by Emily Nagle
Come on Barbie, let’s go party! Over the past several days, pictures and videos from the ongoing “Barbie” film shoot in Venice Beach have made waves online, particularly on Twitter. Leaked photos depict costars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling – who play Barbie and Ken, respectively – sporting matching neon roller skates and athletic wear.
Principal photography for the film began in England back in March, at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden. However, this week the fantastic plastic feature has taken to California, where they were spotted filming various scenes, including one where Barbie and Ken are chased by a store owner while wearing vibrant Western apparel. The film’s plot has been kept under wraps, but speculations have been made based on leaked set photos; for example, after seeing Will Ferrell rollerskating in a suit and pink tie, fans and news sources have guessed that he will play a villainous character in the film.
Fans have also responded to the vibrant set pics with fan art and memes, as well as comments on the abundance of photos and videos. Some even joke that with all the pictures and videos circulating the Internet, the whole movie has been spoiled. One user wrote, “greta gerwig needs to send a cease and desist to filmupdates before we watch the whole barbie movie thru the tl”.
“Barbie” remained in development hell for over a decade. Plans for a movie based on the successful doll line materialized in 2009, but Mattel switched studios, directors, and writers so many times before getting to the point it’s at now. In fact, the film was first slated to release in June 2017 before getting delayed several times to July 2023.
The only detail that’s set in stone is that “Barbie” boasts an all-star cast. While Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, and Will Ferrell have all been spotted on set, sources have confirmed that the cast will also include Oscar winner Emerald Fennell, Simu Liu, Michael Cera, and Issa Rae.
As for the film’s story, all Robbie has said is that it’s nothing like what you think it will be, describing it as “a little left of center.” In a 2020 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Robbie explained that audiences will be surprised by “Barbie”, in the sense that “Something like Barbie where the IP, the name itself, people immediately have an idea of, “Oh, Margot is playing Barbie, I know what that is,” but our goal is to be like, “Whatever you’re thinking, we’re going to give you something totally different — the thing you didn’t know you wanted.”” The film is directed by Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”, “Little Women”), who co-wrote the screenplay with her partner Noah Baumbach.
by Emily Nagle
Top 5 Highest Grossing Films for Weekend of June 24-26, 2022
5. The Bob’s Burgers Movie ($18.1 million)
4. The Black Phone ($23.6 million)
3. Jurassic World Dominion ($26.7 million)
2. Top Gun: Maverick ($29.6 million)
1. Elvis ($31.2 million)
The last box office weekend of June saw the release of several new movies, two of which made it into the top 5 across the United States! First up, “Elvis” made it to number one in its premiere weekend, scoring more than $30 million.
“Top Gun: Maverick” soared to second best after being overtaken by newer releases “Jurassic World Dominion” and “Lightyear” for the past two weekends. After grossing nearly $30 million this weekend, the film has surpassed $500 million in the United States, and $1 billion worldwide. As a result, it has now beaten out “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” as the highest-grossing film of 2022. “Maverick” has been much better received than its 1986 predecessor, featuring newcomers Miles Teller and Jon Hamm, as well as stars from the original, including Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, and Val Kilmer. Due to Kilmer undergoing treatment for throat cancer back in 2014, the post-production team reconstructed his voice using AI to keep his character, Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, a part of the film. Cruise even told the directors that he would not return to the franchise unless Kilmer was returning as well.
“The Black Phone”, a horror film based on Joe Hill’s short story of the same name, made it to number four during its first weekend in theaters. Having grossed more than $23.6 million, it exceeded studio projections of opening to $15-20 million. “The Black Phone” stars Mason Thames as Finney, a teen who gets kidnapped by a serial murderer (Ethan Hawke), and then uses a mysterious disconnected phone to communicate with the killer’s previous victims while he figures out how to get back home.
by Emily Nagle
The Four Nations are returning to the big screen! Paramount and Nickelodeon have announced that three animated films based on “Avatar: The Last Airbender” are in the works.
At the Annecy International Animation Film Festival this morning, the animation divisions of both companies confirmed the news in a special presentation. Lauren Montgomery, a storyboard artist for the original series who also produced spinoff “The Legend of Korra”, is on board to direct the first film. Slated to produce the entire trilogy are series co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino, who exited the production of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the series citing ‘creative differences. These films will be created by Nickelodeon Animation’s own Avatar Studios, which was established last year specifically to create projects in the “Avatar: The Last Airbender” canon.
