Bad Fairies is flying toward a 2027 release from Warner Bros.
The studio announced Tuesday that the animated feature hailing from Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and Locksmith Animation is set to hit theaters July 23, 2027. The movie from director Megan Nicole Dong, known for creating and directing the Netflix animated musical series Centaurworld, is currently in production in London.
Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and Locksmith Animation also announced that Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss — who co-created the Tony-winning musical Six and the new musical Why Am I So Single, premiering on London’s West End next month — will write the songs for Bad Fairies. Additionally, Grammy-nominated musician Isabella Summers (Florence and the Machine) will compose the score and produce the songs.
Bad Fairies is billed as a subversive musical comedy set in present-day London and focusing on a rule-breaking group of badass fairies. Dong directs the feature from a script by Deborah Frances-White, host of podcast The Guilty Feminist. DNEG Animation serves as digital partners for Bad Fairies. A voice cast has not been announced.
“Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and Locksmith Animation are excited to welcome this extraordinary dream team of musical talents, Toby Marlow, Lucy Moss and Isabella Summers into our Bad Fairies family,” said Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president Bill Damaschke and Locksmith Animation CCO Mary Coleman said in a joint statement. “Together they will bring vibrant and unforgettable dimension to the story, and we cannot wait to share it with audiences around the world in 2027.”
Carolyn Soper produces the film, while Rikke Asbjoern and Chris Garbutt serve as heads of story. Sim Evan-Jones is editor on the project, with Uwe Heidschötter serving as cinematographer and Uwe Heidschötter handling character design.
Inside Out 2 also has something else familiar to fans of the animation studio’s movies: Easter eggs, quotes, and references to Pixar’s past catalog. In this case, however, there is also a particular reference to a film coming in the future.
As is often the case in animated productions, it is easy to litter scenes with nods to other works, a way to tease the viewer’s attention and invite them to unearth every possible link. Inside Out 2 is no exception.
In the scene where Riley’s emotions run through her future career hypotheses, for example, there is a quick glimpse of Pixar’s iconic Luxo ball. Look closely at the boy band posters on Riley’s wall and you’ll catch a glimpse of one for 4*Town, the musical group beloved by the kids in Turning Red. When Joy has Sadness observe the new configuration of the Islands of Friendship and Family in Riley’s mind, she hands her a pair of binoculars that look like Lenny from Toy Story.
But the movie contains more than just glimpses of the past. Inside Out 2 also features a character who will join the Pixar family in 2025: the protagonist of Elio, its feature about a young boy who is mistaken for Earth’s ambassador to alien races and then “summoned” to deal with the future of the galaxies.
During Inside Out 2‘s sarcasm scene—though not the “sar-chasm” one—there are several memory spheres and one is dedicated to Elio, the movie’s namesake. It’s easily missed but also something of an odd premonition. Elio was originally slated to hit theaters earlier this year, before Inside Out 2, but got postponed to June 2025. Did you catch it?
Yip yip! The world of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is coming to Philly through an immersive music experience.
“Avatar: The Last Airbender In Concert,” which has been touring around the world since September, will stop by the Met on Oct. 19, and tickets go on sale Friday, April 19, at 10 a.m.
The more than two-hour-long show centers around a live orchestral performance from the musical score of the Nickelodeon animated series, which was composed by Jeremy Zuckerman. Co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, as well as the show’s original editor Jeff Adams, teamed up with Zuckerman to expand on the compositions for the concert series. The music will play as a full-size screen will show memorable scenes from the TV show.
Along with violins, cellos and harps, the orchestra will feature the erhu, a two-stringed Chinese instrument, and the taiko, a Japanese drum.
“It’s been incredibly satisfying and moving to see the audiences’ emotional response to these concerts, and to be a part of that atmosphere is a uniquely beautiful experience,” Zuckerman said in a statement. “I’m overjoyed that many more people — Avatar fans both new and old — will get to experience the show during this wider tour.”
The celebrated show ran for three seasons from 2005 to 2008, winning Peabody, Emmy and Annie Awards. “The Last Airbender” also spawned a critically lambasted live-action film adaptation from Philly-area director M. Night Shyamalan in 2010 — many of the movie’s scenes were filmed in Reading and Philadelphia.
A sequel animated show called “The Legend of Korra” aired from 2012 to 2014, and a production company called Avatar Studios formed in 2021 to create new shows and movies based in the universe.
I don’t care about any new animated show this year more than I do the reissue of a 24-year-old one with dated animation and a frustratingly incomplete story. This week, the original 1997 anime adaptation of the late Kentaro Miura’s manga Berserk, only ever released on home video domestically, came back in print in the United States and sold out within a day of its debut this Tuesday. Luckily, knowing the show had been unavailable to buy or legally stream for about a decade, I had planned ahead. As its distributor Discotek raced to get new copies out to stores like Crunchyroll and Amazon this week, I poured some bourbon, hit play on my preordered Blu-rays, and dove back into the beauty and brutality of Berserk.
Set in a dark fantasy world dominated by feudal empires and similar to medieval Europe, the show follows Guts, a burly wall of an anti-hero racked with guilt and trauma. We meet him in the first episode as “The Black Swordsman,” a cruel and committed slayer of the demons that prey upon the countryside. An abused child who grew into a violent and cursed man, Guts wields a colossal sword — a heavy slab of metal seven feet long and perpetually soaked in blood — and a gruff, merciless attitude. He also has only one eye and one arm. At the end of the first episode, after Guts destroys a demon who reminds him of his past, the show immediately flashes back to his teenage years as a young warrior, before he lost his eye, his arm, and his humanity. This Berserk anime, which preceded a workaday 2012 film series adapting the same arc and a reviled 2016 adaptation, is largely a prelude to Guts’s story in the ongoing manga: Over the course of 25 episodes, we watch his power grow and his shell soften as he finds allies in the warriors Griffith and Casca and overcomes the traumas of his childhood, even as he improves his skills as a mercenary. As the young Guts begins to find meaning in those friendships and relationships, though, tragedy rips them away.
We won’t spoil more than that, except to note that the specific horrors of the series include grotesquely graphic cruelties and shocking sexual violence. Like other epic series such as Game of Thrones or Vikings, Berserk is known for not pulling punches, and not only are the show’s demons literal agents of hell, they also prey upon the psychological and societal ills of the medieval world Miura created. In the story, torture, rape, and genocide are all wielded to break individuals and kingdoms, as they are in real life. Nonetheless, we empathize more and more deeply with Guts as the show progresses; he is introduced to us as a vicious monster, but we come to understand the experiences that shaped him, and how he keeps struggling through them, despite the pain they caused him.
Every episode begins with a narrator’s epigraph on causality and free will — “Man has no control, even over his own will” — but Guts’s actions prove we’re not meant to believe that: The point is that no matter what he faces, Guts continues to strive. In Miura’s manga, the same quote appears, but it goes on, hammering that point home, “Man takes up the sword to shield the small wound in his heart sustained in a far-off time beyond remembrance.” Berserk may be a hyperviolent story, but it’s not an edgelord’s power fantasy: It’s a dark tragedy about how difficult waking up to a ruthless world every day can be, especially if you have dreams beyond fighting.
The animation in the 1997 adaptation underscores the point. Think of the most impressive, immersive action animation you’ve seen, old or new, and you’ll likely think of characters in motion. The fluidity of the bike races of Akira and staccato styling of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse often feel like the most important elements of those films’ success. But they’re not. What’s most important is tempo and pacing — balancing the fluid, high-budget action with deliberate, evocative character building. Berserk has that in spades — in part because director Naohito Takahashi and studio Oriental Light and Magic (which also released Pokémon the same year) had to allocate animation budgets carefully. As a result, it’s full of conversations where the only visible movements are lip-flapping, slow pans over painted backgrounds, and the occasional still spliced right into an action scene, but they all still punch hard.
The show’s most poignant episode, “Bonfire of Dreams,” is built largely around a conversation Guts has with Casca, standing alone and overlooking his comrades’ camp at night. The scene’s emotional power comes from its stillness, its music, and an artistry that amounts largely to simple, slow animation framed in front of gorgeously painted backgrounds. The scene doesn’t need much else, because Miura’s source material, the direction by Takahashi, and the art direction overseen by Shichirō Kobayashi do all the work that flashy animation cannot. Neither anime adaptation of Berserk released since could touch this show’s sense of style.
But that limited, controlled cartooning also feels like the most undersung aspect of anime series. The manga produced by Miura is legendary and has inspired fellow artists, metal bands, and video-game series like Castlevania, Dark Souls, and Elden Ring for decades. The manga is also intricately detailed, a work that relishes in double-page spreads of supernatural landscapes and the details of every segment of Guts’s black armor — to say nothing of the hundreds of pages in which he swings his sword. Miura, who died in 2021, created a masterwork, and though this translation doesn’t capture the full richness of his pencils or the entirety of his story, it remains the best adaptation we have of Berserk. Like Guts, it will never be whole, but in a way, that’s fitting.
Explore the world of love through a variety of lenses. Here’s a collection of powerful films that each portray love and romance in a unique way, spanning multiple genres including drama, comedy, fantasy, animation, and sci-fi.
“Cinema is a mirror by which we often see ourselves.”
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Movies give us the opportunity to explore major themes in life in a meaningful and profound way.
A powerful film can lead to a better understanding of your own experiences. It can communicate thoughts and emotions that may have been challenging to express; and, at times, completely reshape our perspective on life.
For better or worse, movies play a pivotal role in shaping our beliefs and map of reality. We pick up ideas through films, sometimes absorbed at a very young age, and those ideas find their way into our daily lives influencing our choices and perspectives.
Filmmakers understand the transformative power of cinema, purposely using it to shake up people’s consciousness. The goal of a solid film is to create an experience that leaves you a different person by the end of it.
