It was revealed in September that Fox sealed a deal to take over from Paramount Pictures as the distributor of upcoming films from DreamWorks Animation. The plan is to release three films a year, for a total of 12 CG-animated films over 4 years, beginning next year.
IGN had the opportunity to head over to the Fox lot recently for a special event previewing DWA's 2013 slate.
They are as follows:
- The Croods for March 22, 2013.
- Turbo for July 19, 2013.
- Mr. Peabody & Sherman for November 1, 2013.
We were treated to both full sequences and several clips of the animation in various stages of completion, with the directors on hand to fill in the story gaps. The projects each had a distinct feel and tone and I imagine that (despite the fact that they are all ultimately family films) they will appeal to a variety of audiences.
We began with Mr. Peabody & Sherman.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman:
Director Rob Minkoff introduced the film with a teaser designed to remind fans of Mr. Peabody and Sherman’s origins on Jay Ward’s Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends. For those who are unfamiliar: The basic premise is that Mr. Peabody, the world’s smartest dog, has adopted a young boy named Sherman to raise. Minkoff had always been a fan of the reversal of the traditional roles of boy and dog, and embraced the opportunity to bring the pair to present-day audiences.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman original animation.
The lights went down in the Daryl F. Zanuck Theater and the screen opened on the classic 1959 Mr. Peabody & Sherman animation. After a few moments with the original characters, the camera pulled back to reveal that our modern day Sherman (voiced by Max Charles) is watching the screen and wondering who this boy and dog are, remarking that they look familiar. Mr. Peabody (voiced by Modern Family’s Ty Burell) steps in to explain that, indeed, Sherman is seeing both himself and Mr. Peabody in the past. When the boy asks how that is possible, the dog/genius replies that the answer to that question can only be found in the future – when their movie is released.
In the film, as in the television series that inspired it, Mr. Peabody has invented a time machine he calls the WABAC (pronounced “wayback”) so that Sherman can witness world-changing events first hand.
The story opens with the pair on one of their traditional adventures. They travel to the French Revolution to meet Marie Antoinette and, as Minkoff explains it, “when Sherman wanders off in search of cake, they wind up on the wrong side of the peasant uprising."
Antics ensue. Mr. Peabody finds himself on the business end of a Guillotine where he is forced to devise a brilliant escape. He does so via a rapid fire series of Sherlock Holmes-esque observations and deductions. Once he is free, Robespierre gives chase, which results in an elaborate mini-battle replete with swords and jaunts through sewers. Finally, Sherman learns that history is often built on misunderstandings and that the books frequently get it wrong.
Though time travel does indeed make a history buff out of young Sherman, it does not make him very popular with the school’s (former) ace student - Penny Peterson (voiced by Ariel Winter). Sherman shows Penny up in class, inciting an all out war between the two would-be brainiacs. They have an altercation, and when she calls him a “dog” (reasoning that if his dad is a dog, then so is Sherman) he retorts by biting her arm. The parents are called in to intercede.
At this point both Mr. Peabody and the audience are introduced to the villain of the piece: Ms. Grunion (voiced by Allison Janney), a woman with clear canine bigotry issues. Grunion is a social services worker who threatens to take Sherman away if his dog-guardian can’t get him in hand.
Mr. Peabody decides that it’s best to bring both the children and their parents together to settle this matter in a civilized manner. Best laid plans. Sherman, in an effort to win Miss Penny Prissy-pants over, shows her the WABAC, at which point she insists that he take her somewhere in time…
"Mr. Peabody has the Petersons eating out of the palm of his hand when Sherman returns alone," Minkoff elaborates. "Peabody asks Sherman quietly, 'What happened to Penny?' and he explains that he lost her in ancient Egypt. Mr. Peabody and Sherman set off to rescue Penny and thus begins our time-traveling adventure that will see our characters go to places and times such as the Italian Renaissance and the Trojan War. But time travel is a dangerous business and what ultimately hangs in the balance is the fate of the entire universe."
Cue ominous music with a whimsical cartoon flair.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman will likely appeal to those who feel some nostalgia for Rocky and Bullwinkle’s "Peabody's Improbable History" vignettes, which featured Mr. Peabody introducing Sherman to a new historical event each episode.
Ty Burrell and Max Charles embody the tone of the original characters: Peabody’s clipped, analytical speech patterns are set against Sherman’s enthused, if naïve, responses. The humor arises from their natural differences, the inherent reversal of form and the outlandish circumstances that they find themselves in.
In one of my favorite moments from the footage, Sherman tells Mr. Peabody that he loves him the evening after his misadventures at school, to which the ever logical Mr. Peabody responds: “I have a deep regard for you too, Sherman.”
Given that the original concept invited kids to find a way to enjoy learning about history, parents will likely appreciate it.
For the rest of us, there is a natural charm to the characters and the story. The animation (though unfinished) looked especially rich and crisp set against the 1950’s hand-drawn originals. The jokes didn’t feel quite as modern and quick as we’re used to in our animated films, but Mr. Peabody & Sherman has a supporting cast packed with comedy powerhouses, including Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann and Mel Brooks. So we imagine that the film will be punched up a bit by the time of its release.
Turbo:
Now on to Turbo, which feels a bit like A Bugs Life meets Cars. It’s “the secret world of” garden snails where one snail is determined to rise above his limitations and fulfill his “dreams of racing glory.”
During his introduction, director David Soren called the film “a mash-up of superhero and racing genres.” He went on to say that, “at its heart it's an underdog story in the vein of classics like Rocky, The Karate Kid and, my personal favorite, Breaking Away.”
Ryan Reynolds voices the titular snail, who through a freak accident, is gifted with super speed (thus, the superhero element of the piece).
