With two new teasers out from two of the most reliable animation studios, Pixar's Coco (their last original for the next few years -sigh), and Aardman's Early Man, it's time to begin speculating about what the animated medium will bring us this year? What might Oscar fancy?
The tentative schedule and teasers are after the jump...
Release Schedule:
Feb 10th Lego Batman Movie (WB)
Mar 31st The Boss Baby (Fox/Dreamworks)
Apr 7th Smurfs: The Lost Village (Sony/Columbia)
Apr 14th Spark (Open Road/Toonbox)
Apr 14th My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (GKids)
An odd but unique one, previously reviewed on the festival circuit
Jun 2nd Captain Underpants (Fox/Dreamworks)
Jun 16th Cars 3 (Disney/Pixar)
God help us all.
Jun 30th Despicable Me 3 (Universal/Illumination)
The first film fell short of an Oscar nomination but the sequel received two (Animated Feature and Song). But the animation branch hasn't warmly embraced sequels to work they've already nominated though their have been exceptions (Kung Fu Panda and How To Train Your Dragon).
Aug 4th The Emoji Movie (Sony/Columbia)
God help us all. The Sequel.
Aug 4th Blazing Samurai (Open Road)
Aug 18th The Nut Job 2 (Open Road/Toonbox)
Sept 1st Animal Crackers (Entertainment One)
You are what you eat. Or you become it in this case as people are transformed into the animal they eat
Oct 6th My Little Pony (Lionsgate/Hasbro)
Nov 10th The Star (Sony/Columbia)
This is about the "unsung heroes of the first Christmas" which means it's about the animals involved in the Nativity story like the donkey who carries Mary to the manger and such.
Nov 22nd Coco (Disney/Pixar)
Looks like Pixar will be jerking tears from audiences yet again. Lovely animation on that guitar playing.
Dec 15th Ferdinand (Fox/Blue Sky)
This is based on the same classic children's book that already won Disney an Oscar in the short category with their perfect lovely and funny Ferdinand the Bull (1938). It's hard to imagine a feature version but we'll see.
TBA - AND IF IT'S FINISHED IN TIME
The Breadwinner (Cartoon Saloon)
Cartoon Saloon has only made three features but two were Oscar nominated jaw dropping beauties (Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells). This feature, based on the bestseller by Deborah Ellis about a young Afghan girl who disguises herself as a boy to provide for her family, is their first without Tomm Moore in the director's chair. He's producing this time and another Cartoon Saloon partner, Nora Twomey is directing.
OSCAR?
All in all 2017's slate is without any obvious Oscar players but for Coco. Will it be an easy walk to the win for Pixar or will something else surprise us with its quality or popularity? Oscar usually goes for 1 or 2 indie or foreign entries in animated feature but we generally don't hear much about those ones until festival season in the fall. It'd be an ideal year for GKids or Cartoon Saloon to finally nab gold with something great if Coco doesn't live up to expectations.
P.S. Aardman's Early Man, their 7th feature, is actually going to take a bit longer, stop motion being painstaking which is but one of the reasons we love it so, so that one isn't due until 2018. Still it's something to keep in mind. Aardman has made six features to date but they haven't kept a regular home with a big company the way Pixar has with Disney so it's been a bit erratic. They started with Dreamworks, moved under the Sony umbrella and now they're with StudioCanal.
Their previous six features: Chicken Run (still their biggest hit), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (their Oscar winner), Flushed Away (their big flop), Arthur Christmas, and the recent Oscar nominees The Pirates and Shaun the Sheep Movie.
Here's the teaser.
Early Man will have to compete for the 2018 Oscar nominations with Wreck-It Ralph 2, Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs, yet another big screen version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Disney's Jack and the Beanstalk movie Gigantic, and the long awaited Incredibles 2.