As viewers, it’s essential to be aware of a film’s effects both emotionally and intellectually. Often, the movies that linger in our thoughts long after watching are the most impactful and life-changing.
Here’s a collection of classic films about love and romance. Each movie has had a lasting influence on audiences in one way or another. It’s an eclectic list that spans multiple genres, including drama, comedy, animation, fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi.
Titanic (1997)
James Cameron’s epic tale blends love and tragedy against the historical backdrop of the Titanic’s sinking in 1912. The film weaves a captivating narrative of a forbidden romance blossoming amidst a natural disaster.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
In this mind-bending story, a man attempts to erase the memories of a lost love using cutting-edge technology, only to find fate conspiring to bring the couple back together repeatedly. The film explores the complexities of memory, love, and destiny.
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Disney’s classic adaptation of the French fairy tale is celebrated for its beautiful animation and memorable songs. The film goes beyond appearances, illustrating the transformative power of true love.
Her (2013)
Set in a near-future world, “Her” tells the unconventional love story of a lonely man who forms a deep connection with his computer’s operating system. The film delves into themes of technology, loneliness, and the nature of human connection.
Before Sunrise (1995)
Richard Linklater’s film follows two young tourists who meet on a train in Europe and share an unforgettable night in Vienna. The movie explores the transient nature of connections and the profound impact of brief encounters.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Sofia Coppola’s film features a washed-up American celebrity and a young woman forging an unexpected bond in Tokyo. “Lost in Translation” navigates themes of loneliness, connection, and self-discovery.
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
An Italian filmmaker reflects on his past and learns how to channel his love in a different and creative way through his art and craftsmanship.
Past Lives (2023)
Two childhood friends reconnect after years apart, seeking to unravel the meaning behind their enduring connection. The film explores the complexities of friendship, time, and shared history.
Set in a dystopian future, “The Lobster” challenges societal norms by presenting a world where individuals must choose a romantic partner within 45 days or face transformation into an animal. The film satirizes the pressure to conform in matters of love.
Annie Hall (1977)
Woody Allen’s classic romantic comedy is a hilarious and heartfelt movie that explores neurotic love and the psychological obstacles we commonly face in marriage and long-term relationships.
Your Name. (2016)
A masterful anime that combines elements of science fiction, fantasy, and romance. It centers on a mysterious connection between a boy and girl who swap bodies, learn about each other’s lives, and search to find each other in real life.
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
John Cassavetes’ uncomfortably raw and dramatic portrayal of the profound impact of mental illness on marriage and family, navigating the complexities with unflinching honesty.
The Fountain (2006)
Darren Aronofsky’s “The Fountain” explores love and mortality through three interconnected storylines spanning different time periods. The film delves into themes of eternal love and the quest for immortality, providing a visually stunning and emotionally resonant experience.
Scenes From a Marriage (1974)
Legendary director Ingmar Bergman’s deeply incisive and detailed chronicle of a rocky marriage’s final days.
Choose one movie and analyze it
Each of these films offers a different perspective on love while also pushing the boundaries of cinema and story-telling.
It’s fun to compare each story: How did the couples meet? What defined “love” for them? What obstacles did they face? Did the relationship work out in the end or not? Why?
While films are often seen as just a source of entertainment or healthy escapism, they can also be an avenue for self-improvement and growth.
The “Movie Analysis Worksheet” is designed to make you think about the deeper themes behind a film and extract some lessons from it that you can apply to your life.
Watch with a friend and discuss
If you don’t want to do the worksheet, just watch one of the movies with a friend (or loved one) – then discuss it after.
Watching a film together is an opportunity to share a new experience. It can also spark up interesting conversations. This is one reason why bonding through movies is one of the most common ways we connect with people in today’s world.
Which film will you check out?
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Universal Pictures on Monday afternoon unveiled Dog Man, an animated feature adaptation of the beloved book series by Dav Pilkey — the author-illustrator best known for his enduringly popular kids’ graphic novel series Captain Underpants. Dog Man has been slated by the studio to open wide on Friday, January 31, 2025.
Previously on the release schedule as Untitled DreamWorks Animation Film, the movie has no competitors yet on the release calendar as it looks to its first weekend in theaters.
Directed by Emmy winner Peter Hastings (The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants), Dog Man‘s plot is thrust into motion when a dog and a police officer are injured together on the job. A life-saving surgery thereafter changes the course of history when Dog Man is born. Half dog, half man, Dog Man is sworn to protect and serve — as long as he isn’t distracted by squirrels — as he doggedly pursues his arch-nemesis: the feline supervillain Petey the Cat. But the rivalry between Dog Man and Petey is upended by the arrival of an adorable kitten clone of Petey, Lil Petey, who changes the game for both of them.
The Dog Man Scholastic series, launched in 2016, currently consists of 11 books, with 12th entry Dog Man: The Scarlet Shedder scheduled to hit shelves in March. The series has been translated into 45 languages, selling more than 60 million copies in print, also spawning spinoff Cat Kid Comic Club, which topped global bestseller lists when it debuted in 2020.
Serving as producer for the Dog Man feature is Karen Foster (Spirit Untamed). Hastings is repped by Gotham Group.
Underscoring growth in the animation field, the organizers of The Telly Awards and additional industry entities are launching The Collision Awards, a global program to honor excellence in animation and motion design in areas including film, TV, games and XR.
It will be run by the Telly Awards, and partners includes Animation Magazine, Animation World Network, Animation Nights New York, Motion Plus Design, SIGGRAPH ACM London, Skwigly, Stash, VIEW Conference and WeTransfer.
Randeep Katari has been named general manager of the Collision Awards. He most recently served as a creative manager at Netflix, overseeing animated film and series. Earlier, he worked for companies including Walt Disney Animation Studios, Nickelodeon and NBC/Universal.
Founding jurors include Ramsey Naito, president of Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation; Andrew Millstein, co-head of Annapurna Animation; Maureen Fan, CEO of Baobab; Sarah Cox, executive creative director, Aardman; Marge Dean, head of Skybound and president of Women in Animation; Julie Lockhart, co-founder of Locksmith Animation; Melinda Dilger, global head of animation production, film/TV at Riot Games; Ronnie del Carmen, co-director/writer of Pixar’s Inside Out; Jinko Gotoh, producer, Finding Nemo; and Jorge Gutierrez, writer/director Maya and the Three.
Categories are grouped across six areas: marketing and communications, commercials, TV, film, experiential and games and XR. Within each, there will be categories for crafts — such as 2D, character animation and storyboarding — and varied audiences such as preschool.
A call for entries begins Monday (early bird deadline is March 8) and the winners of the first awards are set to be announced in July.
Said Katari in a statement: “Helping lead an organization that’s dedicated to celebrating animation, motion design and the community of creatives within it allows us to spotlight undiscovered stories and under-recognized talents all around the world. The Collision Awards is collaborating with leaders in the industry to set a standard of excellence and share how animation can inspire, connect and entertain on a truly global scale.
One of the hottest shows out there right now is a little animated series called Bluey on Disney+. The little Australian heeler named Bluey, along with her family, has completely taken over the world. Yes, it may be listed as a children’s show, but it is something that people of all ages can (and should) enjoy. Each episode is only about seven minutes long, so do yourself a favor and add a little joy to your day by putting one on.
Yes, I may be a little biased about how amazing Bluey is since I watch it with my kids. However, plenty of child-free adults have told me they love the show, too. Maybe the high episode count has you feeling a little intimidated about where to start. If that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place: We’ve picked the best episodes for adults and parents to enjoy.
1. “Takeaway”
Taking your kids anywhere opens up an opportunity for chaos. Bandit experiences that firsthand in “Takeaway” when he brings Bluey and Bingo along to pick up dinner. While waiting for part of their order, the kids go from playing a cute game to their food falling in some water and one of them needing to pee in a bush.
2. “Calypso”
Bluey’s teacher Calypso is a force of magic I wish I could emulate, and the episode “Calypso” shows exactly how amazing she is. During playtime, all the children go to play different games and experience problems they want Calypso to help with. Instead of providing them with the answers, she just nudges them in the right direction, and it all comes together beautifully. Sometimes it’s good to remember that doing less can actually accomplish more.
3. “The Beach”
(Disney+)
The Heeler family goes on a day trip in “The Beach.” This episode focuses mainly on Bluey pretending to be a mermaid who gets her legs. She wants to chase after her mom but gets nervous about encountering some things alone. However, my favorite part of the episode is when the kids ask Bandit why Chili likes to take walks on her own, and he just says that she likes to be alone sometimes. As a mom who does like to be alone sometimes, I liked how they slipped this normal mom behavior in there without the kids’ feelings being hurt.
4. “The Sleepover”
I don’t know how they did it, but the writers of Bluey perfectly captured having a deliriously tired child around in “The Sleepover.” Bluey and Bingo’s cousin Muffin comes over to stay the night. The girls think they are going to get to stay up late, but Muffin is younger and has just started skipping naps. Muffin unleashes all that crazy kid energy all over the Heeler house.
5. “Hammerbarn”
In “Hammerbarn,” Bandit discovers their neighbor, Lucky’s Dad, got a new outdoor pizza oven. Being a total adult, Bandit gets the family together for a trip to the home improvement store—Hammerbarn—so he can also get a new pizza oven. After watching this episode, I wondered how much a pizza oven would cost and if it was justifiable.
6. “Squash”
“Squash” proves that sibling rivalry never goes away, no matter how old you are. Bluey and Bingo pretend to control Bandit and their uncle Stripe as the adults play a game of squash. The kids compete to win bragging rights, just like the grown men.
7. “Stumpfest”
“Stumpfest” might be my favorite episode of Bluey. Bandit, Stripe, and Lucky’s Dad enjoy being sweaty dudes while removing stumps from the lawn as the ladies watch and sip lemonade. That is, until they have to go against a group of girls trying to run a pretend nail salon. Leave them alone, they are just trying to run a small business! Adults and kids may play differently, but we all still love playing.
