How to Train your Dragon

[Bill1978]

If I had worked on Dragon, a part of me would have felt a little hollow with the success. A part of me would be wondering about the Disney 'boycott' and how it helped my little film that could.

Having said that, happy to see Dragon win so many awards. Before I saw Tangled it was my favourite animated film of 2010. And it's one of those rare occassions (for me) where I'll happily watch a Dreamworks movie over and over again (strangley the other one is Monsters Vs Aliens). At least I can understand the appeal of Dragon, unlike the surprise buttkicking Panda gave WALL-E. Hopefully Dreamworks can relfect on the amount of love given to Dragon and realise that not all their animated films need to be knock around hip comedies.

[ShyViolet]

Not specifically Dragon-related but has to do with DreamWorks/Paramount:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainme ... 7974.story

[Dacey]

Wait, there's another "SpongeBob" movie in the works? That's news to me!

[Ben]

That's extremely interesting: for all the talk of Rango, I keep forgetting it's a Paramount release (all I keep thinking about is that it's ILM's first animated picture...finally!) and that this could have DreamWorks implications.

DWA seems to have gone overboard on announcing new properties in the past few weeks. I wonder if this adds any fuel to the fire that suggests JKatz is looking for a way out of DWA via an outright sale?

It certainly looks like Paramount is heading further into animated territory: Charlotte's Web was very profitable for them and if they can launch a franchise or two, it would be difficult to also handled DWA's projected two or three films a year.

[estefan]

I don't see this happening. DreamWorks Animation's works make a whole lot of money for Paramount. It doesn't make financial sense for them to let it go. And if they also distribute their own, what's the problem? In this day and age when almost all animated films are hits, it's a good idea for a studio to have a whole load of them being released throughout the year.

[Ben]

Not when they start to compete with themselves, though! And Paramount doesn't make a whole lot of money from DWA's films...they just get a percentage for distribution. They can take the whole gross from a self-made film, which makes quite the difference. If Paramount ramps up animated production it would actually damage them to have too much product coming out through their deal with DWA.

[CGIFanatic]

All of this talk sounds like deception or chest thumping to me.

Frankly, I think someone is trying to make lemonade from lemons from the situation because there is no way Paramount can with a straight face say that trading the distributing rights of DWA films (a billion dollars WW each since 2007) is equal to that of distributing ILM films (who has minimal track record in the animated feature area).

I understand the Sponge Bob part of the equation because that makes sense but the rest of it is smoke and mirror most assuredly.

[ShyViolet]

Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold discuss HTTYD 2:

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/deblo ... 200495206/

[ShyViolet]

Jay Baruchel on HTTYD 2:

http://www.slashfilm.com/jay-baruchel-i ... first-one/

Sounds like it could be something great! Really excited!

[ELIOLI]

Assuming most of you have seen the teaser? Tons of new info cirrculating the web of new VAs and story plots!

[ShyViolet]

Saw it, loved Hiccup's new design! But I'd rather wait to see the movie fresh rather than reading about it ahead of time, even though it's a year away. That's what I did with 1 and had a great time!

[ELIOLI]

Meaning by "new info", it's nothing spoiler-ish. They wouldn't reveal too much this early. Just new characters and such. Still really curious how the story will play out. Haven't visted in a while either! hah.

[Bill1978]

It's interesting that this teaser offers nothing new (except for an older Hiccup), tells me nothing about the plot and yet the sites I frequent have not bitched at all about the lack of information about the movie, in the way people have with Frozen's teaser. And yet both do a good job of telling people there is a movie coming up you might be interested in, keep an eye out for more info later.

[ShyViolet]

In-depth interview with JK; discusses technology, 3d, plus a little HTTYD 2:

http://www.worldscreen.com/articles/dis ... sanimation

[Ben]

Bah! Requires a subscription...

BTW, I caught a bit of the Dragons TV show the other day, and I can't say I was very impressed. The animation - as always on lower budget fare - was better on the secondary characters but the whole feel wasn't epic enough. I know the second film will match or surpass the first in terms of visuals, but I just hope the story will also be worthy enough...I like how the characters are older, a rarity in animated films, so they're off to a good start.

Also, not really related, but Blue Sky's Epic turned up on BD this week: I'll add that to The Lorax, Hotel Transylvania, Rise Of The Guardians, Ice Age 4 and I'm sure another couple that I haven't gotten around to seeing yet, with Turbo, Despicable 2 and Planes still to come this year! Woah, I'm going to have a fun time when my home theater project finally gets completed!