Day of the Dead comes with Lively ColorMichael C. here. Eyebrows were raised when Pixar recently announced their slate of upcoming films. After two projects we already knew about – a dinosaur focused film now titled “The Good Dinosaur” (May 30th, 2014) and the film that takes place inside the mind – there was a new project, intriguingly described as Untitled Pixar Movie About Dia De Los Muertos.
The idea of the full resources of Pixar set to work on an animated film about the Mexican Day of the Dead is enough to get any film lover’s expectations soaring. Obviously, there is no promise the film will be any more artistically daring than the spooky yet family-friendly likes of Henry Sellick’s Coraline. But for now it is reason enough to hope we will soon have an affirmative answer to the question animation lovers have asked for decades:
When will mainstream American cinema finally accept adult animation?
I will not subject you to another rendition of that familiar tune about the rest of the world not holding our country’s prejudices about cartoons being just for kids. Suffice it to say the end of American animation’s extended adolescence is long overdue.
Disney appeared poised to take the plunge back in the Nineties. I am still stunned anything as mature as the tortured Catholicism of Hunchback’s “Hellfire” sequence found its way into a film with Happy Meal tie-ins. More after the jump
Tarzan likewise had glimmers of maturity in the relationship between the title character and Jane. But these were instances of one step forward, two steps back, with the more bold elements tied to safe gimmicks like wisecracking gargoyles and Rosie O’Donnell musical numbers. Then, when grosses declined from their early-Nineties heyday, Disney stepped back from the precipice completely with nary a toe stepped outside the safe confines of the family genre since. So how is it no other studio stepped up to the plate, especially considering the computer animation boom that followed in Toy Story’s wake?
After all, it doesn’t take much imagination to picture what a successful R-rated animated movie would look like with monster hits like 300 featuring so much CGI that for long stretches they may as well be animated. A quick glance at the box office charts answers that question. Of the 100 top grossing animated films only four are rated PG-13 or higher. Three of those have built-in audiences from TV (South Park, The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead) and the fourth is Beowulf, a box office underperformer that grossed 82 million domestically on a budget of 150 million. Other forays outside G and PG comfort zone like 9, Final Fantasy, or 8 Crazy Nights yielded similarly uninspiring dividends.
Can pixels turn us on? Beowulf thought so.
So with little hope the big studios will muster the nerve to go all out with an R-rated wide release animation, one can take consolation in the knowledge that the family fare is backing into mature material in small but clearly identifiable baby steps. Before the balloon house and the talking dogs adventure Up treats us to the life and death of a marriage complete with unfulfilled dreams. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is a story about a midlife crises disguised as romp for kids, and Rango puts in so many jokes and references for the parents that if it weren’t for the bold character design and wild action there would be nothing left for their kids.
Or, if one gets impatient waiting for big budget films to get there already they can always hope for a unlikely breakout hit from among the foreign and cult arthouse stuff, like Persepolis and A Scanner Darkly. Technology makes quality animation ever more attainable to indie artists, and all it takes is one movie to show there is money to be made catering to this audience and then there’s no going back.
Even if this Day of the Dead project is not the one to shatter the barriers, I still believe, perhaps naïvely, that Pixar has the daring to go for it should the right story present itself. Is there anyone out there who wouldn’t camp out overnight to see Pixar go full-on horror along the lines of Let the Right One In? Or anyone who doubts they would make a movie for the ages if they did? And hey, if Gore Verbinski and Wes Anderson get to direct animated films, why has nobody given Guillermo Del Toro a crack at one yet? Think of the possibilities.
You can follow Michael C. on Twitter at @SeriousFilm or read his blog Serious Film.