8. “Rug Island”
(Disney+)
Sometimes it is good to take a step back as an adult. On “Rug Island,” Bandit takes time away from his work schedule to enjoy playtime in the backyard with Bluey and Bingo on their imaginary island paradise. In the end, Bandit knows he must return to his real-world duties, but staying on the island is so tempting.
9. “Sticky Gecko”
“Sticky Gecko” is one of the most relatable episodes of Bluey. Parents can feel Chili’s frustration with trying to get two unwilling children out of the door on time, even though she is trying to take them on a playdate. I think everyone can understand when Bluey and Chili realize that being punctual or stressing yourself out to go to a social situation may not be the best course of action, either.
10. “The Show”
Having children can be rough, but there are moments, like the ones in “The Show,” that make it all worthwhile. Bluey and Bingo put on a show for Chili on Mother’s Day that tells the story of her journey to become a mom. It’s hilarious to hear the children’s take on it and heartwarming when Bluey learns a lesson from Chili on how to help Bingo. The episode is just so cute.
11. “Bus”
I love it when kids have commentary on adult behavior while pretending to be adults, like in “Bus.” When Bluey and Bingo dress as the grannies Rita and Janet, I literally can’t get enough of it. Plus they give Chili relationship advice.
12. “Café”
Making friends gets harder as we get older, but “Café” reminds us that maybe it isn’t as tough as we think. Bluey and Bandit go to the same park each morning before breakfast where they meet another dad and kid. The kids hit it off and the dads do, too. Bandit doesn’t realize he made a new friend until Bluey points it out.
13. “Whale Watching”
(Disney+)
In “Whale Watching,” Chili and Bandit party a little too hard at a New Year’s Eve celebration, so they are lying around while Bluey and Bingo watch a documentary about whales (narrated by Natalie Portman). Eventually, the kids want their parents to play with them, and parental guilt wins out over self-preservation. Chili and Bandit are most relatable when not wanting to move after trying to relive their younger, pre-children days.
14. “Unicorse”
“Unicorse” is one of the funniest episodes of Bluey. While Chili tries to read Bluey a bedtime story to get her to settle down, Bandit goes over the top playing with a rude puppet named Unicorse. Sometimes in life we are Chili being irritated, sometimes we are Bluey trying to relax with too much stimuli around, and sometimes we are Bandit being extra as hell. Just try not to be Unicorse because he is the worst.
15. “Fairytale”
Bandit shares a story from his childhood in the 1980s with a horrified Bluey and Bingo in “Fairytale.” It is funny how things we grew up with in the ’80s and ’90s are so foreign to kids now—like not wearing helmets, relentlessly teasing your siblings, and your parents being kind of mean to you. Sometimes your kids don’t realize that you may have been kind of bratty as a child.
16. “Onesies”
“Onesies” is equal parts hilarious and heartbreakingly deep. Chili’s sister Brandy visits the Heelers for the first time in years. She brings animal onesies (like footy pajamas) for the kids. Bingo becomes one with her cheetah onesie and tries to eat everyone. We find out that Brandy doesn’t visit often because seeing the girls (especially Bingo, who looks a lot like Brandy) makes her sad that she can’t have children. It’s vague enough that children won’t get it, but it made me sob.
17. “Space”
It can be easy to forget that children are little people full of emotions that they don’t yet fully understand (honestly, I don’t understand all my emotions, either). “Space” reminds us that kids process much of the outside world through imaginative play. Rusty, Jack, and Mackenzie play a seemingly innocuous game of astronauts exploring space. But Mackenzie keeps trying to get left behind to understand the feelings he had when he thought his mom left him at the playground. They are so small, yet they have so many big emotions.
18. “Housework”
Every adult knows that cleaning your house is the absolute worst. Most of the time we just put our heads down and get through it like Chili and Bandit try to do in “Housework.” However, Bluey and Bingo make up a game while cleaning up their pillow fort. As they pick up the pillows, they have to do a silly walk and cannot repeat the walk during the game. Chili and Bandit watch them and remember that even boring chores can be made into something fun with a little imagination.
19. “Granny Mobile”
(Disney+)
Bluey and Bingo’s cousin Muffin is full-on chaos and “Granny Mobile” gives her a chance to shine. It’s always the best when Bluey and Bingo dress as grannies, but when Muffin takes on the role of “grouchy granny,” magic ensues. Muffin even goes head to head with a real-life grouchy granny and lives to tell the tale. I think everyone could add a little more grouchy granny to their daily routines.
20. “Dragon”
Bluey feels like her dragon drawings aren’t good enough. Each member of the Heeler family draws a character like themselves to look for a dragon to encourage Bluey to draw the dragon. Bingo’s skills are as wild as you would think for her age. Bandit’s skills are rough but decent. Chili’s drawings stand out as amazing. As they draw their adventure, both parents recall comments on their drawings when they were around Bluey’s age. Bandit’s drawing received negative comments, which caused him to stop drawing. On the other hand, Chili’s mom (who is deceased) encouraged Chili to keep drawing to improve her skills which were perfectly fine for her age. It shows how little comments, both negative and positive, can shape children.
21. “Cricket”
(Disney+)
This episode…wow. The creators of Bluey are so brilliant. It’s astounding what emotional impact they can pack into an 8-minute episode. At a birthday party for one of the kids, the adults try to strike Rusty out in cricket. What they don’t know is Rusty LOVES cricket, so he’s extremely skilled. We see snippets of Rusty’s home life and how he developed his skills. Rusty wanted to play with his older brother and his friends. That meant practicing.
When he gets hit with a real cricket ball, he almost gives up. But after reading encouraging letters from his dad, Rusty continues. He gets so good he can hit the ball to avoid the kitchen window at home. Rusty only gets out when he purposefully hits the ball so his little sister can catch it. Rusty’s supportive family dynamic made this pup into a sweet and talented kid. Much like “Dragon,” this episode shows how encouraging a child can change their lives. In the last shot, we see Rusty walking past his future self—a professional cricket player.
In 2002, the Academy Awards first honored animated features with their own Oscar category — the inaugural winner was DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek. Before then, the stance on rewarding animated features was that there were too few to warrant a separate category; honorary Oscars were given to groundbreaking films like the animated/live-action hybrid Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the computer-animated Toy Story.
But with the founding of DreamWorks — and the expansion of other studios, such as stop-motion houses Aardman and Laika, the Irish outfit Cartoon Saloon, and animation departments within Sony and Netflix — there arose an abundance of animated titles that could compete with the output of cartoon titans Disney and Pixar.
While those two studios have led the pack with the most nominees and winners since the category’s debut two decades ago (Pixar with 11 wins, Disney Animation with four), it’s still a rarity for an animated feature to find recognition outside the category, particularly best picture. This year, however, one — or even two! — animated contenders could claim a spot among the 10 best picture nominees.
Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the sequel to the 2019 winner for animated feature, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which claimed the studio’s first win in the category and was the second film featuring a Marvel character to win an Oscar. (That Spider-Man iteration is not, technically, part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but its Oscar win came the same year as Black Panther’s three for original score, costume design and production design.) The film was released to critical acclaim and commercial success, with a 97 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a global box office total of $690 million.
Beyond its stellar reviews, Across the Spider-Verse — co-directed by Kemp Powers, who co-wrote Disney/Pixar’s Oscar-nominated Soul — has earned plenty of year-end accolades, including its placement on AFI’s list of the year’s top 10 films (alongside such live-action contenders as Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon and Oppenheimer). Following a precedent set by best picture nominee Toy Story 3 in 2011, it’s also an entry in a beloved, Oscar-winning franchise and boasts a cast of A-listers (Oscar nominees Brian Tyree Henry and Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar hopeful Greta Lee and Oscar winners Mahershala Ali and Daniel Kaluuya) and dazzling sequences.
However, GKIDS’ The Boy and the Heron could be Across the Spider-Verse’s biggest competition in both categories. Written and directed by anime master Hayao Miyazaki, the three-time Academy Award nominee who won the second animated feature Oscar for Spirited Away in 2003, the film topped the North American box office with its $12.8 million debut over the weekend of Dec. 9-10 — besting The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé and Disney’s fall animated title Wish.
Its box office performance proves the brand power of Japan’s Studio Ghibli as well as the devotion of Miyazaki’s fan base; the movie brought the 82-year-old animator out of retirement for what he says is his final film, and audiences welcomed him back in droves. The Academy has a final chance to celebrate the animation auteur with another Oscar — or a history-making best picture nomination.
This story first appeared in the Dec. 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
[This interview contains major spoilers for Merry Little Batman.]
DC Studios’ Merry Little Batman sees Bruce Wayne in an unusual turn: donning his dad hat during the holidays.
The Warner Bros. Animation film follows the relationship of Bruce and his son, Damian, an 8-year-old desperate to be just like his crime-fighting father. The only problem — beyond him being a literal child — is that crime no longer exists in Gotham. Batman decided to clean up the streets for good to give Damian a shot at the safe, crime-free childhood Bruce didn’t have.
But when his overprotective father is called to save the day in Nova Scotia on Christmas Eve and becomes stranded in a trap laid by Mr. Freeze, Damian is left home alone with no one to help him as two criminals break in. The hapless burglars manage to make off with his newly gifted utility belt, leading Damian on a chase through Gotham’s wintry streets as he encounters the Rogues Gallery: Penguin, Bane, Poison Ivy, and none other than The Joker.
The film, which stars Luke Wilson as Bruce Wayne, Yonas Kibreab as Damian, and James Cromwell as Alfred, alongside David Hornsby (The Joker), Therese McLaughlin (Poison Ivy), Brian George (The Penguin), Chris Sullivan (Bane) and Dolph Adomian (Mr. Freeze), was initially set to debut on Max. But like a litany of other projects slated for the streamer, it was axed as part of a series of tax write-offs that downsized the company’s pandemic-fueled content library. Luckily, Merry Little Batman found a studio interested in bringing the Dark Knight’s fans a little Christmas cheer.
