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punster-2319 · 1 year

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visdevart · 5 months

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Visual development for Astro Boy by Samuel Michlap

#imagi animation studios #Samuel Michlap #astro boy #environment #character designs

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shinigami-striker · 10 months

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Father's Day '23 - Anime Edition | Sunday, 06.18.2023

Happy Father's Day 2023 to a few fathers in the world of anime.

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boyrobott · 11 months

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hey !! i’m tryna binge watch astroboy (2009) but i’m not sure where it’s available! i went on youtube, and some eps are there, but some are missing :( where did u watch it?

Well, the 2009 version of Astro Boy is actually an eighty-minute animated CGI film from Imagi Studios, not a series in itself, so you probably won't find it if you're looking for it in episodic increments. There are definitely some clips scattered here and there on YouTube, but the full movie is currently available on Netflix if you've got a subscription there.

If you're interested in any of the other versions, the tumblr user @astroboy2003sub offers all fifty episodes of the 2003 anime (the Japanese audio with English subtitles, which is infinitely preferable to the English dub, I assure you).

The 1980s series is currently available to stream for free on Roku -- English dub only, unfortunately, but many of the original episodes with heavier storylines / violent imagery have been restored, so it's certainly good enough for me! I've actually been bingeing the series all over again after several years away from it, and I'd forgotten how much fun it was!

The 1960s series is the most difficult to find, so much so that I have never actually gotten to view it in its entirety, but many of the episodes are available on YouTube, and that's where I tend to go when I'm in the mood for That Version Specifically.

All that said, if you'd like to go back to basics and get into the manga, there are so many volumes and so much material that it can be pretty overwhelming to dive into, but I think the Omnibus Volumes, published by Dark Horse Comics, are an excellent place to start.

Good luck, and I hope you find what you're looking for!

#gave more information than strictly necessary because there's a non-zero possibility that '2009' is a typo lol #ask #anonymous

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 1 year

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Western Animated Movie Sequel Timeline

For reference... On how few theatrical animated movie sequels were made in the West vs. how many have been made since the early 2000s... (Streaming titles like THE SEA BEAST 2 will be included, because these are big budget enough to have been theatrical releases.)

Titles highlighted in blue have commas in them, this denotes that you're not looking at two separate titles. (Just in case you happen to not know-)

I also won't include reboots. For example: The upcoming Paramount Animation film TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM, which despite being a TMNT movie, it has no other relation to the Imagi Studios 2007 TMNT movie. The same goes for the two SMURFS reboots, 2017's THE LOST VILLAGE and Paramount's untitled upcoming musical.

I'll also leave out animated movies that are part of franchises that are largely live-action, like STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS.

1972: SNOOPY, COME HOME

1974: THE NINE LIVES OF FRITZ THE CAT

1976: RACE FOR YOUR LIFE, CHARLIE BROWN

1980: BON VOYAGE, CHARLIE BROWN (AND DON'T COME BACK!!)

1986: THE CARE BEARS MOVIE II: THE NEXT GENERATION

1987: THE CARE BEARS IN WONDERLAND

1990: THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER

1991: AN AMERICAN TAIL: FIEVEL GOES WEST

1996: ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN 2

1997: THE SWAN PRINCESS II: ESCAPE FROM CASTLE MOUNTAIN

1999: TOY STORY 2, FANTASIA 2000

2000: THE TIGGER MOVIE, RUGRATS IN PARIS: THE MOVIE

2002: RETURN TO NEVER LAND

2003: PIGLET'S BIG MOVIE, THE JUNGLE BOOK 2, LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION

2004: SHREK 2

2005: POOH'S HEFFALUMP MOVIE

2006: ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN

2007: SHREK THE THIRD

2008: MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA

2009: ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS

2010: SHREK FOREVER AFTER, TOY STORY 3

2011: HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD VS. EVIL, KUNG FU PANDA 2, CARS 2, PUSS IN BOOTS, HAPPY FEET TWO

