Animated films which are not kid-oriented
- Thread starter BlackLegSanji
- Start date
I would think that the costs of making a Mo-Cap type of a project would have to come down to the $20M range before the type begins to replace the "real actors". When Zemeckis made "Polar Express", it cost ~ $200M. He then tried to set up his own company that specialized in Mo-Cap features but it was eventually closed down by the distributor (Disney). Of course, their last feature was "Mars needs Moms", a $130M loss.
Hypothetically speaking, hiring an actor for a 2-hr Mo-cap session + half a day of voice-over work could make these films financially feasible once a photo-realistic/uncanny valley type of a look is achieved.
As to a traditional animation, whether hand-drawn or CG, the costs of many modern hits is already down to the $50M-$70M range from what was once $200M+. Once again, if/when a decent looking feature can be made on ~ $20M budget, a lot more projects will see the light of day.
And, once they go under $10M, it'll be all you see.
Hypothetically speaking, hiring an actor for a 2-hr Mo-cap session + half a day of voice-over work could make these films financially feasible once a photo-realistic/uncanny valley type of a look is achieved.
As to a traditional animation, whether hand-drawn or CG, the costs of many modern hits is already down to the $50M-$70M range from what was once $200M+. Once again, if/when a decent looking feature can be made on ~ $20M budget, a lot more projects will see the light of day.
And, once they go under $10M, it'll be all you see.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
Some people here may be too young to remember when Disney couldn't put out an animated feature worthy of its moniker, and the company had to rely on re-releasing their classics while distributing more adult fare using other nameplates like Touchstone. Then came the animation renaissance with films like Beauty and the Beast, and suddenly in the 1990s it seemed that every studio had an animation division churning out 2-4 pictures a year. The problem is that there is huge overhead associated with animated films because they take so long to create. Most of those animation divisions were absorbed or shuttered after a few years, and even Dreamworks Animation was just recently sold and consolidated. It's really hard to make an animated film anyway, so making one with a potentially-limited audience by making it more adult fare is not a particularly economically interesting concept to a studio. Frankly they'd mostly like to turn their adult fare properties into something more kids would like anyway, hence your Marvel Universe and even films like Suicide Squad are mandated to come in with a PG-13 rating so that as many tickets can be sold as possible.
Before this silly thing known as the Internet was a thing, short films were shown at festivals and there was even collections of shorts that made the rounds as feature presentations on the art house circuit (yes, there used to be a thing called the art house circuit which was a made up of one or two independent cinemas in each decent-sized city where foreign films and American independent films were shown). These used to be a haven for animation, and it was where I got my introduction to a lot of interesting experimental work. Artists who worked in various formats would also try their hands at animation, as a 5 minute piece was on the scale of something they could tackle. This is where films like Bambi Meets Godzilla first reached an audience (Marv Newline, who went on to many other interesting works). It also served as a stepping stone for artists, such as a young kid named Tim Burton who made a short animated work about his hero, Vincent (as in Price). Burton moved into features but most animators either turned to other art forms or got hired into commercials and music videos.
Some of the animation collections I recall seeing over the years included The Tourney of Animation, The International Animation Festival, and the big one, the Festival of Animation. There's still one vestige of this animation heyday left: The Oscars still has separate categories for Best Short Film and Best Animated Short Film.
Before this silly thing known as the Internet was a thing, short films were shown at festivals and there was even collections of shorts that made the rounds as feature presentations on the art house circuit (yes, there used to be a thing called the art house circuit which was a made up of one or two independent cinemas in each decent-sized city where foreign films and American independent films were shown). These used to be a haven for animation, and it was where I got my introduction to a lot of interesting experimental work. Artists who worked in various formats would also try their hands at animation, as a 5 minute piece was on the scale of something they could tackle. This is where films like Bambi Meets Godzilla first reached an audience (Marv Newline, who went on to many other interesting works). It also served as a stepping stone for artists, such as a young kid named Tim Burton who made a short animated work about his hero, Vincent (as in Price). Burton moved into features but most animators either turned to other art forms or got hired into commercials and music videos.
Some of the animation collections I recall seeing over the years included The Tourney of Animation, The International Animation Festival, and the big one, the Festival of Animation. There's still one vestige of this animation heyday left: The Oscars still has separate categories for Best Short Film and Best Animated Short Film.
Here's one of the latest "photo-realistic" game trailers (in German, but that's because it's the best looking trailer I could find) - Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon.
It's been in development since 2012, with a Feb/March 2016 release. The next series of major titles is going to be in 4K, as both the X-Box and the PlayStation have announced support for 4K and the Blu-Ray technology. The development costs can range from $50M to over $200M. Of course, the per-hour of running time costs are much lower.
PS. In the 1980's, Disney had an interesting strategy with their classics - one video release per year and any unsold VHS copies went back to Disney with no permanent inventory on the retail shelves and no rentals. So, your either bought it or were SOL. IIRC, they were retailing at ~ $30 but the nationwide chains usually sold them at cost or even at a minor loss of ~ $16-$18. It was a major traffic generator and the total sales were in tens of millions of units. A total cash cow for Disney.
