who she believes to be a harbinger of luck, he flees. Sam gives chase, and slips back to his home, an alternate dimension called the “Land of Luck” where fortune both good and bad is manufactured, and then funneled to Earth. The happy, positive side is populated with leprechauns and bunnies—though overseen for some reason by a 40-foot dragon named Babe (Jane Fonda). There’s a negative side, too, as well as an “In Between” space, appropriately sandwiched in the midst of these two lands.
Sam and Bob, with the assistance of the latter’s leprechaun friend Gerry (Colin O’Donoghue), try to evade Captain (Whoopi Goldberg), the Land of Luck’s stern security head, and lay hands on a lucky penny they can then utilize to help them both.
To say that Luck struggles with nonverbal storytelling is a massive understatement. The screenplay, by Kiel Murray (from story co-credited alongside Glenn Berger and Jonathan Aibel) is somewhat paradoxically lazy and incredibly overwritten. Many details seem odd (leprechauns just exist to polish pennies), perhaps the result of a push-and-pull development, and the script overall is full of a number of holes that never get spackled up. One of the most notable examples of this is a store manager, Marv (Lil Rel Howery), who greets Sam on her first day of work by saying, apropos of nothing, “You may be the best decision I ever made!”
For longtime principled opponents of the Cars and spinoff Planes franchises, in which there are many vexing questions about those worlds, as well as an entire class of vehicles which exist in servitude, Luck also likely presents one major gear-grinding oddity: what is the genesis of this universe, and why do its inhabitants all exist to provide fortune to humans which very few of them ever meet? Luck simply shrugs at any sincere interaction with its setting.
Most wearyingly, though, Luck is weighed down by a story that is incredibly task-oriented. In the absence of any genuinely well-crafted world-building, with some sense of wonderment and whimsy that might capture and hold the imagination of a child (or even adult), there is instead talking—so much talking. One loses track of the number of monologues listing out the series of tasks in a particular sub-quest, or explaining the existence of a “luck randomizer,” or how crystals are smashed into dust before being ferried off.
It’s one thing to repeatedly funnel a lot of exposition or functional plotting through a single character; while still suboptimal overall, this tack in its most artful rendering can be absorbed into that character’s personality. It’s the sign of a deeper problem, though, when multiple characters are constantly explaining the scope of its world, relationships between its inhabitants, and almost every single interaction.
The result is a movie that feels like a very colorful, moving instruction manual, in which things… just happen. Sometimes this means there are cute bits of physical comedy, as with Bob’s attempted escape from Sam, in which he walks across a series of opening umbrellas. Most times, though, scenes grind to a halt for an indulged idea (a line dance with bunnies!) that reads as nothing more than a narrative escape chute.
Director Peggy Holmes took over for Kung Fu Panda 3 co-director Alessandro Carloni (who departed over creative differences) either during production or just before the bulk of principle animation took place, depending on what account one chooses to believe. This detail is felt in the film’s lack of clarified stewardship, and, quite frankly, effort. Luck’s visual design is low-key pleasant, but not necessarily ambitious; it leans into generically appealing, eye-batting character design, and doesn’t build out backgrounds in exacting detail.
Will young kids even notice this? Yes, but not in ways they can articulate—which is a blessing, actually, because after Luck, the best fortune one may hope for is a bit of prolonged silence.
A Blockbuster and a Pixar Movie Are Out This Weekend—With a Catch
With The Batman scoring the second-highest opening weekend of the pandemic, it feels like the theatrical experience has finally come to life in 2022 after the omicron variant caused low returns and led several movies to shuffle their release dates at the beginning of the year. (Please, Sony Pictures, stop giving us Morbius blue balls.) Given that resounding success, two major film releases seemed set to double down on the industry’s box office rebound this coming weekend: Turning Red, the latest animated feature from Pixar, and The Adam Project, a sci-fi blockbuster that reunites Ryan Reynolds with Free Guy director Shawn Levy. There’s just one problem: Neither of these movies is coming out in theaters across the country.
As Disney announced in January amid the omicron surge, Turning Red, which follows a 13-year-old girl who discovers that she morphs into a giant red panda when she gets emotional, would bypass a traditional release and instead debut on Disney+. (For international markets in which the company’s streaming service isn’t available, the film will be released theatrically at a later date.) Turning Red is now the third consecutive Pixar production to go the straight-to-streaming route, following Luca and Soul. The Adam Project, meanwhile, was eyed by Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures all the way back in 2012 before the project became mired in development hell and was ultimately acquired by Netflix in 2020. As Netflix is wont to do, The Adam Project has a limited theatrical release that coincides with its debut on streaming—where the vast majority of people will catch the movie.