2012: MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE'S MOST WANTED, ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT

2013: MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, DESPICABLE ME 2, THE SMURFS 2, PLANES, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2

2014: RIO 2, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2, PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR

2015: THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER, MINIONS, HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2

2016: KUNG FU PANDA 3, FINDING DORY, ICE AGE: COLLISION COURSE

2017: THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE, CARS 3, THE NUT JOB 2: NUTTY BY NATURE, THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE

2018: SHERLOCK GNOMES, INCREDIBLES 2, HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: SUMMER VACATION, RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET

2019: THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD, THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS 2, TOY STORY 4, FARMAGEDDON: A SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE, FROZEN II

2020: TROLLS WORLD TOUR, THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE ON THE RUN, THE CROODS: A NEW AGE

2021: SPIRIT UNTAMED, THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS, SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2, SING 2

2022: HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: TRANSFORMANIA, LIGHTYEAR, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, ERNEST & CELESTINE: A TRIP TO GIBBERITIA, PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH

2023: SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, PAW PATROL: THE MIGHTY MOVIE, TROLLS BAND TOGETHER, CHICKEN RUN: DAWN OF THE NUGGET

2024: KUNG FU PANDA 4, SPIDER-MAN: BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE, INSIDE OUT 2, DESPICABLE ME 4

UNDATED: TOY STORY 5, FROZEN III, ZOOTOPIA 2, THE LEGO MOVIE 3, SHREK 5, THE CROODS 3, THE BOSS BABY 3, THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS 3, UNTITLED SPONGEBOB MOVIE, UNTITLED ZUKO AVATAR FILM, UNTITLED KYOSHI AVATAR FILM, UNTITLED KORRA AVATAR FILM, THE SEA BEAST 2, UNTITLED WALLACE & GROMIT FILM

If I missed any, feel free to let me know... it's an ever-updating list.

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evanwhosjusthere · 4 years

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(Cancelled) The Legend of Zelda (2007) by Imagi Animation Studios

Back in 2007, Imagi, the studio behind TMNT (2007) and Astro Boy (2009), made an in-house pitch for an animated Legend of Zelda movie. Unfortunately the pitch never went anywhere and Imagi went under in 2010. It along with Imagi’s Gatchaman, Gigantor/Tetsujin 28-go and numerous other films were canned. In 2013, an animator named Adam Holmes uploaded the lost pitch to his portfolio along with other Imagi projects and a side by side comparison of the pitch in question.

The designs in the pitch seem to be based on Ocarina of Time with the darker, moody atmosphere seemingly inspired by Twilight Princess. It’s also dated March 28th, 2007. Imagi’s first worldwide release, TMNT, came to theaters March 23, 2007. Meaning that this pitch was being developed and finalized when TMNT was already being prepared for a worldwide release. More potential proof comes from an observation this commenter on this article brings up, in how some of the the designs in the pitch look very similar to designs in TMNT (ex: Zelda=April O Neil, Ganondorf=Max Winters).

See for yourself:

This could potentially confirm that Imagi probably planned on Zelda being their next film after TMNT’s suprise success at the box office.

Some sources say that this was pitched to Nintendo but they declined, but I couldn’t find any hard sources on that. But knowing that Nintendo locked their IP films right behind lock and key after the Mario movie fiasco I wouldn’t be surprised if they declined. With Nintendo and Illumination Animation collaborating on the 2022 Mario movie under the umbrella of Universal Studios, I wouldn’t be surprised if after the Mario movie is successful a Zelda movie is on the table. But did you know that wasn’t the only movie based on a Nintendo property that could’ve come out in the mid-2000s? Stay tuned for more on this spur of the moment mini series.

