Glut of cute films fails to animate audiences

Laura Holson in Los Angeles

October 4, 2006
WITH more than a dozen computer-animated movies being readied for release by mid next year, Hollywood is facing viewer fatigue worthy of Sleeping Beauty. Now, with so many movies for audiences to choose from, some are failing to meet expectations or flopping outright.

Disney's The Wild proved anything but, bringing in only $US37 million at the US box office. A bigger disappointment was The Ant Bully, produced by Tom Hanks and distributed by Warner Brothers, which took only $US27 million. While the debut of Open Season, the tale of a grizzly bear and a deer who battle hunters, brought in $US23 million ($31 million) last weekend for Sony Pictures, putting it in first place, only time will tell whether it is widely embraced by moviegoers.

Over the past five years, almost every major film studio has sought to make or acquire the type of movies pioneered by animation studio Pixar, which was recently acquired by Disney. But while animation continues to be popular with families, audiences complain movie plots and characters looking increasingly alike.
And talking animals, it seems, may be wearing out their welcome.

Computer animation is not the novelty it was a decade ago. "I think audiences are saying, 'I've seen a lot of computer animation and it's not so special any more,"' said Julia Pistor, executive producer of Barnyard, a modest hit that earned $US71 million in the US. "In that case, it's a lot harder for a movie to break through."
Both Pixar and its main rival, DreamWorks Animation, continue to dominate the genre because their brands are widely known and highly regarded. But even they are feeling the pinch. Though Cars was a hit, bringing in $US243 million, even it failed to live up to expectations. The stock price of DreamWorks is down about 12 per cent since the company went public in 2004. Box office figures show how central Disney and DreamWorks are to the animation business. Monitors Nielsen EDI said 2004 was a banner year for animation, with domestic box office receipts of $US1.2 billion. That success was largely due to the release of DreamWorks' Shrek 2 and Shark Tale, and The Incredibles from Pixar.

Last year, the US box office fell by half, to $US640 million. Pixar did not release a film that year, and DreamWorks' Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was a flop.
As of last month, animated films had taken $US928 million in the US. But there has been a rise in the number of films - with 17 films released compared with last year's 11. And the latest crop looks a lot like a zoo, with Warner's Happy Feet, featuring tap-dancing penguins, and two about rats - DreamWorks' Flushed Away and Pixar's Ratatouille - which follow the hits Over the Hedge and Ice Age.

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90 seconds on the road to eternity

By Nirit Anderman
When Doron Meir was a boy, his father used to drag him to the cinema as an excuse to watch cartoons. He knew that if he entered the hall in which "Fantasia" was playing without a child at his side, people would stare at him awkwardly. Animation, many then thought, was strictly a children's affair.

Several years have passed since, and today Meir, 33, is an animator who fulfilled many of his colleagues' dreams: He worked on a full feature animated film, in the tradition of the films Disney Studios used to produce back when he was a child. Although he was only one of dozens of animators who worked on the film "Asterix and the Vikings," which premiered six months ago in Europe, he still feels highly privileged. The production of such a film, with a budget of several dozen million dollars, is quite rare these days.

Most of the animated features produced in Hollywood in recent years are computer-animated films, created with advanced three-dimensional imaging programs. The production of an animated film, with dozens of animators working on thousands of drawings, is considered a financial gamble most studios don't rush into. The animated films and series still created today are mostly marketed to the television industry, and produced on relatively low budgets, requiring shortcuts and tricks to reduce the production's expense.

Meir left Israel two years ago and relocated to Denmark in order to work on "Asterix and the Vikings." "I accepted the offer because of my love for the Asterix books, which I have known since childhood, and also because I wasn't sure how many more opportunities like this will present themselves. Today, the entire world of animation is shifting to 3D, and I wanted to take part in a movie like this one, still done in two-dimensional animation," he says.

"I think this is the largest animation production, budget-wise, done in Europe to date," says Meir, now visiting Israel. "The goal was to create quality animation, on par with Disney, meaning that if you have 21 frames a second, then in each one, you draw the whole frame from scratch. In most TV-ready animation series produced today, they draw the body only one time, and what changes from one drawing to the next is the way they draw the mouth, so it looks like the figure is talking. This is limited animation, less convincing, and the coloring and backgrounds are also poorer."

'My heart leans toward 2D'

After he finished his work on the film, Meir joined a Danish animation company which develops 3D computer games, among them the successful "Hitman" game series. Tonight he will participate in a series of lectures at the Tel Aviv Camera Obscura school. Meir will lecture on the role of the animator in computer games, the Tel Aviv Animation Festival's curator, Dudu Shalita, will speak of animator training in an age of change, and animator Dror Lazar will survey new animation technologies.

When Meir is asked how he thinks the battle between 3D computer animation and hand-drawn animated films will be decided, he confesses that until a few years ago he believed that the traditional 2D animation was facing extinction.

"Today when someone decides he wants to animate, the easiest thing to do is to get a computer with 3D software and start working," he explains. "On the other hand, if you want to animate in 2D, you first have to sit and learn how to draw for a few years, then you need the equipment - camera, special desks - and it's much more complicated, it's a very large obstacle. On the other hand, I believe that the 3D animation taking over the animation world in recent years is merely a trend, and that in a few years it will change. 2D did not catch on in recent years simply because not enough good films were made using this technique. Besides, I don't believe that you can be a good 3D artist if you cannot also draw 2D animation. It's just like you need to know how to draw to be a good sculptor.

When he is asked about which animation he prefers, 2D or 3D, Meir takes his time. "After years of working in 2D, I realize it's very hard work, it wears you down, and I found out that I like to combine 2D with 3D, to switch between the two. But my heart leans toward 2D. Granted, it's more demanding work, and it takes me longer to produce the desired product - but therein lies my holy grail."

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Is there an animation overload in Hollywood?

Laura M. Holson / New York Times
Advertisement

Mike Hernandez has had it with the new offerings of animated movies.
Other than "Cars," the summer hit from Pixar Animation Studios, he would rather watch the re-released older animated classic "The Little Mermaid" with his 4-year-old daughter, Alicea.
"They had a good message," Hernandez said of "Cars" and "The Little Mermaid" after attending a recent afternoon matinee of "The Little Mermaid." Of other, newer films, he said, "I don't pay too much attention."
With more than a dozen computer-animated movies being readied for release by next summer, Hollywood is facing viewer fatigue worthy of Sleeping Beauty. Analysts and industry executives have long warned of a coming glut of computer-animated movies. That time has come. Now, with so many movies for audiences to choose from, some are failing to meet expectations or flopping outright.
This summer's "The Wild," from the Walt Disney Co., proved anything but for moviegoers, bringing in only $37 million at the domestic box office. The bigger disappointment was "The Ant Bully," produced by the actor Tom Hanks and distributed by Warner Brothers Entertainment. That movie could only garner $27 million.
Over the last five years, almost every major film studio has sought to make or acquire the type of movies pioneered by Pixar, which was recently acquired by Disney. At the same time, independently financed animators have ratcheted up production. But while animation continues to be popular with families, audiences complain it is suffering from too much sameness, with movie plots and characters looking increasingly alike.
"I think audiences are saying, 'I've seen a lot of computer animation and it's not so special anymore,"' said Julia Pistor, an executive producer of the recent "Barnyard," which was a modest hit, bringing in $69 million domestically. "In that case it's a lot harder for a movie to break through."
Both Pixar and its main rival, DreamWorks Animation, continue to dominate the animation genre because their brands are widely known and highly regarded. But even those studios are feeling the pinch. Though "Cars" was a hit last summer, bringing in $243 million domestically, it failed to live up to prerelease expectations.

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