Early Man Falls Short of Past Aardman Feature Films

Aardman Animation (the outfit behind Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run) have been trying to make a caveman comedy for well over a decade now. Back when they had a deal to produce films with DreamWorks Animation, one of their proposed projects was a feature called Crood Awakening that John Cleese had written the script for. Once Aardman left DreamWorks, the latter studio turned the film into The Croods while Aardman finally got around to delivering a caveman project (albeit without the involvement of John Cleese) with Early Man, which was released in the first few weeks of 2018 to underwhelming box office results.

Sony Pictures Animation Still Lacks A Concrete Presence Even After Nine Years

While the likes of PIXAR and Illumination Entertainment flourish, Sony Pictures Animation is a North American animation studio in search of that one gigantic hit that'll put them on the map, something like Frozen, Toy Story, Shrek, Despicable Me or even Ice Age that can signal to the world that they've arrived. Unfortunately, in their nine years of releasing feature films, there's only been sporadic box office success to greet the studio and only one of the companies works have entered the pop culture zeitgeist in a meaningful way.

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.

Box Office Analysis: The Problem With DreamWorks

Poor little Toothless probably won't be so happy
when Shareholders start getting mad at DreamWorks this week

This weekend, the excellent feature How To Train Your Dragon 2 was released to glowing reviews, eleven months of promotion and a cinema landscape that hadn't seen a CGI animated movie in two months (I'll forget Legends of Oz even existed due to that one being unable to hit $8 million) And yet, it only made $50 million at the box office, way below my $72 million predictions and far beneath most other animated releases that debuted in the month of June. At least it managed to beat its predecessors opening weekend, unlike fellow quality DreamWorks sequel Kung Fu Panda 2, although that's slight comfort for the company that I'm sure will be badgered by jittery stockholders this week by this performance.