#the legend of zelda #tloz #nintendo #movie #film #video game movies #cancelled movies #animation #cancelled #lost media #zelda #legend of zelda movie #video games #imagi #imagi animation studios #tmnt

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forexbeginnersworld · 5 years

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Cybercash, as imagined in 1998

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Cybercash, as imagined in 1998

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#Business Finance #CyberCash #economy #Entertainment Culture #Financial services #Imagi Animation Studios #Imagine #imagined #Payment systems #Service industries #Technology Internet

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astroboy-bits-and-pieces · 5 years

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Thanks for not posting the first time, tumblr.

Long time no see.

-brighter version of an image we've seen before

-concept art we've also seen before but this time with an early 3d model of Astro.

#astro boy #astroboy #imagi studios #2009 #concept art #imagi #animation #movie #cgi #3d model

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crazedtmnt · 3 years

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TMNT Fun Fact of the Day

The 2007 film, TMNT, actually did well enough in the box office to warrant a sequel being made. A trilogy was planned for the film, in fact. However, the reason it was never made was due to the studio failing, not the movie. Imagi Animations Studios had to shut down due to their next film, Astro Boy, being a colossal box office bomb.

#tmnt #tmnt 2007 #teenage mutant ninja turtles

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astroboyart · 4 years

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Source post

shadamygirl commented:

Wait there was actually a series to that? Oh my… I used to love watching this movie way early before school each morning, you’ve made my day

There is! Many current Astro Boy fans were introduced to Astro Boy through the 2009 movie in fact.

There are multiple versions and adaptations of Astro Boy:

Ambassador Atom (also known as Captain Atom) ~ April 1951 - March 1952

The first appearance of Astro Boy! Atom was not the main character in this manga, but he became very popular through this manga. It was because of Atom’s appearance in this manga that we got the Astro Boy manga! This was authored by Osamu Tezuka.

Astro Boy ~ April 3, 1952 - March 12, 1968

The manga for Astro Boy, and where the Atom we know and love came to be! This was authored by Osamu Tezuka.

Mighty Atom (tokusatsu series) ~ March 7, 1959 - May 28, 1960

The first television adaptation of Astro Boy! It is a live-action version of the manga.

Astro Boy (1963 series) ~ January 1, 1963 - December 31, 1966

The first animated television adaptation of Astro Boy! It’s a long series: 193 episodes!

This was the first regularly running half-hour anime ever produced! It was also the first widely popular Japanese animated series ever. Without the 1963 Astro Boy series, anime as we know it would likely not exist.

It was produced with direct involvement by Osamu Tezuka and his company, Mushi Production (he later went on to form Tezuka Productions).

Astro Boy (1980 series) ~ October 1, 1980 - December 23, 1981

The second animated television adaptation of Astro Boy! This was the second and final TV anime of Astro Boy produced with direct involvement by Osamu Tezuka. It was produced by Tezuka Productions and is a much shorter anime: 52 episodes.

Astro Boy (2003 series) ~ April 6, 2003 - March 28, 2004

The third Astro Boy anime! It was the first Astro Boy anime produced after Osamu Tezuka’s passing and one of the last anime to use cel animation. It was produced by Tezuka Productions, has 50 episodes, and is a very popular adaptation of Astro Boy!

Pluto ~ September 9, 2003 - April 5, 2009

A manga adaptation of one of the popular arcs from the Astro Boy manga. It was authored by Naoki Urasawa.

Astro Boy (2009 film) ~ October 8, 2009 (Hong Kong premiere), October 23, 2009 (United States premiere)

The widely released feature length 3D animated film for Astro Boy! I’m sure you’re very familiar with this. It was produced by Hong Kong based Imagi Animation Studios.

Little Astro Boy ~ March 22, 2014 - April 26, 2014

The first Astro Boy animated adaptation produced not mainly by Tezuka Productions! While it was produced by Tezuka Productions, it was also produced by Yomiuri TV Enterprises in partnership with Nigerian broadcaster Channels TV. It debuted first in Nigeria in 2014, before being released in Japan on a DVD set on November 3, 2015.

