The state and future of animation

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by GeffreyDrogon » September 7th, 2021, 7:59 pm

If small animation studios can't afford to do marketing to make people aware of who voices what characters in an animated film, then why did the trailer for Arctic Dogs dedicate a part of the trailer to listing the actors voicing the characters in the film?

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by Randall » September 7th, 2021, 11:18 pm

A trailer isn't a TV or radio ad - those cost real money to air, and reach the largest audience. And making a trailer is not the same as distributing it.

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by EricJ » September 8th, 2021, 12:47 pm

And, since it's minor work (and/or probably dubbed) being billed in the marketing is likely part of the actor's salary to demands to do the "marketable" American-actor voices.

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by GeffreyDrogon » September 8th, 2021, 5:47 pm

But still, if you bill the names of the stars on the cast and mention their names in the trailers for the advertising, wouldn't people come see them?

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by GeffreyDrogon » September 8th, 2021, 6:56 pm

Why isn't DreamWorks Animation making more religious films? It definitely has the resources to, but why didn't they despite the success of The Prince of Egypt?

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by Randall » September 9th, 2021, 12:35 am

GeffreyDrogon wrote:
September 8th, 2021, 5:47 pm
But still, if you bill the names of the stars on the cast and mention their names in the trailers for the advertising, wouldn't people come see them?
No.

First of all, lack of ad budget means few will see those trailers or ads.

Secondly, as I said before, for the most part, no one actually cares who voices an animated film. And a film that looks lousy will not be saved by having a "name" voice actor.

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by Randall » September 9th, 2021, 12:36 am

GeffreyDrogon wrote:
September 8th, 2021, 6:56 pm
Why isn't DreamWorks Animation making more religious films? It definitely has the resources to, but why didn't they despite the success of The Prince of Egypt?
They made Joseph, King of Dreams. (Granted, it was a direct-to-video release, but I don't think they really wanted to put all their theatrical eggs into the religious basket.) It likely did not sell well, or they would have done more.

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by Ben » September 9th, 2021, 4:42 am

Prince Of Egypt was not a massive hit, making "only" around $100m, which wasn’t more than Disney's tradigital movies were making then, and not enough to recoup the startup costs of DWA. Released almost at the same time, Antz made more money. King Of Dreams was then downgraded to a DTV and, when that didn’t do well (mostly because no one knew about it), a planned series of similar films (Jonah was in development) were cancelled.

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by GeffreyDrogon » September 9th, 2021, 1:15 pm

But didn't The Prince of Egypt make more money then Antz? It made over $100 million domestically and over $200 million worldwide, while Antz made less than that.

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by GeffreyDrogon » September 9th, 2021, 1:25 pm

I'm also guessing reliance on international audiences is another reason why DreamWorks Animation doesn't make religious films anymore.

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by EricJ » September 9th, 2021, 1:31 pm

And if we say that Prince of Egypt was miles better than Antz, we know which well-worn circular rut it's going to go into, let's move on...

Also, around that same time, by the early 00's, the "Passionistas", politically-motivated red-state fanboys of Mel Gibson, were trying to push their own concocted media narrative of "This PROVES that Hollywood has discovered the box-office success of religious films!"
So, New Line jumped on the bandwagon with the live-action "The Nativity Story" for the Christmas season, which sank immediately without a trace. Okay, so much for that strategy.

Granted, this was after DWA had buried JosephKOD so far under the radar, most parents had no idea what it was on shelves, but should give you some idea.

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by ShyViolet » September 9th, 2021, 3:42 pm

Yeah, but from what I remember, they frequently sold both DVDs as a two-pack.
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by Randall » September 9th, 2021, 9:21 pm

GeffreyDrogon wrote:
September 9th, 2021, 1:15 pm
But didn't The Prince of Egypt make more money then Antz? It made over $100 million domestically and over $200 million worldwide, while Antz made less than that.
BoxOfficeMojo says you're correct.

However, both were successful, and you didn't' see DWA doing anymore insect movies, either.

Oh, dang. Bee Movie. Of course, that was more of a project brought to them, wasn't it?

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by Ben » September 10th, 2021, 3:01 am

Yes, Egypt made about $50m more than Antz (I was thinking of Bug's Life, duh!), but as Rand says, it wasn’t like one was a flop and the other made twice as much. Both were successful enough, though neither was a breakout hit: back then the domestic take was what was all-important, and both struggled to make it past the magic 100m dollar mark.

Bee Movie was Katzenberg wanting to work with Seinfeld. They went to him asking for ideas, and then he came up with doing bees. Bee Movie also didn’t do too well: theatrically it didn’t cover its budget and it wasn’t until home video that it inched into the black, hence no more Seinfeld or bee pictures.

For any film to warrant a sequel, it has to *easily* hit past $100m, and cover its budget, which many films actually don’t ever quite do, or only just. It’s the big, massive takers that keep the wheels whirring, and it’s those huge films that hit the zeitgeist (meaning they become cultural phenomenons and/or are talked about outside the usual film circles) that almost automatically get sequels and become franchises.

In short, to answer the previous question, Prince Or Egypt did not make enough money. King Of Dreams was downgraded to a DTV, Jonah was scrapped entirely, and DWA went where the CG money was, because as respected as Egypt was, and even though it may not have made more money, Antz was the movie that everyone was talking about, mostly because it just looked so different and quirky and had a lot of names in it that you just didn’t usually hear in animated films. And it was really only the second big studio CG film to come along after Toy Story, so it had the novelty factor too, and certainly pointed more in the direction that DWA films would take moving forward.

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Re: The state and future of animation

Post by GeffreyDrogon » September 10th, 2021, 11:16 am

Why is only Disney making remakes of animated films? Why can't it buy Studio Ghibli or negotiate to make a remake of Spirited Away or other SG films?

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