It's been in development since 2012, with a Feb/March 2016 release. The next series of major titles is going to be in 4K, as both the X-Box and the PlayStation have announced support for 4K and the Blu-Ray technology. The development costs can range from $50M to over $200M. Of course, the per-hour of running time costs are much lower.
PS. In the 1980's, Disney had an interesting strategy with their classics - one video release per year and any unsold VHS copies went back to Disney with no permanent inventory on the retail shelves and no rentals. So, your either bought it or were SOL. IIRC, they were retailing at ~ $30 but the nationwide chains usually sold them at cost or even at a minor loss of ~ $16-$18. It was a major traffic generator and the total sales were in tens of millions of units. A total cash cow for Disney.
Bruce Watson
Veteran
In the US, I think it's largely (still) the association of Disney animation with kids movies. My in-laws hated animation with a passion because anything animated was "for children". They missed out on some interesting and quite good movies due to this preconceived notion of theirs. Yet, this was one of their "great truths". You know how prejudice is -- it's not about logic, it's about emotion. You can't argue them out of it, and facts (examples) don't matter. It is what it is. Sigh...
And Disney, bless their tiny little hearts, knew how to work those emotions to their advantage. They practically owned the kid's movie market in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, both animated and live action. But these were for kids only. They bored adults silly. An hour and a half of The Absent Minded Professor (the same Fred MacMurray who stared opposite of Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity -- my how the mighty have fallen indeed) would drive many an adult to insanity (I saw it when I was a kid and it bored me). I suspect it was these live action Disney kids movies that soured several generations on anything Disney, especially animations. And because animations and Disney went hand-in-hand, these generations were completely against animations of any kind.
Shame, that. They have missed out on some really fine animation work. The best of it works cross generationally. Kids can get something out of The Iron Giant or The Incredibles, but these aren't just kids films; adults love them too. What The Incredibles says about the world of work goes right over the kids' heads (I sincerely hope, they'll learn what that's about all too soon) but all the adults get it.
I wonder how much the kids get from Up and Wall-E. There's considerably more adult content here than content for children. For example, the first 30 minutes of Wall-E has zero dialog. And you want an examination of the thanklessness of corporate work? Here's one. I don't know what kids make of this. (BTW, Wall-E is a Ben Burtt masterclass in sound design. Holy cats.)
There are some adult only animations, like Heavy Metal, and some wonderful Anime from the East, my favorite being a 26 episode Hajime Yatate masterwork called Cowboy Bebop that played on Japanese TV (only watch the first season -- you've been warned). Cowboy Bebop is an outstanding example of the potential of animation for adult story telling. If you do nothing else with your exploration of this question, rent or buy (six DVDs) Cowboy Bebop. Pet Ein for me.
Another reason for the lack of animations for adults is perhaps the "uncanny valley". The animation production teams seem to really want realism, but they haven't quite gotten there yet. Personally, I think the reason to do animations is to free oneself from realism, so I find this sort of perplexing.
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
I'll put in a contrary data point... I do not find many of the 50s/60s Disney films 'boring'. In fact I much prefer the 1960 version of "The Parent Trap"(1961)... of course I did have a preteen crush on Hayley Mills having seen her in "Tiger Bay"(1959). I have always felt Hayley Mills got short changed by becoming 'Disneyfied'.
And such films as "Lady and the Tramp"(1955) and "100 and 1 Dalmatians"(1961) were viewed by adults and 'children' alike.
I still can watch "The Absent Minded Professor"(1961) and "Son of Flubber"(1963) and again, the more recent remakes for me 'fall flat' ("Flubber"(1997)).
Speaking of which the wiki gives this:
Son of Flubber was a critical and commercial success. It grossed $22,129,412[1] at the box office, earning $7.1 million in theatrical rentals,[4] making it the 7th highest grossing film of 1963. The film currently holds an 86% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.[
It didn't get to that box office by just being kiddy matinee fodder. And # 6 on that 1963 top grossing list... is "The Sword in the Stone"(1963).
To be sure, because of the major shift in the viewing public, with the end of the Hays Code controls, Disney did not keep up, and by the end of the 70s was on the ropes.
In terms of number of times viewed by me, it would be a dead heat for "Mary Poppins"(1964) and "Sound of Music"(1965) (not a Disney film... but still... not New Wave French by way of Neue Welle Fassbinder Deutsche Cinema...).
Jimmy Pierce
Well-known member
Saw all of them and they're very entertaining! More intellectual teenagers would probably enjoy some of these too. I'm sure this has already been mentioned but animation is STRONGLY associated with family entertainment. Would you make a animated film that a large percentage of familes would go see with their kids and spend lots of money on snacks before the movie and arcade games after the movie or one that is competing with live action adult oriented movies?
All of these were released theatricall but had limited releases. I'm not sure how wide a release American Pop received. Three of them are foreign, though.
All of these were released theatricall but had limited releases. I'm not sure how wide a release American Pop received. Three of them are foreign, though.
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