The new film from Hayao Miyazaki is Kaze Tachinu (aka The Wind Rises, or The Wind is Rising), based on the manga of the same name about Jiro Horikoshi, who designed the famous Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane. The fighter was extensively used by Japan during World War II, and Miyazaki’s interest in flight is well-documented, making this project seem like a natural choice for the director.
The film will be released in Japan on July 20 of this year, and a trailer should air on Japanese television this week. We’ll have that trailer when it arrives, but in the meantime we can give you three new images from the film, which will be used as posters in cinemas later this spring. They’re pretty tiny, but you can compare one of them to the original manga art seen above to get a sense of how Miyzaki has translated the visual style. Read More »
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Briefly: Somehow, Jason Bateman has had scant gigs in feature animation. (While he has voiced a few animated characters on TV, his main feature role was in the English dub of Arthur and the Invisibles.) That’s going to change with the new film from Tangled co-director Byron Howard, who is setting up a new animated project at Disney.
The new film is reportedly an “untitled animal comedy” that is still without a release date. More details are thing, but THR reports that Bateman is set to make his feature voice acting debut in the film. Disney is usually pretty tight-lipped about animated projects, and given that it already has Frozen set for November 27 of this year and another film slated for Nov. 7, 2014, it could well be 2015 before this one is released.
This Christmas, while adults might be excited about Bilbo Baggins or the return of Ron Burgundy, all the kids will likely be walking with dinosaurs. Based on a traveling performance that features incredibly realistic animatronic dinosaurs, Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie is set for release December 20 from directors Barry Cook (Arthur Christmas) and Neil Nightingale (Enchanted Kingdom 3D). It tells the story of a young dinosaur who grows up to be the hero of his people. Think Jurassic Park meets The Lion King, if the dinosaurs looked slightly less real but were way more plentiful.
The first trailer has just come online, which will give you an idea of what the film looks like and how it translates from an arena to the big screen. Frankly, it looks like it’s going to work fine. Check it out. Read More »
Despicable Me was a hit, and this summer’s Despicable Me 2 is sure to be a hit as well. So Universal is well on their way to production on next year’s spinoff, Minions. They’ve already landed Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock as Scarlet Overkill, an evil woman attempting world domination, and now they’ve added an Emmy-winner to her ranks.
Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm has just joined the film. He’ll play Overkill’s husband, an inventor, who may or may not share his wife’s ambition for the domination of mankind. Either way, they’ll both have plenty of little yellow men to worry about. Read more details about the film’s plot below. Read More »
One of the more intriguing films being release this summer is Blue Sky Studio’s Epic. Featuring an insane list of voice talent (Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Christoph Waltz, Aziz Ansari, Chris O’Dowd, Pitbull, Jason Sudeikis, Steven Tyler, Beyoncé Knowles) the film tells the story of a young girl who finds herself in the middle of a battle for the forest filled with tiny warriors, bugs and all kinds of action. The trailers show that the film has the potential to be a great family adventure.
The Art of Epic book by Titan shows off a lot of the film’s designs, and they’ve given us four exclusive pieces of concept art. Check them out below. Read More »
Disney and Pixar got more than they bargained for with last year’s hit film Brave. They got a viable new franchise, a boatload of cash and even a brand new addition to their iconic list of Princesses, which includes Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine and others.
Merida, the star of the film, will officially be coronated as the 11th Disney Princess in a ceremony May 11 at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, FL. To commemorate the occasion, Disney has debuted a new look for the character. Check it out below along with more details. Read More »
Some Pixar fans have noticed that the set-up of Monsters University is inconsistant with the backstory presented in Monsters Inc.. How could Mike Wazowski and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan have met for the first time in college when there is a line in Monsters Inc about the duo knowing each other in the fourth grade? While I was visiting Pixar a couple weeks back, someone asked Monsters University director Dan Scanlon about this continuity error during a roundtable interview. Find out the story of how and why this happened, after the jump.
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The idea of a live-action remake of one of the movies by animation master Hayao Miyazaki might not be very appealing no matter who wants to make it, even if the project is based on one of the director’s projects that is best positioned for live-action.
But what about the idea of Miyazaki himself contributing to a live-action companion to one of his films?
Both of these ideas are now realities, with Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge) confirmed to direct a live-action version of the coming-of-age story Kiki’s Delivery Service, in which a young witch develops her skills and sense of self-worth after moving to a new town. Miyazaki, meanwhile, contributed a kaiju design for a live-action short that essentially acts as prequel to his early film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Read More »
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