An elf, Santa Claus and Damian at the mall in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
“When Warner Bros. was bought by Discovery, there were, obviously, a lot of changes and some course correction. The good news was, we had an animatic, and it was in very good shape. We were all very happy with it, and [WBD], from what I understand, did like the project, so they allowed us to continue producing it and making it with the idea that we find a new home for it,” recalls the film’s director Mike Roth. “We pitched it around, and Amazon got very excited and bought it, thankfully.”
The Warner Bros. animated film is also attached to a spin-off series, similarly canceled at Max and revived by Amazon, that will expand the world teased in Batman’s first real Christmas film, which is visually inspired by the art of Ron Searle. It’s a universe that doesn’t forget to pay homage to its previous iterations either, with Ka-Pow jokes and more easter eggs for just about “every iteration and generation” of Batman fans, says the director.
“That’s what the nipple suit is in the Batcave. That is 100 percent a nod to George Clooney and that whole suit,” Roth says, speaking to one of the movie’s easter eggs. “Damian’s like, well, that leaves nothing to the imagination, and I feel like everybody watching that movie for the first time had a similar thought.”
Merry Little Batman is a film chock-full of inspirations and homages — from Home Alone to Shel Silverstein — and even features fun musical touches like “All I Really Want For Christmas,” from Lil Jon and featuring the Kool-Aid Man (yes, the actual drink mascot). Roth notes that music choice, in particular — lyrics that “speak exactly to Damian’s POV” alongside “a bassy, booming beat” that drives audiences through a sequence where Damian is “beginning to get all he really wants for Christmas”— had him feeling like the song “was written for this moment.”
“We knew we wanted a needle-drop Christmas song here,” Roth tells The Hollywood Reporter about the music supervision choice. “We also wanted a song that quite frankly ‘kicked-butt,’ to really put an exclamation point on the excitement Damian is experiencing. And for the audience we wanted it to have an MTV music video vibe.”
Roth spoke to THR about all of this and more, including scraped movie ideas, how the TV show was born, and whether Batman Returns is a Christmas movie following the release of Merry Little Batman.
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The film holds a sort of unique place in the Batman canon, which has been around as long as a whole person’s — or multiple people’s — lifetime. Can you talk about your approach to taking him into dad and Christmas territory?
There’s 90 years of history with Batman, so he’s had lots of different iterations, but like you said, it’s a lifetime, basically, since we’ve ever seen this type of Batman. Usually, he’s a brooding, stoic presence. For us, we got an opportunity to explore the dad side of Bruce. He’s still Bruce because he still has that laser focus, but he’s vanquished all the crime in Gotham, so … now he’s taken all of his laser focus, and he’s put into being a dad.
When exploring that space, we took some of our own daddisms — who we are as dads — and we put that into him, while still being true to his character. He’s still stoic, but he has this loving, touching side, and because he’s so laser-focused on raising his son, he no longer needs a debonair style. He’s grown a beard. He’s got a flannel on. He’s got his dad sneakers. He’s in full dad mode, or as we affectionately call him, a “bat-copter dad” — a helicopter dad. (Laughs.)
When it was originally imagined, the idea was, let’s have a Christmas story with Batman. It had some homages to Home Alone and still has some of that DNA in there, though, originally, it was even more Home Alone-ish. But what better way to tell a Christmas story than through the eyes of a child? Very early on, there was an idea — it didn’t last long — about, what if Batman was a kid? But I think people love Batman, and they want to see the Batman they want to see.
Damian in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
It seemed natural then to go this [movie’s] route because Batman does have a child, Damian. He’s an interesting character, and I feel like people love him, or they hate him. (Laughs.) But because he’s 13, he’s a little bit petulant and at that point where he talks back, and that wasn’t quite the angle that we needed. So we dialed the clock back on him and we made him eight.
To be honest, when we were first exploring this branch of Batman, we didn’t jump 100 percent into dad-mode. The story kind of took it there, and I think it’s for a whole bunch of reasons. We’ve never seen this type of Batman before, but the story opened up a door for us to see a side that we normally wouldn’t see.
You mentioned not going with Bruce as a kid, but you’re still exploring Batman tropes with Damian. They’re just almost inverted, like the bat-signal, which inspires fear instead of hope because crime has been wiped out. Why and how did you and the writers, Morgan Evans and Jase Ricci, want to play with those specific tropes even though you weren’t telling a Bruce story?
Damian gets his belt for Christmas and all that is, is the macguffin. What Damian wants more than anything is to be Batman like his dad, but there are two things stopping him. One, there’s no crime left in Gotham, and two, Bruce is overprotective. So the door opens up for Damian when Bruce gets tricked into going to Nova Scotia, and then, lo and behold, these two criminals break in and crime is back. So what we’re seeing is Damian beginning and completing this journey of becoming Batman.
All those tropes, as much as we possibly could, we strategically placed them so that we could see this growth. He first gets in the Batmobile, he can’t really use it. (Laughs.) Ok, the Batpod is a piece of machinery he can handle. He’s starting to become his dad now. He’s having fun, and he’s still very childlike — still focused on getting the belt, but as it’s happening, he’s growing into this superhero. Now he’s got big Rogues Gallery villains. These aren’t B-villains. This is the real deal. We’ve got real stakes, he could die. He’s up against some of the worst, and it just keeps escalating.
Bane, Poison Ivy, Damian Wayne, the Joker, and Penguin in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
That zoo scene says so much about those tropes because [Damian] sees Bruce’s angle for the first time. He’s starting to understand why his dad is who he is, which is really the growth of a child moving towards maturity. Then in the very, very end, when he goes to fight the Joker and everybody, he finally learns his lesson. He says, “I’m going to have to sacrifice this thing I love. That’s what dad has been telling me all along, and now I get it. I’m going to sacrifice this belt, and I’m going to do everything I can to defeat these villains and save Christmas.”
And at the very end, of course, which is one of my favorite parts, Bruce Wayne doesn’t even see it at first. (Laughs.)
Batman has been both serious and comedic onscreen, with some of the lighter, more self-aware moments as a crime-fighting superhero in the ’60s series and ’90s live-action films. Your movie does this, too. How did you think about being funny without making fun of being a vigilante dressed as a bat or undercutting the dangerous moments for Damian?
I think a lot of that stuff happened organically while putting the story together because we’re also fans of Batman. I don’t want to date myself too much, but I’m almost 50, so I grew up with the ’66 Batman when it was very fun and campy. But even in that ’66 Batman, he’s still a stoic, stern gentleman type. You don’t really see behind the mask, even when he’s not wearing a mask. That was a fun space to explore for us. You can see jokes littered throughout the whole project that are nods to all the different Batmans. Some of that was for ourselves, some of that we placed for the fans.
I always said, with the humor in our project … we could never go full Mel Brooks. I’m not knocking Mel Brooks. He’s my favorite. But for us, we wanted to create this world that had real pathos for Damian, so we needed a universe where an anvil hits you over the head and it will kill you. The comedy had to come from a place where it couldn’t get so zany that it was Tex Avery because then you would never believe that this little kid is actually in danger. It’s a restraint that we put on ourselves on purpose. It gave us the emotion that we needed.
The bat-signal and Damian in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
Another thing with this property that was a bit of a balance is wanting that co-viewership. We didn’t want to make something that’s just for kids or just for adults. We wanted grandparents to enjoy it, too. What’s their Batman? That’s part of why in the sound design, there are a lot of analog-type sounds. The phone for example has more tactile buttons. The rewind button, it’s clearly a VHS tape. The fight sequences with Mr. Freeze, that’s very much for the middle-aged generation of Batman fans, and then a bunch of stuff in there for the kids as well.
You both follow and buck the unspoken rules of kids storytelling. Damian goes on some dangerous adventures without an adult, but then you give him an AI “Bat-Dad” when he thinks Bruce might have died. It’s an interesting workaround to letting a young child loose in Gotham and a twist on Bruce’s story. Damian now lives in a world where, unlike Bruce, he can grow up with his dad even if he’s gone. But what did you want to achieve including an AI Bat-Dad?
He’s a child going on this journey becoming an adult. His real wish fulfillment is to be his dad at some point, so having Bat-Dad come along with him, it gave us a couple of devices. One, it can be there as a guiding light, but I think the more subtle part of it is, it is his dad, but it’s not his dad. It’s almost like a carrot. He’s almost got his dad and then it dies and then he does get his real dad in the end.
For us, it’s always been a story about the relationship of a father and a son, so having Bat-Dad on that journey with Damian changes that chemistry a little bit. It’s teasing a father presence in there, plus Bat-Dad’s super funny. And when Bat-Dad dies, it gets me every time. That zoo scene where he really makes this connection with his dad and you see that this dad respects him — but it’s not his dad. It’s a computerized version of his dad. It’s almost there, but it’s not.
As a filmmaker, what I wanted was to keep that tension alive. Damian wants his dad, but he can’t have his dad. When his dad shows up at the end of the movie, and he sweeps through the candy factory, I hope that the audience gets that experience of, “Oh, thank goodness. They are finally together.” (Laughs.) And Bat-Dad helps that journey.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
The Ron Searle-inspired art was lovely, and the right kind of menacing when it needed to be with the Bat villains. They’ve also got this Shel Silverstein, caricature-like look to them — with that added visual movement. It feels different than where a lot of the experimentation in animation style is these days post-Spiderverse. How did you approach delivering a classic art look in our modern, CG-dominated animation world?
