creature comforts Tagged Articles at Cinematical
New Noah's Ark Flick -- From the Point of View of the Animals!
Filed under: Animation », Family Films », Religious »
The story of Noah and the flood will be told a million more times in some medium or other. But following the disappointment of Evan Almighty, it seems a little soon for a new movie version. Sure, Evan wasn't exactly a strict adaptation of the Bible tale, but it was based enough on it to make audiences not so hungry for another Ark adventure. Yet, according to Variety, Unified Pictures (Don't Move) has announced plans to do a computer-animated Noah's Ark, which will be scripted by Philip LaZebnik, who has worked on Dreamworks' Biblical kids film The Prince of Egypt and Disney's Pocahontas and Mulan. Religious films, whether live-action or animated, can be hit or miss, but like Evan Almighty, this new project is not a straightforward telling of Noah and the flood; instead it will focus on the story from the point of view of the animals. Personally, I love the idea. But I'd love it much better if it was coming from Nick Park and Aardman Animation. It would be like Creature Comforts ... on a boat. The connection between Unified and Park exists: the indie studio has worked many times with Northern Arts Entertainment, which distributed a lot of Aardman shorts, including Park's Wallace and Gromit films. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that dream will happen. Unified seems pretty set on making a CG pic that resembles those made by the big studios. The best way of doing that, of course, is to get some familiar comedic voices involved. If this pic is more successful than Evan Almighty, perhaps we'll then get to see a greenlight on Darren Aronofsky's own Noah's Ark movie, which he's been interested in doing since he was 13.
Dreamworks and Aardman Partnership Gets Flushed Away
Filed under: Animation », Comedy », Shorts », Family Films », Dreamworks »
Everyone knew it was coming. Following the disappointing box office of Flushed Away, there was speculation that it would happen. And now it is certain: Dreamworks has cut Aardman Animation loose. Sadly, the studio is now also citing the weak performance of the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as an added reason for the end of the partnership. Aside from winning prestigious awards, that film made more than $192 million worldwide (actually, only $20 million more than Flushed Away). I guess when you're used to Shrek 2-size figures ($920 million), though, a lot of numbers look small. I'm not too worried about Aardman. They were doing amazing work before the Dreamworks deal, and they'll do amazing work after. The animation studio still has a thing going with CBS, which is sitting on seven episodes of a Creature Comforts series, which I think is based on Nick Park's Oscar-winning short. However, there may not be any features from Aardman for awhile. I was very upset to learn that Crood Awakening, which was co-written by John Cleese and was to be the next Aardman feature, is being left behind at Dreamworks, where it will presumably be shelved for good. I'm sure that Dreamworks is hoping the Shrek movies will never lose their steam, but I just can't believe that there's much more to do with those characters.
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