#when you're just so lee that they can't take it like whaaaa !!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 4 months

Text

THE WILD ROBOT, the new Chris Sanders animated adventure from DreamWorks - adapted from Peter Brown's book series, finally carries a rock-solid official release date, and it's one a lot of us were suspecting for a while:

September 20, 2024...

Nice to see a DreamWorks movie actually get a concrete release date. Everything else is still weirdly up in the air. *But* it's actually good to get the date when you KNOW you're going to make it, otherwise, you're just whetting the mouths of investors. It appears the movie is full speed ahead, and the only thing that could possibly upset its final months of production is a possible animators/VFX strike when the Animation Guild contract is up in July. Maybe the movie will be finished by then? Who knows.

Anyways, it's probably smart that they locked the date around this time, instead of saying 2-3 years out that it's going to be released on a very specific date... And that's how you get the "c'mon, whaaaa?" when, say, Pixar delays something for a full year and a half. DreamWorks movies moved back years tons of times, they're quieter nowadays on what's on the horizon. If it were like 2013-times, we'd see a slate that goes up to 2028 and would be stacked to the brim with titles.

We don't even know if half of the titles DreamWorks announced were the works over the past 3-5 years are still even happening. THE WILD ROBOT announcement came right out of nowhere, throwing off *any* predictions I might've had about what the 2024 not-sequel movie from them would be. (I previously predicted RONAN BOYLE, from director Fergal Reilly.)

While there are rumblings of Universal/DreamWorks releasing movies on specific dates, some of which are unsourced as far as I'm concerned, the Universal website is up to date and only lists the studio's two 2024 movies. Nothing is hard-set for 2025 and beyond.

So... Anyways, fantastic news!

On the other hand...

Either Walt Disney Animation Studios is buckling up for an animator/vfx strike, or they are set to do some course-correction...

They appear to be, via an updated release schedule, skipping 2024 altogether. This comes from a pretty reliable scooper, but I want to take it with a grain of salt 'til the trades themselves or Disney say something:

Now, it could be a small error, because Pixar's Disney+ series WIN OR LOSE is entirely absent from the list... and this list includes a bunch of undated Disney+ shows... and that series is supposed to be out next year... Plus... There are some typing errors here and there, too, and usually Disney's theatrical slates are just for theatrical - no streaming. The presentation here isn't clean: There are some hyphens next to titles, no hyphens at all, some that are a combination of two. Usually the Disney slates have a nice clean presentation. Like this, for example...

I know, the example I used is very outdated, I'm just illustrating a point. So yeah, it could very well be fake...

But, given how STRANGE WORLD and WISH turned out at the box office, maybe course-correction is happening at that studio. Whatever that may look like... Evaluation on why the last two films didn't connect? The way they were released? Jennifer Lee stepping down as CCO? Less baby-ifying their movies during test screenings? I don't know. Whatever decision they make, I don't work there, I can't protest it, but I'll probably have my piece to say on here lol.

Either way, if true, that'll be a historic skip. Disney Animation only missed fall 2020 by a hair because of COVID-19, RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON would've been a Thanksgiving release that year but ended up opening in March 2021, sharing the year with the studio's fall title ENCANTO. So that's more of a world circumstances-driven thing than a creative/management one.

Disney Animation sat 2015 and 2017 out, as Pixar put out two those years: One in the summer, and one in WDAS' usual Thanksgiving slot. WDAS released two films in 2016 (ZOOTOPIA and MOANA), and they were *supposed* to release two in 2018 as well, but only released one: RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET. So that was a gap right there.

But ever since MEET THE ROBINSONS in 2007, they try to get one out a year, and typically in the Thanksgiving slot. The two exceptions were THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (an inexplicable early December release, should've went to Thanksgiving instead that OLD DOGS movie, could've probably had more ground to run) and WINNIE THE POOH. (spring in Europe, in the summer against HARRY POTTER 8 in North America) But they don't always have to aim for that frame, and I think that sometimes hinders them. And as STRANGE WORLD and WISH show, it's not always a lucrative time to open something. If audiences don't want to see it, the choice of release date really does not matter.

But again, we'll see. I'd like them to take a breather and figure out how the next of batch of films will be, but I'll wait til official word gets out on this...

0 notes