That’s very observant. Shel Silverstein also was an influence for us. Even at times Gary Larson and Far Side. There’s like a little bit of Calvin and Hobbes in there as well. Nothing comes from no place, you know what I mean? And it’s not like we just want to do something different. The driving force behind this project has always been, it’s a Christmas movie, so how do we tell that? What’s the visual storytelling that also paints this Christmas picture? Some of that is color. Some of that’s putting in Christmas trees and lights and decorations.
But we also wanted something that felt like a picture book. Almost like something you read Christmas Eve to your kids that has an illustrative feel to it and maybe rings a little bit of Charles Dickens. Ron Searle is such an interesting choice to me because the drawings themselves are very sketchy. There’s a visceral-ness to it, and a crudeness, which to me represents Gotham. At the same time, they’re also very funny. That kind of bookends it. It balances the seesaw of the two things that we need this property to be.
With Batman, there is an expectation, especially now, to have a grittiness, too. It’s so baked into him. You want to feel that a little bit. So then it was just a matter of taking Ron Searle’s sketchiness and applying it to a production pipeline for animation. Those drawings are hard to replicate because they’re so loose. We needed some rules and parameters. I don’t know if 50 years ago, this style would necessarily work. With computer technology, we’re able to get that line and color boil that would be so insanely expensive to do 50 years ago.
Damian rides a Christmas mall train in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
It’s just one of these things, right time at the right place. The technology’s there and the idea is there. Everything came together, but it was a very complicated style. Even early on, there’s that little voice in the back of your head that’s going it’s too complicated to animate. But luckily we found a production solution to it, and we were able to put it together. My art director, who’s amazing, Guillaume Fesquet, and then assistant art director, Daby Zainab Faidhi, who is also super amazing, very much found that style.
The other thing was I’ve always wanted to do a monochromatic color style. Those types of color choices are so powerful — like a single color dominating a scene. Blue has a very visceral, emotional response. The Joker’s office is green and it feels disturbing and unnerving. Throughout the whole film, we very meticulously went through and chose colors that would sell the emotion that we wanted.
Vox recently published a piece arguing that Batman Returns is a Christmas rom-com. Since you’re technically the first certifiable Batman Christmas movie, what’s your take on that film as a Christmas movie?
That’s a tricky one. There are Christmas themes in that and it’s just fun. It’s interesting to see this dark, brooding world with the backdrop of Christmas. Because Christmas is so vulnerable and Gotham is so much the opposite, it automatically elevates the stakes. I think that’s probably the reason why it works so well. Christmas in Metropolis feels a lot different than Christmas in Gotham. So Batman Returns in that sense, it’s great. It’s a great setting.
But with our movie, what we want to do is tell a true Christmas story. Not Christmas is the backdrop but that Christmas is part of the DNA. Our whole story revolves around Damian chasing down a Christmas gift that was stolen from him. So in my opinion, our project is more of a Christmas movie. It’s the Christmas season story that hopefully, in my opinion, can become perennial, that people come back to and watch every Christmas. That’s not to take anything away from Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher — all of those. They’re all just so fun.
Damian over Gotham in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
Merry Little Batman is currently streaming on Prime Video.
SUNDAY AM:Refresh for chart and more info GKIDs’ and Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heronposted a $12.8M opening after a near $4M Saturday, giving both studios, and esteemed animated filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki their biggest openings ever in the U.S./Canada marketplace.
While a soft weekend with around $72.8M for all titles, the second weekend of December was +93% over the same period a year ago, +66% over the second frame of the last month of the year in 2021, however, off -38% from pre-Covid 2019’s same weekend ($117.8M), but that’s when Jumanji: Next Level led the box office with a $59.2M.
Imax domestic screens at 291 drew $2.4M for Boy and the Heron, repping a very big 20% of the pic’s opening. Overall PLF and Imax share is 38%. AMC Boston Commons still the movie’s highest grossing take in the U.S. with $63K through yesterday. Diversity demos are 43% Caucasian, 22% Latino, 7% Black, & 27% Asian/other.
Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakescontinues to hold real strong in weekend 4, -33% for $9.4M, and a running total of $135.6M. Updated final domestic is around $160M. This Francis Lawrence directed prequel of the Suzanne Collins novel isn’t going anywhere over the Christmas break when the Warner Bros.’ juggernaut of Wonka, Aquaman 2 and The Color Purple arrives.
AMC’sRenaissance: A Film by Beyoncelost a lot of rings this weekend with an anticipated -76% drop or $5.3M in 5th place.
Bleecker Street is calling $3.2M at 1,214 sites for Waitress the Musical, and rolling Thursday into Friday. The movie is 100% on Rotten Tomatoes critics with audiences nearly agreeing at 97%. The movie is playing best in the East, West & South Central with AMC Lincoln Square its best venue with a running cume of $15K.
POOR THINGS, Emma Stone
Searchlight Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Searchlight’s Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone starring and produced Poor Things did ring bling with a $72K opening theater average (or 3-day of $644K at nine theaters), the best this autumn has seen so far, and the third best of the year as we told you y’day behind Focus Features’ Asteroid City ($142K) and A24’s Beau Is Afraid ($80K). That theater average opening is also higher than that of Everything Everywhere All at Once which posted $50K per theater from ten cinemas. It pays to wait: you’ll remember that Poor Things was set to launch off its Venice Film Festival world premiere on Sept. 8, but was pushed due to the actors’ strike. Searchlight has always fared better with these movies in early December, particularly when it comes to playing in the zeitgeist of the holiday frame and the awards qualification period.
In early exits polls, Poor Things received an A- CinemaScore. Audiences skewed 56% male, 70% under 35, 62% Caucasian, 17% Hispanic, 14% East Asian/Pacific Islander, 6% Black/African American, with 68% excellent with a 75% definite recommend. More than half the crowd are going to tell their friends to see Poor Things ASAP, describing it as visually interesting (81%), well-acted (79%), funny (69%), different/original (68%), interesting (65%) and entertaining (63%).
Origin
Neon
But wait, that’s not the only movie that was lighting the arthouse space on fire this weekend: NEON’s awards qualifying run of Ava DuVernay’sOriginat two theaters in NY and LA rang up a big $117K opening, for the fourth highest per theater of 2023 with $58,5K behind Asteroid City, Beau Is Afraid, and Poor Things, and ahead of A24’s Past Lives’ $58K). Interesting to note that the limited engagement was supported only by publicity and word-of-mouth stemming from the film’s Venice, Toronto and regional film festival premieres.
As we told you, Origin became NEON’s highest tested movie in the distributor’s history outstripping Oscar Best Picture winner Parasite, as well as the highest for DuVernay.
“This is an incredible result for Origin, bringing in the 4th highest PSA of 2023, but it’s an especially meaningful achievement given that this is only a one week qualifying release. We look forward to the film’s true theatrical run in January.” beamed Elissa Federoff, President of NEON Distribution.
Origin goes wide on Jan. 19.
More….
SATURDAY AM: GKIDS’ The Boy and the Heron is the distributor’s biggest opening ever, with a 3-day between $10.7M-$12M after a $5.56M Friday/previews. The overall marketplace, though sluggish, isn’t as bad as we thought, with around $69M, which is up +82% from a year ago. Thank God for small miracles. GKIDs’ previous 3-day record was Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You back in 2020 which posted $1.8M.
The Boy and the Heron
Courtesy of GKIDS/Studio Ghibli
The Boy and the Heron is standing on high marks with an A- Cinemascore, 4 1/2 stars, and a 65% definite recommend. Mostly guys, not all, at 54%, with 80% of those who watched between 18-34 and the largest demo being 25-34 at 44%. Diversity demos are 43% Caucasian, 22% Latino and Hispanic, 7% Black, and 27% Asian/other. PLF and Imax are driving 38% of the gross so far. While the West is strong for the Hayao Miyazaki movie, the AMC Boston Commons is the highest-grossing cinema in the nation at $39K. We don’t see them often in the lead.
There’s some other victory laps here for The Boy and the Heron:
–The movie’s opening day easily bests the domestic take of Miyazaki’s last film, 2013’s The Wind Rises ($5.2M), and will rep the highest opening gross for a Studio Ghibli film.
—Boy and the Heron is the only entirely foreign production to top the weekend box office this year, and the first since Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero in August 2022 ($21.1M).
–The Miyazaki movie is the first original anime (not based on existing IP) to ever top the weekend box office, and the third anime of any sort to do so (after Pokemon: The First Movie and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero).
—Boy and the Heron is also the first 2D animated feature not based on existing IP to top the weekend box office since 2009’s The Princess and the Frog from Disney. ($24.2M wide opening).
Also looking better this AM is the fourth weekend of Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, with around $9.4M.
Everett
AMC’ Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce has lost its glam with a $5.6M 3-day, -74%. Ouch. One could say that it was always destiny for the Queen Bey movie to drop, because it’s a concert movie and it’s front-loaded. However, this is the worst time to release a movie in the pre-Christmas period, when moviegoers are distracted with holiday activities. Furthermore, you can’t launch tentpoles on social media alone. You need a fire-breathing pummel of TV spots, and the whole 360 and talk shows of it all. It’s never prudent to approach theatrical quietly: Look at what Warner Bros is doing with Wonka, which opens next weekend and could explode beyond its projected $40M. I mean, the movie got a big push on The Tonight Show in a bit between Jimmy Fallon and Anne Hathaway — and she’s not even in the movie! She’s in NEON’s Eileen! The point is when you want your movie to go beyond the scope of any advertisement into the cultural ethos, so it can resonate. Wonka opens abroad this weekend with a $30M projection.
