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Laika's "The Boxtrolls" topped the noms with a total of thirteen; the awards will be handed out January 31, 2015, in Los Angeles, California.

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The DreamWorks brand continues its free-fall in the United States: "Penguins of Madagascar" opened below all expectations in the U.S.

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I went to see Big Hero 6 last week, and it was a truly fabulous film!   If you haven't seen it you should go soon.  The movie stays on point never wandering, building steadily on a message that is made very real as you see the characters respond to the action that whirls into their lives.  I won't give anything away here, but you get to see the distinct results of two decisions as the characters are paralleled.  Big sacrifices.  Great stuff!

Also in an art related thing, I was glad to find that Jin Kim has a new tumblr page.  His blog had shut down some time ago, but the new page has some cool Big Hero 6 work on it.  From what I understand, these are sketches Jin Kim created translating the finalized character designs into multiple angle drawings for the model builders to reference.  Over the last few years I've really taken an interest in sculpture, so I enjoy these quite a bit, and I'm a big fan of Mr. Kim's work.

And keeping with the animation theme of this post, you should check out the short film Duet, by Glen Keane.  I had seen this a few months back and I recall reading an article where Glen Keane expressed an interest in exploring the possibility of keeping the integrity of the drawn line in animation.  Most completed films have the inked lines and colored cells, but the raw beauty of the gesture sketch is lost on an image refined to that point.  This film is one of the most beautiful things I've seen in animation.

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Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Big Hero 6 is the story of Hiro Hamada, a brilliant robotics prodigy who must foil a criminal plot that threatens to destroy the fast-paced, high-tech city of San Fransokyo. This new title in our popular The Art of series, published to coincide with the movie’s U.S. release, features concept art from the film’s creation—including sketches, storyboards, maquette sculpts, colorscripts, and much more—illuminated by quotes and interviews with the film’s creators. Fans will love the behind-the-scenes insights into Disney’s newest action comedy adventure.

• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (October 28, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1452122210
• ISBN-13: 978-1452122212

 

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In its sophomore frame, "Big Hero 6" surrendered its position atop the American box office to "Dumb and Dumber To."

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This past weekend, Disney released its newest action-comedy, Big Hero 6. The movie chronicles the special bond that develops between plus-sized inflatable robot Baymax and prodigy Hiro Hamada, who  team up with a group of friends to form a band of high-tech heroes.

Big Hero 6 has been getting tons of great reviews, and earned an impressive 88% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps most impressively, it beat out Christopher Nolan’s highly buzzed-about sci-fi epic Interstellar at the box office, taking an an estimated $56.2M in its first weekend. That makes it the second best cartoon opening of the year, trailing only The Lego Movie.

This isn’t just a win for Disney and Big Hero 6—it’s a win for diversity, and those who make the argument that diversity sells. Big Hero 6 takes place in a future “San Fransokyo” and features an extremely diverse cast of characters: Go Go Tomago, Tadashi, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and Fred. And, unlike some cartoons, it doesn’t whitewash its casting: the voices behind the characters are just as diverse as the characters themselves. Hiro, Tadashi, and Go Go are all voiced by Asian American Actors (Ryan Potter, Daniel Henney, and Jamie Chung, respectively) and the diverse cast is rounded out by Damon Wayans Jr. (Wasabi), Genesis Rodriguez (Honey Lemon), and Maya Rudolph (Cass).

That means, of the 10 top billed characters in the movie, 6 are voiced by people of color. That’s significantly higher than Hollywood’s standard dreary stats of underrepresentation. It also means that a movie featuring people of color in the top roles earned more money than a major blockbuster film starring several Oscar-winning actors and directed by one of the most famous directors in Hollywood. And not a very diverse one, I would add.

How’s that for proof that diversity sells?

Not everyone loves Big Hero 6. Some fans of the original comics were disappointed to see that while the characters in the original comic were all Japanese, Disney chose to recast some of the characters in the movie as other races. You can see more about the changes they made here. Was Disney afraid that a cast of all-Japanese characters might scare off the American moviegoing audience? We’ll never know.

Diversity done well can be hard, but it’s worth celebrating the wins even when they’re complicated. You may have noticed the Diversity 102 logo at the top of this blog post. From here on in, we’re going beyond the Diversity 101 story that everyone tells: there’s not enough diversity, there’s nothing out there, diversity doesn’t make money, people don’t care. It’s important to acknowledge that there’s work to be done, but the story goes deeper than that. There are many exciting things happening, and we want to spotlight them.

So, are you going to see Big Hero 6 this weekend? Did you see it already? What did you think?

Filed under: Diversity 102, Diversity, Race, and Representation, Lee & Low Likes, The Diversity Gap Tagged: Big Hero 6, Disney, diversity in Hollywood, movies

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Disney's "Big Hero 6," directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams, topped the United States box office with a first weekend gross of $56.2 million.

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced yesterday afternoon that 20 animated features have been submitted for Oscar consideration in the 2014 animated feature category.

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Some Disney employees who work in Imagineering got an early jump on Pixar's next film "Inside Out" and dressed up as the film's main characters.

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"The Book of Life" scored $10 million in its second weekend, which was good for 5th place at the U.S. box office, while "Big Hero 6" opened strong in Russia.

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Disney released a second full-length trailer today for "Big Hero 6."

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With eight months of the year nearly passed, we're beginning to get a clearer sense of who the major contenders will be in the upcoming award season.