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” premiered on Nickelodeon in 2005, and aired on the network until 2008. During its three-year run on the channel, it was critically acclaimed, receiving several awards for its writing, animation, and themes. Since becoming available on Netflix in spring 2020, the show has experienced a resurgence in popularity, with a whole new generation of fans growing fond of it. The show is set in a world of elemental magic in which people are divided into four nations with the ability to manipulate their respective elements, which are as follows: the Water Tribe, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads.
The reason for the show’s timelessness over a decade later? Series creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko believe “Avatar’s” renaissance was due in part to nostalgia, but mainly thanks to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and an uptick in racial violence. The show was renowned for exploring advanced concepts most children’s media at the time left untouched, including genocide, imperialism, and freedom of choice; these themes relate to current events.
In en email to The Washington Post, co-creator Michael DiMartino wrote of the show’s evergreen subject matter, “The major issues in the stories — genocide, totalitarianism, systemic injustice, abuse — sadly, these have been pervasive issues throughout history and continue to be. The show is a reflection of our world.”
While this will be Avatar Studios’ first foray into the feature film world, this isn’t the first time “Avatar: The Last Airbender” has been adapted into a feature film; in 2010, M. Night Shyamalan wrote and directed a live-action film based on the show’s first season, titled The Last Airbender. Despite its $150 million budget (at the time of its release, it was the most expensive film Shyamalan had ever made), the movie ended up bombing at the box office due to its poor acting, lackluster visuals, and plot holes. To this day, it is still regarded as one of the worst films of the 2010s, holding a 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
With the creative team from the original series on board for the upcoming films, the animated “Avatar: The Last Airbender film” trilogy is sure to take the critically acclaimed fantasy show to new, exciting territories.
Ramsey Naito, president of animation & development at Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation, said in a statement, “As original creators Mike and Bryan expand the ‘Avatar’ universe with us, we’re keeping it all in the family with Lauren bringing the same kind of expert, beautiful work she did on the original series to her new directing duties on the forthcoming theatrical.”
In the meantime, episodes of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” are available to watch with a Netflix or Paramount+ subscription, as well as individually purchased episodes on Prime Video, Vudu, or Apple TV+.
by Emily Nagle
Top 5 Highest Grossing Films for Weekend of June 3-5, 2022
5. The Bob’s Burgers Movie ($2.5 million)
4. The Bad Guys ($2.5 million)
3. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($5.2 million)
2. Top Gun: Maverick ($51.9 million)
1. Jurassic World Dominion ($145 million)
The long-awaited final installment in the “Jurassic World” film trilogy, “Jurassic World Dominion”, came roaring into theaters across the United States on Friday night, knocking “Top Gun: Maverick” down to number two. It accrued nearly 40% of its total opening weekend gross on its opening day, when it racked up $59.6 million. Despite becoming the 8th highest grossing film of 2022 – it’s already grossed $392.5 million worldwide! – it was met with mixed to negative reviews from critics, who found the film to have a lackluster screenplay compared to its predecessors. Some critics are even dubbing it the worst installment in the entire “Jurassic Park” film series, having received a 30% on Rotten Tomatoes and 37% on Metacritic.
Even after getting dethroned from the top 5, “Top Gun: Maverick” is continuing full speed ahead in the worldwide box office. To date, it has grossed $748 million worldwide, making it the third top grossing film for 2022. It’s less than 40 million behind “The Batman“, so it may very well soar to number two soon!
by Emily Nagle
Ready your proton packs: An animated series based on the “Ghostbusters” franchise is coming to Netflix!
On Wednesday, as part of their virtual “Geeked Week” event, the streaming king announced that Sony Pictures, along with Ghostbusters: Afterlife co-writers Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan, are creating an animated series based on the franchise. The untitled show would be the third “Ghostbusters” series, having been preceded by “The Real Ghostbusters”, which aired from 1986 to 1991, and the short-lived “Extreme Ghostbusters,” which aired in 1997.
Details of the show’s plot have not been released yet, but the official Ghostbusters Twitter account teased that the series would explore “an unexplored era of the Ghostbusters Canon”. Who knows what kinds of supernatural adventures the show will take viewers along for!
The announcement came on the 38th annual Ghostbusters Day, celebrating the anniversary of the film’s premiere on June 8, 1984. Ghostbusters stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis as a team of parapsychologists-turned-ghost-catchers based in New York City, and was so financially successful that it sparked a franchise expanding beyond just films, branching out to include games, music, apparel, and even haunted attractions.