Searchlight’s Poor Things isn’t penniless, with a robust $69K theater average, or $623K weekend at nine theaters after a $279K Friday. That’s shaping up to be the third-best opening theater average YTD, behind Focus Features’ Asteroid City ($142K) and A24’s Beau Is Afraid ($80K). It’s also ahead of Amazon MGM adult gothic romance Saltburn (which posted $46K from seven theaters in weekend one). Yorgos Lanthimos previous sexy period movie, The Favourite, which also starred Emma Stone, posted a $105,6K theater average. However, that was from four theaters that opened to $422K. Rich numbers for Poor Things from AMC Century City, AMC Burbank, AMC Grove and NYC’s AMC Lincoln Square, Alamo Brooklyn, Regal Union in NYC, Alamo San Fran, AMC Metreon San Fran and Alamo South Lamar Austin. The best is Lincon Square, with $52K through Friday, followed by Burbank with $41K. Poor Things in its adult content makes 1988’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being look like a Disney Princess film ($10M final domestic gross back then for the kinky Daniel Day Lewis, Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin movie). It will be really interesting to see if Poor Things resonates with older arthouse moviegoers. Anecdotally, the movie has great word of mouth among many awards voters.
The top 10:
1.) Boy and the Heron (GKIDS) 2205 theaters Fri $5.56M, 3-day $10.7M-$12M/Wk 1
10.) The Shift (Angel) 2,415 theaters, Fri $610K (-65%) 3-day $2.2M (-49%), Total $8.5M/Wk 2
FRIDAY PM: While the first weekend of December gets a bad rep for being slow, the second weekend is often slower, so don’t be surprised if all films total around $38M on par to the same frame a year ago. Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, as expected, will lead all movies with an anticipated $10.7M opening after a $5.4M Friday at 2,205 theaters, which includes $2.39M previews. The movie currently has an 88% Rotten Tomatoes audience rating.
Lionsgate
Second place goes to the fourth weekend of Lionsgate’sThe Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakeswith a Friday of $2.5M (-38%), 3-day of $8.75M (-38%), running total of $134.9M by Sunday EOD at 3,665 theaters. That domestic running total through 24 days is -7% behind Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald at the same point in time, and which opened in the same pre-Thanksgiving weekend back in 2018. That Harry Potter spinoff sequel finaled at $159.55M in U.S./Canada.
Third is Toho’s Godzilla Minus One at 2,540 theaters with a second Friday of $1.8M (-62%), second weekend of $6.4M (-44%) and running total of $23.4M by Sunday.
Universal/Dreamworks Animation‘s Trolls Band Togetherwill see a fourth Friday of $1.3M (-23%), 3-day of $6M (-23%) for a running total of $82.88M at 3,447 theaters.
Getty
AMC’s second weekend of Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce at 2,539 theaters is looking at a second Friday of $1.6M, -86%, and 3-day of $5.2M, -76%, running total of $28.2M. Maybe this movie should have played weekdays? That’s quite the steep drop next to Taylor Swift: Eras Tour which fell -64% in weekend 2. Renaissance‘s second frame percent wise is also worse than Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert (-67%), Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (-55%), and Michael Jackson’s This Is It (-43%).
Bleecker Street’s Waitress the Musical is looking at a Friday of $700K at 1,214 theaters and 3-day of $2.25M.
FRIDAY AM: After one Japanese title delivered at the sleepy December box office last weekend, that being Godzilla Minus One, here’s another that’s set to dominate: Studio Ghibli and Gkids’ Hayao Miyazaki toon The Boy and the Heronis looking at a No. 1 bow with $10M+ after $2.39M Thursday and early-access previews.
The comp here is quite literally last weekend’s Japanese live-action title Godzilla Minus One (read the review), which saw previews of $2.1M before minting a $4.7M Friday, and 3-day of $11.4M at 2,308 theaters.
The Boy and the Heron played at 1,774 theaters in U.S. and Canada with showtimes starting at 5 p.m. Thursday. The pic is booked at 2,205 theaters this weekend, including Imax and PLF. It’s the first Studio Ghibli film to be presented in Imax. There were awards-qualifying preview engagements that began on Thanksgiving in New York and Los Angeles, and those figures are going to be rolled into daily grosses on a prorated basis during the next two weeks, per Gkids.
Although Miyazaki retired in 2013, he returned to make this movie, which is billed as “a semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death and creation.” In the pic, a young boy named Mahito yearns for his mother and ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning.
Miyazaki’s last film, The Wind Rises, made $5.2M stateside via Disney. The current highest opening weekend for a Studio Ghibli film is 2012’s The Secret World of Arrietty, which bowed with $6.4M via Disney and finaled at $19.2M stateside. The Boy and the Heron easily will surpass that pic’s opening footprint of 1,522 theaters to become the widest opening ever for a Studio Ghibli film as well as the widest opening for a Gkids release. The Boy and the Heron is screening in subtitled and English-dubbed prints. The big-name dubbed version features Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson and Florence Pugh.
The Boy and the Heron is 95% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and has grossed more than $84M abroad, $56.1M one of that in its native Japan, where it reached Miyazaki’s highest opening ever there sans any promotion back in July.
The pic premiered internationally as the Opening Night Gala Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival, a first for a Japanese or animated film. It recently won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Animated Feature and was honored among the National Board of Review’s Top 10 Films of 2023.
‘Godzilla Minus One’
Speaking of Godzilla Minus One, the highest-grossing Japanese live-action title stateside led Thursday with $1.25M (-8% from Wednesday) and a first week of $17M at 2,308 theaters. The pic’s second weekend looks to be $5M-$6M in a tossup race for third place with AMC’s second frame of Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé.
Getty
That concert docu from the 32-time Grammy winner (read the review) paused showtimes Monday through Wednesday but returned Thursday with $1.145M to claim the day’s No. 3 spot. She’s also looking at around $6M. Running cume for Renaissance is $23.1M.
Lionsgate
Don’t underestimate Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (read the review), which placed second Thursday with $1.148M (-3% from Wednesday) and took in a third week of $19.5M at 3,691 theaters with a running total of $126.2M. Projections for the fourth frame of the Francis Lawrence-directed prequel starring Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth is around $8M.
Fourth place goes to Bleecker Street’s feature take of Broadway musical Waitress,which did $672K at 1,214 theaters.
Fifth place is Apple Original Production’s Napoleon via Sony (read the review), which made $609K Thursday, -13% from Wednesday, for a second week of $10.2M at 3,500 theaters and running total of $48.9M.
Yorgos Lanthimos’ Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winning Poor Things, starring and produced by Emma Stone (read the review), is bowing in four markets in a total of nine theaters – New York (AMC Lincoln Square, Regal Union Square and Brooklyn’s Alamo Drafthouse), Los Angeles (AMC Century City, AMC The Grove, AMC Burbank 16), San Francisco (AMC Metreon, Alamo Drafthouse Mission) and Austin (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar). This is quite the spicy adult-themed movie from Disney’s Searchlight, and it will be interesting to see how arthouse audiences embrace the pic, which has spurred hot buzz among awards bloggers and media. The movie about a Frankenstein-like girl who finds her sexual independence across Europe is 93% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, which many also found to be audacious in its sexy content, posted a first weekend of $322K at seven theaters for a $46K theater average. Can Poor Things top that?
Saltburn, which posted an amazing -9% third weekend, post-Thanksgiving hold, ended its third week with $2.9M after a $256K Thursday and a running total of $7.6M. The Amazon MGM movie hits Prime on December 22 (read the review).
HildaSeason 3 once again presents the animated television series adapted from Luke Pearson’s graphic novel series. It started premiering on Netflix on December 7, 2023. Produced by Silvergate Media and Mercury Filmworks, the show chronicles the escapades of the intrepid 11-year-old blue-haired protagonist, Hilda. Building on the success of the previous seasons, this third season promises to continue Hilda’s enchanting journey.
Here’s how you can watch and stream Hilda Season 3 via streaming services such as Netflix.
Is Hilda Season 3 available to watch via streaming?
Yes, Hilda Season 3 is available to watch via streaming on Netflix.
In the third season of Hilda, our adventurous protagonist yearns to break free from the hustle and bustle of Trolberg. Eager for a refreshing change, she, accompanied by Mum, Frida, and David, sets out on a train journey.
Hilda Season 3 showcases a stellar voice cast, including Bella Ramsey, Ameerah Falzon-ojo, Daisy Haggard, Oliver Nelson, Rasmus Hardiker, and John Hopkins, among others.
Watch Hilda Season 3 streaming via Netflix
Hilda Season 3 is available to watch on Netflix. To watch the show, you can register through the service’s app or website. Netflix boasts an extensive collection of TV shows, movies, and original content, such as Riverdale, The Blacklist, and Dahmer. The platform provides users with the flexibility to modify, upgrade, or cancel their subscriptions as needed, offering a seamless and user-friendly viewing experience.
You can watch the series via Netflix by following these steps:
Enter your email address and password to create an account
Enter your chosen payment method
The cheapest Netflix Standard with Ads Plan provides all but a few of its movies and TV shows. However, it will show ads before or during most of its content. You can watch in Full HD and on two supported devices at a time.
Its Standard Plan provides the same but is completely ad-free while also allowing users to download content on two supported devices with an additional option to add one extra member who doesn’t live in the same household.
The Premium Plan provides the same as above, though for four supported devices at a time, with content displaying in Ultra HD. Users get to download content on up to six supported devices at a time and have the option to add up to two extra members who don’t live in the same household. Netflix spatial audio is also supported.
The synopsis for Hilda is as follows:
“Fearless, free-spirited Hilda finds new friends, adventure and magical creatures when she leaves her enchanted forest home and journeys to the city.”
NOTE: The streaming services listed above are subject to change. The information provided was correct at the time of writing.
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Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969) Season 1 is one of the most prolific animated series of all time. The mystery comedy show tells the story of Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and the talking dog Scooby-Doo as they travel on their van, The Mystery Machine, solving mysteries and offering logical explanations behind bizarre incidents.
Here’s where you can watch Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969) online.
Where can you watch and stream Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969) Season 1?
You canwatch and stream Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969) Season 1 on HBO Max. The series was created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and developed by William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Iwao Takamoto, and Fred Silverman.
