Despicable Me & Minions

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Post by Ben » August 1st, 2010, 7:36 am

:lol:

Thanks, Mac. You don't know how long I tried to come up with something better. I just put it down that a bad film deserved a (really) bad pun! ;)

Yep, Sigourney sounded bored, and almost like she was just making it up! The film wrnt all over the place, and basically was about that rat character and not really about Despereaux at all. And what was that magic vegetable character thing all about? It was just a lot of everything and nothing of anything, with strange casting choices, stranger directorial choices, a bad script, ugh...it was just a weird, non-focused film that didn't make the most of any of its situations or characters. Some of the character animation was good at times, but nothing seemed to connect with their surroundings, and the bit-mapped look took away from some of the genuinely nice designs.

I noted Sylvain Chomet's name in the credits as a character designer: remember that he was going to make it as a traditional film until it was switched to CG. That's when he left, also down to some screenplay issues he had, and its not only easy to see why he left (for The Illusionist), but interesting to think of what might have been if he had stayed and been able to rework it as a classic animated film.


ANYWAY...back to Despicable Me, which by all accounts is a much better outing for Universal. I'm liking how they seem to have found their feet with off-beat fare like Coraline and 9, and now with their partnership on this film it looks like they may well finally make good on their many failed attempts to become an animation player.

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Re: Despicable Me (Universal)

Post by LotsoA113 » July 30th, 2011, 9:05 am

Was looking over the release scheadule for Summer 2013 and notiiced we have a new animated flick every other week. The newly announced Leaf Men, Turbo, Monsters University and Despicable Me 2.

Wonder which one's gonna be the biggest. Or maybe they'll cannibalize themselves and none will do well. Fascinating to ponder...even more so to see in action
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Post by Ben » July 30th, 2011, 2:06 pm

Well, both Monsters and Despicable 2 will no doubt do well on brand recognition alone. As for the other two, who's making them? They could either be Happy Feet-type releases from another big studio, or also-ran wannabes like Hoodwinked 2 and Alpha & Omega...

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Re: Despicable Me (Universal)

Post by LotsoA113 » July 30th, 2011, 3:02 pm

Surprisingly, Leaf Men is from Blue Sky and Turbo is from DreamWorks. So, understandably, it does feel like 4 titans crushing into each other.

Or maybe I'm just getting a bit too worried about nothing. As Gru himself might say "Chillax"
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Post by EricJ » July 30th, 2011, 6:10 pm

Now that I've got that new 3-D screen installed, I'd been wanting to download the 3-D stream from PS3 or Vudu, but....for some strange reason, Universal has suddenly and mysteriously pulled the movie from every single online VOD service. :?
Obviously the studio has some bigger exploitation plan in mind, now that it's been upgraded to an Immortal Money-making Studio Icon (and they lost Dreamworks), but sheesh, they coulda waited one more week. :evil:
LotsoA113 wrote:Surprisingly, Leaf Men is from Blue Sky and Turbo is from DreamWorks. So, understandably, it does feel like 4 titans crushing into each other.
Or maybe I'm just getting a bit too worried about nothing.
Remember how we first heard the press-release description of Turbo and thought "...Somebody's kidding us, right? :shock: " Make that THREE titans.
(And I'm reserving judgment on Leaf's "Titan" status until we see the art, or whatever final release title it gets.)

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Re: Despicable Me (Universal)

Post by estefan » July 31st, 2011, 12:54 pm

Well, we're still two years away from those releases. It wouldn't surprise if the studios separate the releases a tad. We're long past the days of Beauty and the Beast competing right against Fievel Goes West.

I expect DreamWorks will put Turbo in their usual May slot, while Leaf Men could fit in late July. Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 shouldn't be too big a deal where they're sitting, since Toy Story 3 and Despicable Me were released around that same date last year.

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Re: Despicable Me (Universal)

Post by LotsoA113 » July 31st, 2011, 3:44 pm

I genuinley am curious as to why Leaf Men isn't coming out in April. Rio did fantastic in that time-frame and they would have no competition for any demographic, whereas in May they have to compete with Fast and Furious 6 one week later.

Estefan brings up a good point too. Sulley and Gru could co-exist jsut fine.
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Post by estefan » July 31st, 2011, 5:33 pm

Kind of different demographics, though. Fast Five came out two weeks after Rio and the bird flick still held up (and both of them were set in the same city, no less!).

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Post by Ben » August 11th, 2011, 2:39 pm

Just when did Universal lose DreamWorks?

Actually, when did Universal pact with DreamWorks!? ;)

As usual, Eric never lets the facts get in the way of a stream of consciousness!

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Post by estefan » August 12th, 2011, 10:37 am

Actually, I think the Universal-DreamWorks partnership is from the early days of the studio's existence, up until Over the Hedge (my DVD copy of The Producers opens with a trailer for that one).

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Minions Movie

Post by James » December 7th, 2012, 9:18 am

Wow, I missed this one. Can they carry a whole film?

“Despicable Me’ Minions Spinoff Dated 2014
http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/untitle ... r-19-2014/

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Re: Minions Movie

Post by Macaluso » December 7th, 2012, 9:09 pm

Eugh god. The minions are the worst part

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Re: Minions Movie

Post by Bill1978 » December 7th, 2012, 9:55 pm

This is what I have feared for quite a while now with animated films. According to my spiderwebbed film memory i place this disturbing trend back to the original Madagascar (or is it bloody Scrat which is older??). Even since that movie, I swear the majority of animated films have inserted funny tngent characters for the sole purpose of creating a short movie for the DVDs. And now it seems they are getting a shot at the big time.

I'm not talking about true sidekicks, but those characters who appear in the movie and have they only little tangent subplot that when removed in reality the movie makes sense without it.

I liked the minions, i find them to be funny at the random times in the movie, but a whole movie. I'm currently in the no thank you camp.

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Re: Minions Movie

Post by Macaluso » December 9th, 2012, 1:20 am

Scrat is actually legit loony tunes style funny while the minions are literally torture

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Re: Minions Movie

Post by James » December 9th, 2012, 6:56 pm

Mac's right about Scrat, but still wouldn't want him to do a feature. Shorts are the right medium for all these guys.

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