But while Turning Red and The Adam Project took very different paths to land on their respective streamers, their fates—coming off an excellent opening weekend for yet another Batman adaptation—speak to larger shifts within the industry, and what kind of films are even afforded a chance at box office success. The pandemic has pushed major studios to favor IP-driven projects more and more, but as a result, there are fewer avenues than ever before to crafting and sharing original stories on the biggest possible screen, while audiences are left to settle for an increasingly myopic landscape.
Netflix’s handling of The Adam Project, a time-traveling caper in which a pilot from the future has to team up with his younger self to save the world, is hardly surprising. With the notable exception of buzzy Oscar hopefuls like The Irishman and Mank, the company doesn’t put much stock in theatrical engagements. (And even in those rare cases, the theatrical rollouts are brief and limited to major markets.) But the fact that The Adam Project—an original blockbuster-esque production starring Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldaña, and Jennifer Garner—landed on Netflix to begin with is indicative of how major studios have continued to prioritize existing franchises. “I’m grateful that Netflix has a commitment to making movies like this, original stories based on nothing more than an idea,” Reynolds told The Hollywood Reporter in February.
The Adam Project isn’t just a movie big on spectacle and led by a proven star, though—it’s also directed by the guy responsible for the only non-IP film to land on the list of the 10 highest-grossing movies of 2021 domestically. But as Levy himself admitted in an October interview with Insider, Free Guy, which was a holdover from 20th Century Fox prior to its acquisition by Disney, is part of a dying breed among major studios. These days, filmmakers are hard-pressed to find a studio willing to foot an eight- or nine-figure bill for a movie that isn’t based on pre-established IP. This isn’t a new trend by any means, but The Adam Project is another notable example of a movie that likely would’ve found itself in theaters even a decade ago—with Tom Cruise possibly starring in it, no less—that’s had to settle for a home on streaming instead. In 2022, it feels like the only original tentpoles that have a chance to hit multiplexes are directed by Christopher Nolan.
The situation with Turning Red is a bit more puzzling, as Disney has taken various approaches with its animated films since the pandemic. Last year, the aforementioned Luca went to Disney+ at no extra charge, while Encanto was given a traditional theatrical release and Raya and the Last Dragon was simultaneously released in theaters and made available on the streamer for an additional $30. (In 2020, Pixar’s Soul went to Disney+ at no extra charge, while Onward arrived on the cusp of the pandemic hitting the United States, which helps explain its underwhelming box office cume.) There’s nothing wrong with Disney experimenting with multiple release models during a pandemic, but it’s telling that three straight Pixar movies haven’t even been afforded the opportunity to make a dent at the box office. As a Pixar insider told The Hollywood Reporter in January: those within the studio are “bummed” about Turning Red heading to Disney+, even though they understand that families aren’t returning to theaters in droves.
Indeed, the animated movies that have hit theaters aren’t making anywhere near pre-pandemic money: In 2021, no animated film crossed the $100 million threshold domestically. Encanto got the closest by making just north of $90 million, but it wasn’t until the movie became available on Disney+ that it turned into a cultural phenomenon, highlighted by its catchy soundtrack reaching no. 1 on the Billboard music charts. Superhero franchises might be able to count on audiences coming to theaters regardless of COVID case numbers, but families—and especially those with children who aren’t able to be vaccinated—can simply wait to stream family-oriented films at their convenience.
These changes in moviegoing habits still don’t explain why Disney has made its recent Pixar releases available on Disney+ for free, a practice it has avoided with films from Walt Disney Animation Studios. Industry analysts have speculated about a variety of reasons for the practice, including everything from the studio’s titles leading to a strong retention rate for Disney+ subscribers to not wanting poor box office performances to dilute the prestigious Pixar brand. (As is the case with Netflix and other streaming services, Disney+ is selective about divulging viewership data, so it’s hard to know just how well titles are performing when all the company offers is press statements with vague platitudes about Pixar movies being “enthusiastically embraced.”) Perhaps the biggest test for the relationship between Disney and Pixar will arrive in June, when the studio is set to drop Lightyear, the Toy Story spinoff that is, to quote Chris Evans’s Twitter account, “the origin story of the human Buzz Lightyear that the toy is based on.” (Sure, that’s not confusing at all.) All signs point to Lightyear sticking with a theatrical release, though in an uncertain age of disruptive COVID variants, nothing is set in stone. However, considering Lightyear is a spinoff to Pixar’s most successful franchise, there’s plenty of incentive for Disney to reap the box office rewards this summer—even if they fail to reach pre-pandemic highs.
Of course, that Lightyear would be the first Pixar movie in theaters in over two years underlines a broader shift among major studios in which IP remains king and original conceits like Turning Red and The Adam Project are increasingly boxed out. The pandemic hasn’t just heightened concerns about the future of moviegoing, but the future of movie-making. As things stand, the theatrical landscape is great news for the Batmans and Spider-Mans of the world—and bad news for everyone else.