In the opening sequence we see little Turbo watching the Indianapolis 500 in the San Fernando valley home next to the garden where he lives. He mimics both the race itself and the driver during the press conference following his victory as he watches. He then decides to Rocky-up and challenge himself to beat his own time in a sprint. Which he does…17-minutes later.
He is interrupted by his brother Chet (voiced by Paul Giamatti) who instructs him to stop fantasizing and get to bed.
Soren explains that, "Turbo's a dreamer and Chet's a realist.” Adding, "Turbo's an outcast in the snail community and Chet's a respected member of it." The friction between the two brothers, one who loves the status-quo and one who rails against it, is a major throughline in the film.
We next see Turbo gazing longingly at the cars speeding down a Los Angeles freeway, wishing he could be one, or at the very least be driving one. He prepares to turn and go home, only to fall onto a truck and begin a journey that lands him right in the middle of a street racing competition at the bottom of the LA river basin.
When he is sucked in to the engine of one of the competing cars, Turbo takes an unscheduled nitrous bath and comes out glowing, with his very DNA altered. Not only is he granted super speed, but like Spider-Man or the Fly, he emerges with many of the characteristics of the suped-up race car. His eyes are headlights, his body is equipped with an alarm and his heiny has tail lights.
Later, Turbo and his brother Chet have been captured by Tito (Michael Pena), brother number one of the Dos Bros taco truck. Luis Guzmán voices brother number two. The Dos Bros storyline will likely parallel Chet and Turbo’s, with Guzmán as the practical business man side of the coin and Pena as the dreamer.
Tito takes Turbo and Chet to an underground snail racing competition where Turbo is finally able to show off his extraordinary abilities. Blown away, Tito is certain he can make his fortune off of the little snail that could. His brother advises him to focus on selling tacos.
Meanwhile, the gang of snail racers, which includes leader Whiplash (Samuel L. Jackson), Smooth Move (Snoop Dog) and Burn (Maya Rudolph) goad Turbo into an evening of smack talk and an unsanctioned race to the top of a neon sign. The adventure is set to House of Pain's Jump Around and by the end of it, Turbo is sufficiently impressed with the crews’ aerial skills and completely enamored with his new friends. Chet is less so.
My favorite line was Whiplash’s: “Your trash talk is unnecessarily complicated.”
Despite the fact that most critics (including myself) don’t connect with it, kids love Pixar’s Cars franchise. Love. So, I feel like Turbo actually could be the one to beat at the box office for animated films. In addition to the racing element that seems to appeal to kids, Turbo has some of the liveliest and most contemporary feeling characters and jokes. The animation is vibrant and enjoyable to watch, and it has that classic theme of an outsider finding his way that works so well in these films.
The Croods:
During The Croods presentation we screened a full half-hour of the Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco-directed film. In addition to being the most extensive preview, it was the only one presented in 3D.
To me, The Croods is Clan of the Cave Bear meets National Lampoon’s Vacation, or, How to Train Your Dragon meets Vacation (Sanders co-directed HTTYD).
This one is feels like the wild card in the bunch.
The film follows a prehistoric family in the fictional “Croodaceous era” who are forced to leave the cave that they’ve spend most of their lives hiding in when it's destroyed as a result of seismic shifts on the Earth.
The family is lead by patriarch Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage) who has kept them alive in an environment that, as the opening sequence illustrates, threatens death at every turn. If it’s not sharp claws and fangs or boulders that get you, it’s the common cold (which wipes out the cave-next-door).
Grug’s family includes wife Ugga (voiced by Catherine Keener), son Thunk (voiced by Clark Duke), pain-in-the-butt mother-in-law Gran (voiced by Cloris Leachman), a grunting animalistic baby named Sandy and a rebellious teenage daughter, Eep (voiced by Emma Stone).
Stone narrates the 2D animated open (which is designed to look like a moving cave painting) and is the family’s internal catalyst for change. She is bored and wants to do new things. She, like most adolescents, longs to break away and have an adventure. Grug, on the other hand, operates by two very simple rules: stay in the cave and don’t trust anything new.
But the world is literally changing (the continents are shifting and land is disappearing beneath them) and so these, the last of the cave people, must go on what Sanders refers to as “the world's first family road trip” to find a new home.
Grug has his heart set on a cave. Enter Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds again), a boy Eep met when she snuck out one night, who fears that the end of the world is near and wants to head for the mountains. Guy is clearly another step up on the evolutionary ladder (he can make fire and wears shoes) and must help the family survive outside of the cave and enter the new era that is beginning.
Of course, first he must get past the fact that Grug knocked him out and kept him trapped in an empty log, and that when he tried to run, Eep hunted down and caught her man – literally.
The animation in The Croods is the most unusual I’ve seen in some time. First, they don’t shy away from letting the family truly resemble Neanderthals. Their teeth are overlarge and crooked and they are literally knuckle draggers who grunt and scratch and otherwise appear to be about two-steps-removed from the primates (though the V.O. work is very straight). Guy, with his strait spine and technological savvy (traps and the aforementioned fire), is there to illustrate that The Croods are the last of a fading species.
Second, the animals in the created world are a striking and colorful hodgepodge of imagined evolutionary stages and straight-up fantasy.
"It's a time of great experimentation," Sanders says. "It's like Mother Nature's R&D period. You're going to see a lot of animals and creatures that are either on their way to becoming extinct or animals that you're going to recognize today."
The time and place that the film imagines is unusual, but the family dynamics are very familiar, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it all ultimately comes together when the film is released.
The Croods opens March 22, 2013 followed by Turbo on July 19 and Mr. Peabody & Sherman on November 1.
Roth Cornet is an Entertainment Editor for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @JRothC and IGN at Roth-IGN.
Source : ign[dot]com
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