Netflix’s “Geeked Week” ends on Friday, June 10. The event is happening on all of Netflix’s social media platforms, including YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Twitch, and Facebook. To read more about the event, as well as view the showcases from each day, check Netflix’s “About Netflix” site!
by Emily Nagle
When “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” was served up to theaters on Memorial Day weekend, it made history as Disney’s first 2D feature-length film in over a decade, with their last animated feature being “Winnie the Pooh” back in 2011. Although the latter was produced by Disney’s own animation studios, while “Bob’s Burgers” is a product of their 20th Century Animation subsidiary, it’s still a breath of fresh air seeing a 2D film in theaters. Traditional animation used to be the standard, but now, in the age of Pixar and Dreamworks, fully 2D productions are hard to come by in movie theaters.
In an interview with The Illuminerdi back in April, series creator Loren Bouchard revealed the reasoning behind the film’s 2D visual style, explaining that he wanted it to feel like part of the series. He also mentioned how CGI has slowly become the unspoken norm for animated features.
“It’s not 3D. We didn’t change how we do the show,” Bouchard told interviewers. “It’s just a 2D movie, a lovingly made 2D movie, but just with more artists and more time and more care on each background, on each character…It looks to us, hopefully it does to the audience too, like some of the classic 2D movies. Which they’re not making that many of these days. So, we’re very aware that we’re part of a great tradition of filmmaking and we hope that the audience comes and sees that as something worthwhile. And that not everything has to be a CG movie. No offense to CG movies, you’re lovely. I watch you too.”
Bouchard is right – the animation creates a nostalgic feel reminiscent of films from the early 2000s. It reminds me the most of The Simpsons Movie, another summer blockbuster based on a popular adult cartoon. Just like “Bob’s Burgers”, it’s animated in a hand-drawn style to stay true to the long-running Fox animated series, even during scenes that appear 3D (including this impressive scene of an angry mob accosting the Simpsons’ home, which pans through the crowd to show over 300 distinct characters from the franchise!). The characters look the same as they do in the show, except slightly more detailed, with the addition of more shadows and enhanced lighting. When projected onto the big screen, the end result is stunning, eye-popping animation.
When creating a film based on preexisting properties, studios face a unique dilemma: what medium will they use to tell their story? Groening and Bouchard both elected to stick with traditional animation for their films in order to stay true to the series. Sticking to what people know is the usual approach animated franchises take when they make their foray into the feature film world. People cherish familiarity, and see the feature film as a slightly longer story with the characters they know and love.
For example, let’s go back to a title I mentioned earlier: Winnie the Pooh. Having been created entirely with hand-drawn animation, this sweet summer film ended up resonating with viewers young and old. The gentle, storybook-esque animation complements a tender story featuring one of the most well-known fictional characters of the last century. This made it hit home not just for kids, but also for their parents, who knew the Hundred Acre Wood friends from their own childhoods.
Some franchises have gone the opposite route, experimenting with a new medium for their trip to the big screen. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is an example of this; while the franchise’s first feature film over a decade prior used only traditional animation, this time the creative team dipped their toe into the CGI realm. The first half of the film features the Bikini Bottom gang in their usual 2D style, but when the gaggle of sea creatures makes their way out of the ocean, they are depicted in a CGI style as they navigate a live-action environment.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a mixed-media approach; it keeps viewers on their toes, and can put a new spin on the franchise. It certainly worked for Sponge Out of Water; critics praised the CGI, and personally, I got a kick out of seeing these cartoon characters in a completely different visual style. They didn’t look creepy (I’m looking at you, Sonic the Hedgehog). Instead, the 3D look added a whole new texture to the characters.
Despite this, a switched-up visual style is not always received well by audiences; many viewers found the computer-animated depictions of Timmy’s fairy godparents for one of Nickelodeon’s earlier projects, A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner!, to be lazy, appearing out of place against the live-action backdrop (however, it is a made-for-TV movie, so the team had less resources and budget). With that being said, the end product for a switched-up animation style really depends on how it’s executed.
So, what does the success of “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” mean for the future of animation? While it hasn’t broken the box office like “Top Gun: Maverick“, this movie is a big deal because it proves that 2D animation still has so much room for creativity, especially on the big screen. My hope is that other studios will go back to their roots, and give traditional animation another shot. CGI is improving rapidly, and has brought some incredible stories to life, but there’s something special about traditional animation. Every single detail, from shadows to textures, is placed there deliberately by a person, rather than being automatically generated by a computer. And that’s pretty incredible to think about.
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