It is geared towards preschoolers. It is a short series, running for only 8 eleven minute episodes. It can be watched in full in only about 90 minutes!

Atom: The Beginning ~ Manga: December 1, 2014 - present; Anime: April 15, 2017 - July 8, 2017

A prequel series to Astro Boy, authored by Tetsuro Kasahara! A 12 episode anime adaptation was made by OLM, Production I.G, and Signal.MD in 2017.

Go Astro Boy Go! ~ August 2, 2019 (first worldwide premiere in China), October 3, 2019 - October 1, 2020 (Japan airing)

The most recent Astro Boy series! It is the second Astro Boy series produced not mainly by Tezuka Productions. In fact, it was almost entirely produced by Planet Nemo Animation and Play Big + Something Big; Tezuka Productions did assist with the series.

Like Little Astro Boy, it is geared towards young kids. It has 52 episodes which run about 13 minutes each. 51 episodes aired in Japan.

Future series ~ Release dates to be determined

There is even more Astro Boy coming out! A third Astro Boy overseas adaptation was announced on June 8, 2014 by Shibuya Productions called Astro Boy Reboot, and an anime adaptation was announced for the Pluto manga on June 13, 2017. Release dates for them have yet to be determined, but they are still being made!

There are many adaptations of Astro Boy! There’s even a few other ones that I didn’t mention here, but these are the main ones. Choose one, dive in, and enjoy. :)

#Astro Boy

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angelomar99 · 2 years

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Imagi Animation Studios Logo - #TMNT2007 #TMNT2007Movie #TMNTMovie on #Nickelodeon and #YTV (en IMAGI Studios) https://www.instagram.com/p/CcDORIaOzIr/?utm_medium=tumblr

#tmnt2007 #tmnt2007movie #tmntmovie #nickelodeon #ytv

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punster-2319 · 1 year

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*While making this polls I was going back and forth whether to put Enchanted or the Beowulf movie in the 10th slot but I decided to go with the former since most people probably don’t even remember the Beowulf movie.

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spiderdreamer-blog · 4 years

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Astro Boy (2009)

American animation has a Disney problem.

More specifically: the groundbreaking work that Walter Elias Disney and his company created for what the typical American style is for animated films has led to a perception, both here and abroad, that it’s primarily for kids and families. And this is not a knock on such a pursuit, but it has led in many ways to the marketplace feeling...homogenized, especially compared to the more diverse stories often found on TV here and globally. There are many, many good films and studios that stick to tried-and-true formulas, to be fair, but it’s only in more recent years that truly inspired visual and story work is starting to emerge outside of the Mouse House or bigger competitors like DreamWorks with films like Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (and even that is tied to one of the biggest superhero franchises in the world). This was as true in the late 2000s as it is now, and that is the context to which we come to David Bowers and Imagi Studios’ Astro Boy. Which is not a bad film, precisely.

But it’s not what it COULD be.

Based of course on the world-famous manga and anime by legendary creator Osamu Tezuka, this is not quite as seemingly sacrilegious a venture as it might initially appear. After all, Tezuka was famously inspired by Disney himself in terms of art style if not subject matter, and Japan and the United States otherwise have a long history of cross-cultural artistic influence. Witness how Akira Kurosawa took inspiration from American Westerns and noir films for masterpieces like Yojimbo, and how we did it right back for classics like The Magnificent Seven/George Lucas taking heavy inspiration from films like The Hidden Fortress for Star Wars. Additionally, Bowers is a talented animator and director, and Imagi had proven that they could do a more actionized, lower budget-but-still-nice-looking style with TMNT, which still has some of my favorite Ninja Turtles moments and characterizations across the entire franchise. Anime has also been a massive influence on American TV animation in particular with series like Samurai Jack or Avatar: The Last Airbender. And Astro himself has had many adaptations over the years to varying degrees of faithfulness, though the one I’m most familiar with is Naoki Urasawa’s masterful manga Pluto, which updates and streamlines a robotic murder mystery to terrific effect. The issue comes in terms of understanding one’s influences. The above-mentioned projects were so successful and entertaining precisely because they knew the appeal of what they were lifting from and how to synthesize it in a new and fresh way. And while Astro Boy is clearly made with the best intentions in the world and a good heart, I’m not so certain it does, in the end.

