First Footage From The Upcoming CGI Popeye Movie Is Here

In the pantheon of American animation studios, Sony Pictures Animation Studios is somewhere near the bottom of the barrel. The first Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs film is fun, and both of the Aardman movies they helped distribute were fantastic, but the rest of their output (namely The Smurfs) isn't so good. At least they're giving consistent employment to animation titan Genndy Tartakovsky, the man who helmed the harmless but forgettable Hotel Transylvania and is now in charge of a new CGI Popeye feature. A video containing some test footage for the feature and some thoughts from Tartakovsky is now online. Check the video and my thoughts on it below.

Not too shabby, that's my first thought. Transylvania certainly showed some influence from the limitless movement of old cartoons like the Popeye shorts, and it's neat to see them translated into the medium of CGI animation. My bigger query is how they can stretch this out to the length of a feature film. Popeye isn't exactly a super complex character, which is fine for comic strips or short films, but for a 90 minute film? Might get tiring really quickly.

No official date is set for Popeye, but I suspect his film will take up a September 2016 date currently scheduled for an untitled feature from Sony Pictures Animation.