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The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) is putting a special emphasis on animation this year, and has announced that Disney's "Big Hero 6" will be the opening night film of their 27th edition.

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The first full trailer for Disney's "Big Hero 6" is out today!

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A look at the work of Jeff Turley, Cartoon Brew’s Artist of the Day.

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Here's the teaser for the Marvel-derived "Big Hero 6," Disney's next animated feature which will be out in November.

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Released today: the first images from Disney's next animated feature, the Marvel Comics-based Big Hero 6, directed by Don Hall ("Winnie the Pooh") and Chris Williams ("Bolt").

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Today’s Cartoon Brew Artist of the Day post is sponsored by the CG Master Academy. Sign up TODAY for The Art of Color & Light which is co-taught by Ryan Lang.

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Ryan Lang works as a visual development artist at Walt Disney Animation, including on the upcoming Disney/Marvel pic Big Hero 6.

Ryan did extensive work on Wreck-It Ralph, and his concept art helped to realize the world and objects of the film, as seen in these examples:

Ryan shares some of his personal work and digital/traditional paint studies on his blog:

These menacing figures below won’t appear in a Disney film anytime soon, but they show his range as an artist:

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This afternoon, Disney announced release dates for all of its animated features produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar through 2018. The two studios will be responsible for fifteen theatrical releases over the next six years. During the previous six-year period (2007-2012), Disney and Pixar released a total of 12 films.

Here’s what we know so far based on available information:

• Pixar’s Monsters University – June 21, 2013

Disney’s Planes – August 9, 2013

Disney’s Frozen – November 27, 2013

Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur – May 30, 2014

Disney/Marvel’s Big Hero 6 – November 7, 2014

Pixar’s Inside Out – June 15, 2015

Pixar’s Finding Dory – November 25, 2015

Disney Untitled Animation – March 4, 2016

Lee Unkrich’s Untitled “Day of the Dead” project – June 17, 2016

Disney Untitled Animation – November 23, 2016

Pixar Untitled Animation – June 16, 2017

Pixar Untitled Animation – November 22, 2017

Disney Untitled Animation – March 9th, 2018

Pixar Untitled Animation – June 15, 2018

Disney Untitled Animation – November 21, 2018

(via @ERCboxoffice and /Film)

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The Walt Disney Company has offered a first look at their upcoming animated superhero feature, Big Hero 6, an adaptation of an obscure Marvel Comics property of the same name. The CG film, directed by Disney veteran Don Hall (director, Winnie the Pooh; story supervisor, The Princess and the Frog), is described as “an action comedy adventure about brilliant robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada, who finds himself in the grips of a criminal plot that threatens to destroy the fast-paced, high-tech city of San Fransokyo. With the help of his closest companion — a robot named Baymax — Hiro joins forces with a reluctant team of first-time crime fighters on a mission to save their city.”

While Big Hero 6 has a release date of November 7, 2014 you can take the sneak peek-iest of sneek peeks below:

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The recent rumors which seem to confirm a Guardians of the Galaxy motion picture seem to have been foretold by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  A search for “Guardians of the Galaxy” shows twenty registrations, many of them made since 2010.  (Here’s an example.)  The most recent was made June 15, 2012, for

IC 042. US 100 101. G & S: Computer services, namely, creating an on-line virtual community for registered users to participate in and hold competitions, showcase their skills, improve their talent, participate in incentive award programs, get feedback from their peers, form virtual communities, trade, buy and sell virtual goods, conduct virtual tours, facilitate interaction among users, rank users, engage in social networking, and participate in on-line discussion boards; providing temporary use of non-downloadable software to enable viewing, previewing, sharing, manipulating, and creating blogs regarding computer games via global computer networks and electronic communication networks for use in connection with computers, mobile computers, media players, cellular phones, wireless devices and portable and handheld digital electronic devices; Providing temporary use of non-downloadable software to enable viewing, previewing, sharing, manipulating, enhancements for computer games, online games, and game applications and information relating to computer games and game enhancements via global computer networks and electronic communication networks for use in connection with computers, mobile computers, media players, cellular phones, wireless devices and portable and handheld digital electronic devices

Sounds a bit like the recent Avengers Facebook game…

If one searches for “Marvel Characters, Inc” as the owner, then all of Marvel’s filings appear.  What, besides GotG show up?  Why are they significant?

Well, a trademark does protect a title and character name from being used by another company, like “Captain Marvel”, especially in licensing and marketing.

So, if there are numerous filings, then it’s probably something big, which will generate lots of merchandise, like a movie.  If it’s just one or two filings, then it’s probably to claim a title.  If it’s for toys, clothing, or other merchandise, especially for a specific title or character, then it’s probably due to appear on the big and little screens.

The USPTO uses this classification for comic books:

IC 016. US 002 005 022 023 029 037 038 050. G & S: Comic books; Printed periodicals in the field of comic book stories and artwork.

Such as for the title “Villains for Hire” (filed November 2, 2011).

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This is interesting!  Usually, Marvel just registers a name.  This logo was filed on August 9, 2011, for what seems to be a media logo. [IC 041. US 100 101 107.]  Also for IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038; IC 016. US 002 005 022 023 029 037 038 050; IC 028. US 022 023 038 050

Might this be a new “Marvel” logo for a new product line?  It’s a bit over-the-top… a triumphant eagle on top of the world, with that “bow tie” letter on the bottom.

Nope…  Google searche

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