The setup is good on paper. As per usual, we start in a modern city (though the polluted surface/class divide feels more like a lift from Battle Angel Alita) where humans largely use robots for labor, war, and servanthood. The inciting incident comes when Toby (Freddie Highmore), the son of Doctor Tenma (Nicolas Cage), sneaks in to a presentation of the Peacekeeper robot, which President Stone (Donald Sutherland) is keen to use to project a sense of military might as he eyes his re-election campaign, though Tenma’s colleague Dr. Elefun (Bill Nighy) strenuously objects to such. Things go wrong, however, and Toby is killed in the process, leaving a grieving Tenma in his wake. He then creates a robot duplicate with a powerful blue energy core as a replacement, but soon finds that the copy is too painful to live with. An argument ensues, Toby 2.0 runs away, which is complicated by Stone still wanting that core for his war machine, and ends up on the surface with a gang of motley kids led by Cora (a pre-Frozen Kristen Bell) and presided over by robot fight runner Hamegg (Nathan Lane). Various action scenes and adventures happen, building, as it must, to a final showdown with Stone.

As said, this is not inherently a bad way to streamline things. Tenma being less ultimately villainous and more sympathetic isn’t an invalid route to go, and Tezuka was no stranger to dubiously eyeing corrupt figures like Stone and their intentions for technological progress. And the opening, too-cheery exposition video is a nice note to begin on in terms of examining the fraught relationship between humans and robots. But it soon starts to feel a little too....easy. One of Tezuka’s strengths was that while he was not entirely kid-UNfriendly (though he certainly had more adult-aimed works), works like the original Astro Boy or Kimba The White Lion (no, we’re not talking Lion King comparisons today, smarter people than me have covered that ground quite thoroughly) were unafraid to bluntly and artfully tackle social issues or darker themes. And while American films are certainly not entirely without subtlety in this regard, there’s a tendency to be more ham-handed and “dumbed down”, for lack of a better phrase.

Stone, for example, is almost immediately a dangerous fool who causes all the problems, which weakens Tenma as a complex character by removing his potential culpability for Toby’s death and the guilt he feels over it and being a too-distant father in life. Elefun is stridently ethical, but is reduced to giving Astro platitudes about blah blah destiny blah blah place in life. There’s a terribly unfunny group of “robot rebels” who are not wrong about their mistreatment by humans at all, but we’re supposed to laugh at them because they’re incompetent. And while Cora and her crew are not badly depicted per se, they feel vaguely like a studio note of “Astro needs someone to talk to in the second act”. It all feels like pulled punches, especially since this IS supposed to be darker material (your kid hero DIES fifteen minutes in, but when you don’t see a body, kind of loses some impact). It’s also VERY rushed in terms of its pacing; I’m not opposed to zippy stories that move along quickly, but this barely lets us breathe before it’s time for the next setpiece or comedy bit.

These problems extend to the voice cast, which is inconsistent in terms of quality. I’m not opposed at all to celebrity voices in animation, as I feel that can paradoxically lead to greater diversity in the types of tones and voices we can hear in the field. But they have to be well cast and utilized, and that’s not the case for many here. To start with the positives: while Astro ends up with “least interesting person in the film” syndrome, Highmore acquits himself decently with a barely-slipping American accent, while Bell deserves credit for finding real pathos in what could be a cliched “tough grrrrrl” stereotype, and Lane is perhaps the best performance in the film because he finds a plummy menace in Hamegg, using his innate sleazy likability to charm us at first and then turn that on its head. Bill Nighy is also fine in his sage wisdom as Elefun, Eugene Levy is charmingly bumbling if underused as Orrin, and a few of the side characters like the squeegee/spray bottle pair or Zog stand out thanks to cameos like Alan Tudyk, David Alan Grier, and Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson.

