DreamWorks Animation head honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg has a lot to be smiling about these days. Madagascar has reaped over $400m in worldwide box office receipts, and now it seems, that division of the studio is on a roll.
A group of journalists, including our LA correspondent Paul Fischer, was recently invited to check out some upcoming product, and the response was more than favourable. Here's his report:
"As a huge fan of the classic, Oscar-winning Aardman Wallace and Grommit shorts, the first feature film of the pair was the one that I personally was looking forward to the most. The eager gathered media saw the first 15 minutes of the film, and the initial results are nothing short of sensational. Featuring both the established voices of the short, Helena Bonham-Carter and others join this comic fray as Wallace and silently astute Grommit, have a successful business capturing rabbits, humanely. Full of the quirky, delightful humour that made Nick Park's shorts so memorable, the claymation animation has developed an even richer style than the company's Chicken Run.
The new Wallace and Grommit film is typically idiosyncratic, full of wonderful physical and character-driven humour. The film will be screened at next month's Toronto Film Festival, and will be released in October. It's a Fall release that fans look forward to.
Flushed Away is also from Aardman, and their first attempt at CGI. Yet that studio from England's north, still maintains its own, comical anarchic style, which still emerges from the brief clips and test footage we saw. Lead voices are provided by Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet in this story of 2 rats who find love travelling through the sewers orf London. A kind of comic version of the classic African Queen, Jackman is at ease in the more Hepburn role while Winslet is the gruffer Bogie type,. British class seems a dominant theme of what could be quite the charmer, but at it's heart it's a very British film which hopefully translate across the Atlantic.
Finally, we saw bits and pieces of Over the Hedge, which is based on a popular American strip and is pure Hollywood, as it tells of the reluctant friendship between a shy, sensitive turtle [Gary Shandling] and a more mischievous raccoon [Bruce Willis]. From what we saw, the CGI comedy looks as brisk and comic as the studio's Madagascar, with its somewhat fish-out-of-water theme. Featuring some wonderful voice talent, including the priceless pairing of Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy, not to mention Nick Nolte and William Shatner, the film could be another hit for the studio.
In all, based on the superb footage we saw in al three films, fans of animation have plenty to look forward to."
Thanks to 'Paul'.