The voice cast includes Don Messick as Scooby-Doo, Casey Kasem as Shaggy Rogers, Frank Welker as Fred Jones, Stefanianna Christopherson as Daphne Blake, Nicole Jaffe as Velma Dinkley, and more.
How to watch Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969) Season 1 and stream online
The viewers are required to sign up for HBO Max, also known as Max, subscription plans to watch and stream the season online or watch and stream it for free on Tubi.
HBO Max has several offers available for its prospective subscribers. The basic plan (with ADs) costs $9.99 a month and $99.99 a year, the Ad-Free plan costs $15.99 a month and $149.99 a year, and the Ultimate Ad-Free plan costs $19.99 a month and $199.99 a year. The viewers can also add HBO Max to their Amazon Prime Video and Hulu subscription with an additional $15.99 a month.
The official synopsis for the series reads:
“Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and the talking dog, Scooby-Doo, travel on the Mystery Machine van in search of weird mysteries to solve.”
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Television animation was at its absolute worst in the decade before Ruegger’s shows premiered. In the ’80s, Saturday morning schedules were crammed with glorified toy commercials (G.I. Joe,Transformers,My Little Pony,He-Man and the Masters of the Universe), often with preachy prosocial messaging shoehorned in.
From the beginning, Ruegger swore Tiny Toon Adventures would be different. “I said, ‘Let’s really make this the way it needs to be made. Let’s give each cartoon some love and care.’”
Premiering in 1990, Tiny Toons revived the great lost tradition of animation at Warner Bros. A youthful refresh of the old Looney Tunes shorts, it was exuberantly funny, pop culture savvy, occasionally meta, and populated with cute, colorful, well-designed characters. After the resounding success of Tiny Toon, however, Spielberg put Ruegger in charge of coming up with something entirely new.
Ruegger found his inspiration while wandering the Warner Bros. Studios lot. A 133-foot, 100,000-gallon water tower had stood on the studio grounds since 1927, an emergency water supply in case of fire. Emblazoned with the Warner Bros. shield logo, it was a familiar icon of the studio—a utilitarian riposte to Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle.
Ruegger had the brain wave to make “the Warner Brothers” (and their Warner sister) his stars. Loosely inspired by old-school characters like Felix the Cat and Warner Bros.’ own Bosko and Foxy, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot were characters of indeterminate species with rubber-hose limbs and no respect for the earthly laws of physics. They were toons, in other words, reveling in their tooniness.
Animaniacs would also be a variety show. Ruegger and his team pitched an ensemble cast of supporting characters to Spielberg at his home, on a Saturday morning, over milk and cookies: Pinky and the Brain, would-be world-dominating lab mice; a trio of mobbed-up Italian American pigeons; Slappy Squirrel, an aged cartoon star; and more. Characters that didn’t make the cut included a kleptomaniac kangaroo, a beaver who said “dam!” a lot, and a rhyming raccoon duo named Nipsey and Russell. (Later, the team realized that the best time to run Animaniacs ideas by Spielberg was when his son Max, from his marriage to first wife Amy Irving, was staying with him.)
With Spielberg’s enthusiastic support, no expense was spared to make Animaniacs as good as it could possibly be. There was wall-to-wall music from a 25-to-40-piece orchestra, with composer Richard Stone performing on the same piano used by Looney Tunes maestro Carl Stalling. There was gorgeous artwork of crisply drawn characters, some of it from the Japanese animation studio behind the Akira anime. There was powerhouse vocal talent, firing on all cylinders and all recording in the same room.
Most of all, though, there were the gags.
Ruegger assembled a crack team of writers, many hailing from Los Angeles’s live-comedy scene. Sherri Stoner, Peter Hastings, and Deanna Oliver performed with the Groundlings; Paul Rugg and John McCann at the ACME Comedy Theatre. (After giving improv lessons to animators at Disney, Stoner had also served as the animation reference model for Ariel in The Little Mermaid and Belle in Beauty and the Beast.)
Amazon is releasing “The Super Mario Bros. Movie on its digital format starting at midnight EDT and 9 p.m. PDT on May 15. Our favorite Italian plumber, Mario from Nintendo’s beloved Super Mario video games, has helped “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” surpass over a billion dollars and dominate the box office. If you haven’t seen the video game movie in theaters yet, no worries — it’s still there.
But if you pre-order the film now, you should know that the preordered digital copies will release tonight on Amazon. Here’s how to get access to the top-grossing movie of 2023 so far.
Pre-order “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and watch it tonight:
Starring Chris Pratt as Mario, Jack Black as Bowser, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach and Charlie Day as Luigi, the beloved Super Mario Bros. characters come to life on the big screen. Similar to the Super Mario Bros. games, our heroes are on a mission to save the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser.
Donkey Kong, Mario Kart racing and other fun gamer Easter eggs show up, but the movie is also fun to watch even if you don’t know the first thing about Nintendo characters.
With its colorful and imaginative world-building, catchy music (Black’s Bowser sings a memorable piano ballad about Princess Peach) and a cast of unforgettable characters, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is sure to be a blast for fans of all ages. So go ahead and pre-order the animated family-friendly movie today and get ready for an adventure that will transport you to a magical world full of wonder and excitement. Let’s-a go!
How to watch “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” tonight
Universal Studios
The best place to preorder “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is at Amazon, especially since the digital version is going to be available at midnight on the East Coast and at 9 p.m. on the West Coast. You can get a hard copy or a digital copy that will stay in your Prime Video library forever. There are so many options on Amazon, too. The digital formats are available in standard definition, high definition or ultra-high definition, while the hard-copy formats are available in Blu-Ray, DVD and 4K. Don’t miss out on all the video game nostalgia from this Nintendo Classic.
The date has yet to be released but “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” will eventually stream on Peacock. There’s a wealth of content on Peacock, including sports, movies and series. The Premium plan is $5 a month while the Plus plan is $10 a month. If you prefer streaming content, Peacock is one of the best deals out there.
Looking to upgrade your viewing experience at home so you can watch the latest shows, Oscar-nominated movies, sports and more? Keep reading to check out the best deals on TVs.
LG G2 series OLED evo Gallery Edition smart TV
LG via Amazon
According to the brand, this LG TV designed to compete with Samsung’s “The Frame” features a gallery design that “hugs the wall.” This smart TV is meant to blend in seamlessly with any other wall art you might have.
The OLED TV features 4K-upscaling, a Filmmaker Mode to enhance your viewing experience with Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Atmos, plus built-in access to Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV plus, Disney Plus and LG channels.
An Amazon customer called the TV “the best 4K panel I’ve ever owned.” “The panel actually does look like wall art hanging in my viewing room,” they commented.
This top-rated TCL Roku TV is an ultra-affordable option that uses the user-friendly Roku interface.
“I recently bought this TV last week and I’m really impressed with it amazing picture, great sound and easy set up,” wrote a Walmart customer. “If you want a TV that’s affordable TCL is the way to go. I don’t have anything negative to say about the TV and I would buy TV’s again from this brand in the near future.”
This 75-inch Amazon Fire TV offers a 4K UHD display and enhanced color and clarity thanks to Dolby Vision.
The TV also supports voice control with Amazon Alexa. Its high-quality picture quality and large size make this TV a solid choice for football fans — plus, it’s hard to find such a big screen at such a low price.
Jennifer Martin is an expert on streaming and deals for CBS Essentials. She has a soft spot for foodie culture, beauty and wellness products and all things pop culture. Jennifer lives in Richmond, VA with her family of five, plus a cat, a dog and a frog.
Ghibli Park, a large theme park dedicated wholly to the works of Japanese animation giants Studio Ghibli, opened late last year. And it hasn’t taken long for people to start being weirdos with some of the statues found at the park, prompting calls from local authorities to please stop.
As CNN report, last week the Governor of Aichi Prefecture (where the park is located), Hideaki Ōmura, held a press conference, and discussed the subject of adults taking “lewd” photos with attractions. Seems not only have grown-ass men been taking inappropriate pics with statues of Ghibli characters, but they’ve been sharing them on social media, leading to reactions that are not in keeping with the strict family-first vibes Ōmura would have been expecting.
“Frankly speaking, posting photos like that on social media is very inappropriate”, Ōmura said. “From adults to children, people go to Ghibli Park to enter the Ghibli world and enjoy themselves. Clearly this action disturbed many people,” he added, saying that local authorities have since told park staff that “they need to firmly stop such actions once spotted and confirmed.”
“For those who come to the park to do this kind of thing, I would much prefer them not to come at all. Of course we need to take harsher measures against this kind of behavior. This is basically destruction of property.”
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You might think this reaction is a bit much, but Japanese staff and authorities do not usually fuck around when it comes to taking photos in places you’re not supposed to take photos. I’ve had staff at the Tokyo Game Show be stricter with camera use than security at famous museums, and I felt like the star of an Oceans movie the day I managed to snap a pic of my son playing on the plush Catbus at the Ghibli Muesum in Tokyo. They’re normally super strict, so Ōmura’s frustrations are perhaps partly born from the fact that he expects security to be tighter at these exhibits than they are.
Ghibli Park opened last year after numerous delays, but isn’t really finished; while it’s selling tickets, and there are three areas to explore (including the house from Totoro), two other spaces (including a Mononoke-themed forest) are still under construction, and aren’t due to be completed for another year or two.
Recently, “AI” machine-learning technologies have been creeping their way into artistic fields in both entertaining and harmful ways. While some AI content creators are just making videos for harmless fun, others, like the creators of a recent AI-generated anime short, wrongfully believe they’ve democratized the animation industry when they’ve really just come up with a more technologically demanding method of plagiarizing other artists.