But there’s two big roles that NEED to work vocally, and they don’t. It pains me to say that Cage doesn’t really land as Tenma since he’s one of my favorite living actors. And all things being fair, he’s certainly not phoning it in, and plays moments like his raw grief well. But Cage is a presence who thrives on adding eccentricity and quirks to what could be “standard” roles, while Tenma is played in the script as incredibly stoic and reserved much of the time. As a result, this handicaps Cage in giving us a portrayal of the driven obsession that we really need for the character beats to land (compare to his work as Noir in Spider-Verse, where his fixations on oddities like the Rubik’s Cube and warmly gruff manner add grounding to his hilarious old-timey delivery). Meanwhile, Sutherland, a truly great actor who can be by turns grandfatherly, sinister, or a combination thereof depending on the project, is spectacularly ill-served by Stone, with most of his performance saddled by dumb jokes and little threat. Had he been able to play this more like his President Snow from The Hunger Games or something akin to Christopher McDonald’s Kent Mansley from The Iron Giant, it’d be far more successful in showing a more gradual turn to outright villainy. Electronically deepening his voice for when he’s controlling the Peacekeeper is an okay touch, but by then, the damage to his credibility has long been done.

Visually, the film’s not terrible by any means; it’s distinctly lower budget than even the bigger films of the time, but it manages to get by on charm and a good sense of how to use the money, much like TMNT. The Americanized Tezuka designs all basically work, though it amuses me that they de-emphasized Astro’s “feminine” features and largely give him clothes for the majority of the film, and the rest function reasonably well as designs, if coming off a bit generic in spots (it succumbs to ye olde CGI film problem of “crowds look indistinct as fuck”). Bowers stages the action cleanly and with minimal noise, a highlight being a gladiatoral brawl with various colorful opponents. A few moments of silent character acting like Tenma wrestling with a key decision stand out well. And the cityscapes are suitably futuristic, with the steampunk surface junkyards serving as well-done contrast. But there is definitely a distinct feeling that they didn’t QUITE push as hard as they could; nowadays, I think you could get a far more faithful and less timidly Americanized sense of design in the vein of what Takashi Yamazaki did for Dragon Quest or Lupin III.

A perfectly OK film like Astro Boy frustrates me more than if it had been outright bad and incompetent. Because it’s clearly not, and I even believe that at one point, this really could’ve been a fresh spin on an age-old story for a modern age, much like Pluto, if less, uh, grimly noir-ish. But there’s too many visible compromises and safe hedging of bets on display. As a result....it never really takes flight.

#astro boy #film review #analysis #American animation

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sketchijay · 7 years

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My friends came back, so it’s time to be butter boy again~

#animal crossing #my doodles #flipnote studio 3d #butterflies in this game are so nice to look at #I catch and release them #sometimes I imagie them following me like the friendly bees do in LoZ:alttp

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 4 months

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That image for KUNG FU PANDA One looks a wee bit different, doesn't it? It's the very first publicity pic that got out for the movie, waaaay back in the fall of 2005...

I skimmed through an old article of mine on another site, and I remember the world of upcoming animated movies... In around late 2005... Looking like this.

Yes, it's a random year. No milestone or anything, as 2005 was 18 years ago, rather than 15 or 20... But I thought I'd share this.

This was what was announced as upcoming back then... To give one an idea of what happened and what didn't, and how radically different some studios' slates were:

2006

ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN (Fox/Blue Sky)

THE WILD (Disney/C.O.R.E.)

