Animation News: Pinocchio, Up, Golden Globes, Pacific Rim, and More

Pinocchio's Troubled Premiere

• 🎭 A bizarre promotional campaign for the 1940 film Pinocchio involved hiring little people to dress as the character and perform on a theater marquee.
• 🍻 This event reportedly devolved into drunken, gambling, and semi-naked chaos, which Disney attempted to hush up.
• 👮 A former NYPD captain's son corroborated the story, adding details about his father having to arrest the performers.

Disney Live-Action and Animation Updates

• 🎬 Luke Evans has been cast as the Coachman in Robert Zemeckis' live-action Pinocchio remake.
• 🎶 The Beauty and the Beast prequel series for Disney Plus will be titled Little Town and feature music by Alan Menken.
• 🏆 The Golden Globe nominations for Best Animated Feature included The Croods: A New Age, Onward, Soul, Wolfwalkers, and Over the Moon.
• 📺 Netflix's new animated series Pacific Rim: The Black is a computer-generated anime-style show based on the franchise.
• 🌟 Craig McCracken's new Netflix show, Kid Cosmic, is a serialized half-hour animated series that has been highly recommended.
• 🏙️ City of Ghosts, another Netflix show, features a distinctive, documentary-like style set in Los Angeles.
• 🎬 Studio Ghibli's Earwig and the Witch received a mixed reception, with the sentiment that even a flawed Ghibli film is better than none.
• 🕵️ TMS Entertainment is digitally releasing the first Lupin the Third feature, The Mystery of Mamo, for the character's 50th anniversary.

Pixar's Creative Process and Character Development

• 💡 Pixar struggled to find the right resolution for the villain in the 2009 film Up, specifically for the character Charles Muntz.
• 🧪 Early ideas for Muntz's longevity included magical eggs and a need to eat them to stay young, which was eventually discarded.
• 💥 Pixar debated how to kill off Muntz, considering options like him getting lost in a rock maze (the "shining ending"), being trapped in a falling house with dogs, or ascending to the heavens via balloons.
• 💀 Ultimately, a compromise was reached where Muntz gets trapped in balloons but still falls to his death, though the filmmakers were tired of the villain falling off-screen trope.

Animation and Effects in Storytelling

• 🏔️ The mysterious deaths of nine Russian mountaineers on Dyatlov Pass in 1959 may have been solved with the help of Frozen's FX team.
• ❄️ Animators used their snow and avalanche simulations to demonstrate how a massive snow slide could have caused the decimation at the campsite.
• 🎬 The original script for Disney's Tarzan had a completely different third act, involving Tarzan returning to London and a confrontation at Clayton's manor house.
• ❓ Filmmakers sometimes struggle with core story elements late in production, as seen with the mystery of who was calling Anna in Frozen II.

Honoring Industry Figures

• 🇨🇦 The passing of Christopher Plummer at 91 is noted, highlighting his iconic roles as Captain Von Trapp and his animation work, including narrating The Man Who Planted Trees and voicing characters in An American Tail and Rock-a-Doodle.