Earlier this week, Corridor Digital, a Los Angeles-based production studio that creates pop culture YouTube videos, uploaded a video called “Anime Rock, Paper, Scissors.” Written and directed by Niko Pueringer and Sam Gorski, it revolves around two twins vying for the throne left vacant by their recently deceased father. Their battlefield? A game of rock, paper, “twin blade.” By leveraging the machine-learning text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, Corridor Digital gave camera footage filmed in front of a green screen a dramatic anime-like appearance. It’s basically AI-assisted rotoscoping. You can watch the video below.
“It’s part of our humanity to try and visualize things that don’t exist. Like, let’s talk about traditional 2D animation. Cartoons, the most creatively liberating medium, is also the least democratized. It takes incredibly skilled people drawing every single frame of your movie to make it happen,” Pueringer said in a separate YouTube video, titled “Did We Just Change Animation Forever?” “But I think we came up with a new way to animate. A way to turn reality into acartoon and it’s one more step toward true creative freedom where we can easily create anything we want.”
In a pinned comment underneath, Pueringer wrote that their AI-driven animation production technique isn’t meant to replace human animators but as a means to bring visual ideas to life without the “near-insurmountable mountain of work” that a large animation studio with a large budget would need to get the job done.
“Imagine one person, or a few friends, bringing their crazy ideas to life. Imagine if a traditional animator could automatically have their drawings inked and colored. Imagine eliminating the uncanny valley on CGI faces. These tools have the potential to do that. We’re trying to figure out how, and sharing our journey. If we want community-controlled AI tools, we need to develop them as a community, otherwise, they become proprietary tools locked behind a company,” Pueringer wrote.
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In an email with Kotaku, Peuringer said that although someone can train an AI model to learn the styles of many artists, it’s incorrect to assume that is the technology’s sole use case.
“Through this experiment, we’re figuring out how we can use [our] own art with these tools to speed up the process. ‘Anime Rock, Paper, Scissors’ is the first step in our experiments [in] figuring out how any of this works in the first place,” Pueringer said.
Feeding an AI model data isn’t creating art
Despite how appealing the AI behind ‘Anime Rock, Paper, Scissors’ may seem to Corridor Digital’s fans, the group’s AI-powered anime is yet another harmful innovation in the animation industry because it steals from real artists in ways that seem little different than the prospect of other machine-learning technologies copying and selling actors’ voices without consent.
Unlike the breathtaking Dragon Ball Z fan film, Dragon Ball: Legends—which took the indie studio Studio Stray Dog four years to make—Corridor Digital’s attempt at recreating the passion and energy displayed in early-aughts anime comes off as violently hokey and embarrassing because it’s a soulless recreation of animation techniques haphazardly strewn together without any technical skill or artistic merit.
Despite acknowledging the fact that anime is about tying visual language to a story through stylized metaphors and art direction, Pueringer revealed that Anime Rock, Paper, Scissors’ visual style was made by feeding their Stable Diffusion AI model background art and character images they took from the early aughts fantasy anime film Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.
“We tried to grab frames of like different people, some face shots, some torso shots, full body shots, hands, hair, even some abstract things like flowers because, with all these different objects—with each picture effectively being a different object and a different character—when we train the model, it’s not going to learn any single subject. Instead, it’s going to learn the style in which all of these subjects were drawn,” Pueringer said.
Ultimately, Corridor Digital’s trained model shat out a TikTok filter-looking mess in which over-the-top shadow effects constantly clipped through character models, despite their technologies’ best attempts to prevent any kind of uncanny valley flickering you’d see in an anime-filtered Snapchat video. Claiming that you understand the visual language that anime studios strive to portray while blatantly copying the art style of anime studio Madhouse’s work literally frame by frame isn’t a “democratization” of anime creation. That’s just being a hack.
Corridor Crew
While many of Corridor Digital’s YouTube commenters see Anime Rock, Paper, Scissors as a means to make content creation more accessible, others viewers thought the video was an insult to human animators.
“This just seems like a way for tech guys to force their way into the artist’s circle while simultaneously stealing actual artists’ work to use for their ai to learn off of. They should show this to the actual animators that visit them, I wonder how they’d react,” YouTube commentator SouperRussian wrote in response to Corridor Digital’s “Did We Just Change Animation Forever?” video.
Many workers within the animation industry hate it
Unlike many of Corridor Digital’s social media fans, fellow YouTuber animator Ross O’Donovan thinks Corridor Digital’s AI anime is walking on thin ice with professional animators. O’Donovan advised Corridor Digital to find “a first aid kit” to prepare for the discourse that would transpire should it talk to an actual group of animation industry professionals. He specifically suggested Corridor Digital sit down with folks like the team behind Netfllix’s Castlevania series to hear what they think about the creation process of Anime Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Turns out Corridor won’t need to hit Castlevania director Samuel Deats’ line, because he’s already made his opinion known to the public. Deats disagreed with Corridor Digital’s claim that their AI tool was “one step toward true creative freedom,” that would democratize the animation industry. Instead, Deats tweeted that Corridor Digital are just “lazy thieves spitting on an entire art form.”
Deats wasn’t alone in his sentiments toward Corridor Digital’s advocacy for machine learning models in the animation industry. “This absolutely sucks, hope this helps,” Toonami co-creator Jason DeMarco wrote in a tweet. Ralph Bakshi, the legendary underground animator behind Fritz the Cat and the 1978 Lord of the Rings animated film didn’t dignify Corridor Digital’s claim with a response. Instead, Bakshi simply replied “no comment” in response to a tweet cheerleading Corridor Digital’s “incredible” AI-powered anime.
Despite the online backlash Corridor Digital received from folks within the animation industry, Pueringer believes that Anime Rock, Paper, Scissors isn’t any less ethical than the other pop culture-related YouTube videos they’ve uploaded to their channel “to tell their story.”
In a post on the r/Corridor subreddit, Peuringer noted that while sudden change can be a scary thing, “especially if it feels like your passion or livelihood is on the line,” Corridor Digital is exploring the use cases of their AI model as a means to “help shine a light into the fog for everyone” wanting to bring their imaginations to life.
“I see potential for tools like these to let an animator let this process propagate their ink and color easily across [an] entire shot, for example. It’s potential like that that gets me excited about this tech, and why we do these experiments in the first place,” Pueringer told Kotaku.
What unites every re-telling is Collodi’s indelible images: a wooden boy; a talking cricket; a nose that gets longer when you lie. But running alongside all of those is a powerful truth. “I think it’s fear of the adult world,” says del Toro, “this idea that you are thrown into a world of adult values that are not only hard to understand but eventually prove false. That’s how I came to feel as a kid. All the things adults told you, they didn’t understand themselves.” In the first half of the book, it’s a few villains who cause trouble for Pinocchio. In the second half, four black rabbits carry a coffin into his room to take him away while he is still alive, and a judge (who happens to be a gorilla) throws him in jail because he is the victim of a theft. As fantastical as these episodes are, the fear they evoke, the feeling of being lost and powerless in a grown-up society where nothing makes sense, is more recognisable than the relatively orderly and logical yarns in most children’s books.
The same goes for the central character. Everyone knows that Pinocchio wants to be a real boy, but a key reason why he has been so adored for almost 150 years is that he is always as real as anyone in literature. Rather than being an intrepid, noble hero, Pinocchio is rude, selfish, naive, curious, forgetful, easily swayed by temptation, slow to learn from his mistakes, upset when things go wrong, but kind, well-meaning, and capable of bravery. Wooden or not, he couldn’t be much more human than that.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is released on Netflix on 9 December.
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Neither studio heads nor distributors wanted to touch what many saw as a doomed, pornographic project, although Warner Bros eventually agreed to finance the film. But after a disastrous pre-screening where Bakshi and Krantz horrified executives with a controversial sex scene and disputes about toning down other sexual content, they pulled their money; however Fritz won funding from exploitation distributor Cinemation and the film was released. “At this time, independent production was growing, because there were certain tax incentives and the studio system itself was breaking down during the 1960s,” says animation historian and critic Maureen Furniss. “It wasn’t that unusual to have independent producers, but Ralph Bakshi was a force unto himself, he was a totally different kind of guy – and very challenging to work with.”
Capturing the zeitgeist
Like the US itself, the animation establishment was undergoing a period of change, and Fritz burst out from decades of censorship as well as this shift in the studio system. Antitrust legislation and the emergence of television combined to help dissolve the dominant studio system of Hollywood’s “Golden Era”. Audiences were increasingly disconnected from the “block booking” packages that the movie theatres were forced to show, where A-movies, B-movies, newsreels, and animated shorts were combined into one package. Suddenly, shorts were not viewed as profitable or desirable. So when the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio closed in 1957, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera left to found their own studio, which began producing more rough and ready, made-for-TV cartoons in contrast to their bigger budget Tom and Jerry shorts they were making at MGM – eventually creating successes like the Flintstones.
Independent, experimental films were gaining steam in the post-war period, pushing back against the censorious backdrop of moral policing and policy. The National Legion of Decency, a Catholic pressure group dedicated to identifying morally egregious films, tried to blacklist everything from Rififi (1955) to Buñuel and Rossellini, while the decades-long Hays code, created in the 1930s, clamped down on films that were sympathetic on the side of “crime, wrong-doing, evil or sin“. Eventually, in 1968, the official classification system would emerge from these kinds of groups as moral guidance; and a few years later, Fritz burst onto the scene as the first of its kind in the “X” category – bundled together with pornography, slasher flicks, and dramas like Midnight Cowboy (1969). So, while Fritz was the first X-rated animated film, the category hadn’t been around for long. “While adult content had already made its way into a number of Golden Age Hollywood cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s,” Dr Christopher Holliday, Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Visual Cultures Education at King’s College London, tells BBC Culture, “the playful eroticism of characters like Betty Boop was dialled up by the outlandish ‘rude and crude’ style of Bakshi’s animation, and particularly in his adaptation of Robert Crumb’s X-rated adult comic.”