OVER THE HEDGE (Paramount/DreamWorks)

CARS (Disney/Pixar)

MONSTER HOUSE (Sony/Amblin/ImageMovers)

THE ANT BULLY (WB/DNA/Playtone)

BARNYARD (Paramount/Nickelodeon)

OPEN SEASON (Sony Animation)

RATROPOLIS (Paramount/DreamWorks/Aardman)

HAPPY FEET (WB/Roadshow/Animal Logic/Kennedy Miller)

A DAY WITH WILBUR ROBINSON (Disney Animation)

ARTHUR AND THE MINIMOYS (EuropaCorp)

DELGO (Fathom/Electric Eye)

HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER (Lionsgate/Vanguard)

FOODFIGHT! (Threshold)

2007

TMNT (WB/Imagi)

SHREK 3 (Paramount/DreamWorks)

SURF'S UP (Sony Animation)

RATATOUILLE (Disney/Pixar)

BEOWULF (Paramount/ImageMovers)

BEE MOVIE (Paramount/DreamWorks)

AMERICAN DOG (Disney Animation)

2008

CAT TALE (MGM/Imagi)

KUNG FU GECKO (Egg Story)

KUNG FU PANDA (Paramount/DreamWorks)

MADAGASCAR 2 (Paramount/DreamWorks)

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (Fox/Gracie Films)

THE SMURFS (Paramount/Nickelodeon)

TOY STORY 3 (Disney/Circle 7)

2009-beyond

FINDING NEMO 2 (Disney/Circle 7)

FRAIDY CAT (Disney Animation)

IT CAME FROM EARTH! (Paramount/DreamWorks)

MONSTERS, INC. 2: LOST IN SCARADISE (Disney/Circle 7)

PUNK FARM (Paramount/DreamWorks)

RAPUNZEL UNBRAIDED (Disney Animation)

REX HAVOC (Paramount/DreamWorks)

RIBBIT (Vanguard)

ROUTE 66 (Paramount/DreamWorks)

SHREK 4 (Paramount/DreamWorks)

UNTITLED SHREK PREQUEL (Paramount/DreamWorks)

And probably a few more that I'm missing, but that's what the landscape looked like back then. It's fascinating to see what didn't make it, what certain films on here later morphed into, and what ended coming out and when...

Shall we dive in? I think I will, briefly...

Most of the 2006 movies made it to their intended release frames, as many of them had trailers out by the end of 2005. After Michael Eisner stepped down as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, his successor Bob Iger bought Pixar, and two of Pixar's top brass - John Lasseter and Ed Catmull - assumed control of Walt Disney Feature Animation, changing the last two words to "Animation Studios". Their "overhaul" of the studio resulted in the delay - and re-titling - of A DAY WITH WILBUR ROBINSON, which became MEET THE ROBINSONS and opened in spring 2007. RATROPOLIS is retitled to FLUSHED AWAY, to avoid possible confusion with RATATOUILLE, so as not to have another ANTZ/BUG'S LIFE, FINDING NEMO/SHARK TALE situation on everybody's hands.

DELGO, infamously, got pushed back multiple times. It was already pushed back several times by that point to begin with, until randomly appearing out of nowhere a little before Christmas 2008. Happy 15th anniversary!

FOODFIGHT!, an even more infamous production, wouldn't be released until 2012 at the earliest after so much went wrong during "production" up until its sale by its completion bond company. We all know the story of that travesty!

2007 also largely stays the same... THE SIMPSONS MOVIE was thought to have been a 2008 release back in 2007, and out of nowhere a teaser for it showed up before ICE AGE 2 and confirmed it was actually coming out in summer 2007, which it did! AMERICAN DOG was to be Chris Sanders' sophomore Disney Animation effort, until Lasseter fired him from the film at the end of 2006, and it would be completely retooled into BOLT, which released in fall 2008.

2008 is where things get interesting... Outside of THE SIMPSONS MOVIE moving up a year, we have a Paramount/Nickelodeon Smurfs movie that was set to kick off a trilogy and had a cast... And curiously, after three Sony-made Smurfs movie, we're getting a Paramount/Nickelodeon Smurfs movie in 2025.

