The state and future of animation

[EricJ]

Also, only two stop-motion films in the 90's/00's ever became a hit with audiences, and both were directed by Henry Selick.

(Except for Nick Park's Wallace & Gromit movie, which wasn't a hit because we were expecting better.)

[GeffreyDrogon]

But didn't the highest-grossing of the stop-motion animated films, Chicken Run, come out in a time when CG wasn't the norm?

[GeffreyDrogon]

Why did Warner Bros.'s executives come up with the idea of featuring various WB properties in Space Jam: A New Legacy? Did it have to do with trying to replicate the success of Ralph Breaks the Internet? Does this mean that many other major film studios are go try that formula of incorporating characters from their film libraries as well? I can't imagine Fievel, Littlefoot, and Balto hanging out with Gru and the Minions as they try to take down the Indominus Rex or Katniss Everdeen encountering Kate and Humphrey and Norm in an arena run by Jigsaw.

[Daniel]

For a moment there I thought you were referring to Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Now that would be something! But of course you mean the two leads from Alpha and Omega... although their names are a nod so that's kinda funny.

[Ben]

Or, as we call him, Humpty Gokart!

[GeffreyDrogon]

I've been wondering if there are some streaming services or websites where I can watch animated films and shows that specialize in animation? I want to do that because the free streaming services don't have much content that's animated and I don't have the money to pay for a full streaming service. What do I do?

[Ben]

Er…look at the billions and billions of choices on YouTube…?

Literally everything is on there in some form or other. And it’s all, y’know, FREE…!

[EricJ]

Why did Warner Bros.'s executives come up with the idea of featuring various WB properties in Space Jam: A New Legacy?

Because Warner now only makes movies about Other Warner Movies.
The 10's are over, but they still do.

[GeffreyDrogon]

Are other studios going to try making movies featuring characters from properties they own like Space Jam 2 and Ralph Breaks the internet?

[EricJ]

If Sony could still work one of the Smurfs into "Pixels", I wouldn't put it past them, either.

[Bill1978]

I'll be honest I get a kick out of seeing WB roll out The Iron Giant, as a major IP, in any of these types of movies. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie. I recommend the movie to anyone who listens, I think it is one of the best animated movies of all time but I wasn't aware that it had such a huge recognition factor to include its appearance in trailers. I kinda equate it to if Disney decided to use Eilonwy to promote Ralph Breaks The Internet (over all the other Princesses). Sure us animation geeks would love it, but the general public??

Is the Iron Giant the late 00s version equivalent of FernGully? A movie that wasn't a blockbuster, no one chooses to talk about it but once mentioned people remember watching it on TV as a kid and it stirs up memories of their childhood?

[Randall]

Maybe, but it could just be that it's fondly remembered by directors like Spielberg.

[Ben]

Obviously Iron Giant found a sizeable audience after the fact, so WB know that the property is kind of like the geek favorite that wider audiences know, even if they couldn’t name it exactly. So it ticks more than a few boxes, knowing that the fans think they’re being thrown a bone, but with WB knowing that they’re also doing that with a property that isn’t exactly totally obscure, so it’s a win-win. And if anyone doesn’t get it, then it’s just a cool-looking giant robot from any number of historic giant robot Hollywood films from the 40s onwards.

I think the awful Space Jam 2 merely took the original film's concept further and, being that we now live in a world of cinematic crossovers, takes it to its logical conclusion by including characters from the studio's whole library rather than just its library of Looney Tunes characters that the first one did. Really, only Disney and Warners now have the massive IPs to do this, and as Free Guy proves a couple of times, the execs and creatives are still in that golden period of "oh, hey, we own that too now, so let’s just throw everything in and make lame jokes"!

I doubt we are going to see many other studios trying to do this, as they just don’t have the IP. Sure, we may yet get crossover franchises, like the rumored John Wick meets Atomic Blonde thingy, but right now it’s mostly just Disney and Warners' playground, and the idea of the internet and servers and everything "living" in there provides the obvious, but lazy, way for everyone be connected. Well, as long as they are owned by the right studio…!

[EricJ]

Is the Iron Giant the late 00s version equivalent of FernGully? A movie that wasn't a blockbuster, no one chooses to talk about it but once mentioned people remember watching it on TV as a kid and it stirs up memories of their childhood?

No, Iron Giant was the Into the Spiderverse of its day: The non-Disney/Pixar animated movie you had to actually go and butts-in-seats SEE to find out it was revolutionarily pretty-darn-good, since the release and (especially, in Iron Giant's case) marketing had sabotaged it, fostered underground cult loyalty from the brave few that did, and rode its legacy to home video ever since.
I'll leave it for other Warner-nostalgic Cat-heads to tell the story of how Warner didn't have a clue how to sell the movie, tried to pitch it to their afternoon-kids audience, and didn't exactly look like an improvement over their other bad 90's-wannabe animateds. (I can't remember whether we'd just had "The King & I" yet, which was a big step in sinking the entire 90's-wannabe genre.)

Ferngully, OTOH, we smelled for a badly overmarketed 90's Wannabe right from the ads:
Like "The Pagemaster", Fox had caught on that you could sneak a generic 90's Wannabe past the parents if you promoted some cheap "educational" message, but even Save-The-Rainforests couldn't woo us past our "SEEN it!" cries of Robin Williams as a comic relief.
("But he was in it before Aladdin!" And that looked like the one thing they hadn't stolen from 90's Disney.)

[Dacey]

But Spider-Verse didn’t have its marketing “sabotaged”…

I’m confused. Again.