CAT TALE was to be made by Imagi, who of course did the 2007 TMNT movie and the 2009 ASTRO BOY picture. It, too, had a cast and a logo. It was supposed to be about a cat ending up in an all-dog city, playing off of old cats-vs.-dogs tropes. I wonder how much of this thing got quietly transplanted into PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK over the years? That too was a looooong-gestating film.

TOY STORY 3 was not going to be the movie we all know, this was going to be the version that was being made by Circle 7, a studio Disney set up to make sequels to Pixar's films. This was when it looked like Pixar were going to part ways with The Walt Disney Company after their contract was up. Disney had first rights to the movies produced under the contract, and these sequels were a way for big bad Diz to play hardball and get them to renegotiate. Iger threw out this Eisner tactic, and instead offered to simply buy the studio. Pixar took over TOY STORY 3 and made their movie, not what the Circle 7 movie was going to be: Buzz Lightyear being recalled to Taiwan.

Then you have... KUNG FU GECKO... Sharing a year with KUNG FU PANDA. I remember the minor controversy over this one on animation blogs and forums and such back in the day; that DreamWorks were supposedly trying to sabotage this small Singaporean animated film that had a trailer out and everything. (It wasn't rolling in theaters, you had to dig for it online. It was an independent production through and through, and the guy spearheading it had worked for DWA in the past.) But yeah... This thing was real... And it never got made, because its studio (Egg Story) got shuttered. Apparently it was retooled into a TV production, but I've seen no sign of its existence. If it had been made, it would've probably been re-titled.

(Update: Actually... It kinda... Was... Made? As an NFT animated series. Yeeeuch.)

2009 and beyond... DreamWorks had the bulk of the titles here. REX HAVOC, a comic adaptation, would later be retooled into an original story sharing some similarities: MONSTERS VS. ALIENS. IT CAME FROM EARTH! - about aliens dealing with human invaders - never happened, ROUTE 66 - a truly bizarre project about the statues in front of the various local businesses being anthropomorphic - got left behind, animal rock band romp PUNK FARM was later transported to MGM but ultimately went nowhere... SHREK 4 would of course happen, the prequel did not. PUSS IN BOOTS went from straight-to-video affair to theatrical film, and dropped the subtitle THE STORY OF AN OGRE KILLER. Similarly, the Penguins from MADAGASCAR were to get a direct-to-video movie of their own that would later go theatrical.

Circle 7 had a MONSTERS, INC. sequel and a FINDING NEMO sequel ready to go by the end of 2005, with scripts and everything.

RIBBIT was one of many proposed Vanguard Animation movies, after their debut feature VALIANT was released and when HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER was in production. Apparently they still plan to make it, along with like 20 other movies they had wanted to make for years... It's a very weird production company.

Disney Animation's RAPUNZEL UNBRAIDED, of course, got retooled into RAPUNZEL and was given to Glen Keane and Dean Wellins to direct... Until Keane and Wellins stepped down, Lasseter gave the film to Byron Howard and Nathan Greno, the film became TANGLED. This partially explains why it's one of the most expensive animated films ever, Disney got pretty far with test work and other development work for UNBRAIDED. FRAIDY CAT was to be the next Ron Clements-John Musker picture for the studio, but they left as morale got lower and lower before Lasseter and Catmull were put in charge. When they returned to Disney Animation, they were assigned THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, and never looked back on FRAIDY CAT. (It wasn't their concept to begin with.)

Yeah, I just felt like reminiscing about my younger days on the Internet and the first time I caught wind of lists of upcoming movies that I was initially unaware of, lol.

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bebe-benzenheimer · 6 years

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CANCELLED MOVIES MEME [21/∞]- TUSKER

year: 2011

plot: A herd of elephants crossing Southeast Asia faces several dangers along the way, including a band of marauding poachers.

reason for cancellation: Closure of Imagi Animation Studios (who bought the project from Dreamworks after they had cancelled it to make Shrek 2 and Madagascar)

#my edits #cancelled movies #cancelled movies meme #elephants

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