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Up Sets Course For Number Two On The Animated Film List

16 June 2009 6:30 PM, PDT | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

Hit family film Up is on course to become the second biggest animated movie of all time, behind fish tale Finding Nemo.

The quirky 3-D film, about a grumpy old man and a boy scout who become unlikely adventure partners, has already grossed over $187 million (£124.6 million) in America alone in less than a month.

That puts the picture in fifth place behind Ratatouille, Wall-e, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo.

Experts predict Up will easily sail past The Incredibles' $261.4 million (£174.2 million) U.S. box office haul before the end of its cinema run. But the movie is unlikely to reach Finding Nemo, which scored a whopping $339.7 million (£226.4 million) at the U.S. box office alone in 2003.

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Weekend Report: 'Hangover' Gets High, 'Up' Hangs On

8 June 2009 1:50 PM, PDT | From Box Office Mojo | See recent BoxOfficeMojo.com news

The Hangover hit the jackpot over the weekend, narrowly edging out Up for the top spot. The ribald comedy had been projected to trail the Pixar adventure in Sunday's studio estimates, but was revised upward once actual grosses poured in. Hangover's Friday dominance combined with a better-than-expected Sunday haul cinched its position, despite Up soaring past it on Saturday as well as being marginally ahead on Sunday. Both pictures were highly successful for their genres and wound up less than two percent apart. Less fortunate was Land of the Lost, which debuted at a distant third. The weekend as a whole came in at $165.5 million, off six percent from the same period last year when Kung Fu Panda opened. The Hangover packed a much greater wallop than the norm for its genre, taking in $45 million on around 4,500 screens at 3,269 sites. It was hyped as the preordained raunchy comedy hit of the season,

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Brandon Gray

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Sigourney Weaver Joins Greg Mottola’s Paul?

2 June 2009 11:20 AM, PDT | From /Film | See recent /Film news

Just when I thought the cast of the sci-fi buddy comedy Paul couldn't get any better, word comes along from Sdnn (via The Playlist) that the first lady of sci-fi has joined the cast of Superbad/Adventureland director Greg Mottola's next film. That's right.... Sigourney Weaver, who played Ripley in the Alien films, Dana Barrett in the Ghostbusters series, Gwen DeMarco in the underrated Galaxy Quest and the ship's computer in Wall-e. Weaver will join Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, and Kristen Wiig. Scripted by Pegg and Frost (the duo from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), the story follows two British nerds, fresh off a trip to Comic Con, who decide to go on a road trip to Area 51. They meet an alien named Paul, voiced by Rogen, who asks them to help him escape from the U.S. Government. On the run from

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Peter Sciretta

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What Goes Up Goes Down

2 June 2009 2:37 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news

It was an up weekend at the box office for Disney as its Pixar-produced Up opened with $68.11 million, beating last year's debut of Wall-e -- and less than $2 million behind Pixar's two biggest hits, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. But it was a down weekend for the box office as a whole, with total ticket sales slightly below what they were for the same weekend a year ago, when the premiere of Sex and the City and the second week of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull together took in $101.60 million all by themselves. The top twelve films this weekend earned $161.01 million, while last year's grossed $163.99 million. Another downer: The critically well-received horror flick Drag Me to Hell -- horror flicks are rarely well-received -- took in a modest $15.83 million to place fourth in the final results. (By contrast, the critically slammed Saw V opened with $30.1 million.) Monday's estimates had put it in third place. But despite the down weekend, year-to-date revenue stands at $3.61 billion, up 13.63 percent over last year. Attendance is up 11 percent.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Box Office Mojo (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date):1. Up, Disney, $68,108,790, (New); 2. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, 20th Century Fox, $24,353,868, 2 Wks. ($104,150,268); 3. Terminator Salvation, Warner Bros., $16,433,365, 2 Wks. ($90,949,924); 4. Drag Me to Hell, Universal, $15,825,480, (New); 5. Star Trek, Paramount, $12,613,727, 4 Wks. ($209,313,884); 6. Angels & Demons, Sony, $11,353,340, 2 Wks. ($104,913,439); 7. Dance Flick, Paramount, $4,743,636, 2 Wks. ($19,084,907); 8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, 20th Century Fox, $3,873,377, 5 Wks. ($170,843,712); 9. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Warner Bros., $1,911,401, 5 Wks. ($50,021,779); 10. Obsessed, Sony, $657,001, 6 Wks. ($6,750,0481).

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Easter Eggs in Pixar’s Up

31 May 2009 9:35 PM, PDT | From /Film | See recent /Film news

Pixar loves to hide Easter eggs in their films, little references to movies and characters from the animation studio's past and future. Last year we put together a compilation of Wall-e easter eggs, so I thought we'd do the same thing for Pixar's new film Up. If you haven't seen the film, be warned that this article references scenes from the film which may be considered spoilers. John Ratzenberger has made an appearance in every since Pixar movie to date. He's considered the animation studio's good luck charm. He appeared as Hamm in Toy Story and Toy Story 2, Pt Flea in A Bug's Life, the Abominable Snowman in Monsters, Inc, the Moonfish school in Finding Nemo, the Underminer in The Incredibles, Mack in Cars, Mustafa in Ratatouille, and John the human in Wall-e. In Up he voices the construction worker from the first act of the film named Construction Foreman Tom.

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Peter Sciretta

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'Up' Soars to the Box Office's Top

31 May 2009 9:13 PM, PDT | From Aceshowbiz | See recent Aceshowbiz news

Pixar have once again dominated the North American box office, placing their latest animation "Up" at the top slot of the revenue chart. With opening bow being estimated at around $68.2 million, the family adventure film became the tenth Pixar movie to land atop the chart and maintained the studio's perfect box-office track record, scoring ten for ten.

Among Pixar movies, this Pete Docter-directed animation is the studio's third highest debut behind "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles", but still ahead of "Wall-e" which opened to $63.1 million. If the ticket price inflation is taken into consideration, however, "Up" slid to fifth place since "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters, Inc." would rate significantly higher.

As for the film's success nabbing the #1 slot despite concern over its geriatric action hero, Mark Zoradi, the president of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, said, "An elderly gentleman and a young boy traveling off to South

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AceShowbiz.com

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Up Review

31 May 2009 11:29 AM, PDT | From FilmJunk | See recent FilmJunk news

Up Directed by: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson Written by: Bob Peterson Starring (the voices of): Edward Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson, John Ratzenberger For 15 years now, Pixar has been the agreed upon gold standard in computer animated films. Ever since the release of Toy Story they have produced an unblemished string of movies that have been hugely successful both critically and commercially -- a claim that virtually no other studio can make. Over the past few years, the critical praise has reached new highs, with many calling for their films to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards; conversely, the box office numbers have dipped a bit in response to their slightly more artistic aims (albeit not by much). With Pixar's tenth feature film, Up, by all accounts, it seemed like it would continue the trend of telling deeper stories with less commercial appeal.

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Sean

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Pixar's 'Up' grabs $21M Friday

30 May 2009 12:44 PM, PDT | From screeninglog.com | See recent screeninglog news

Pixar's latest family adventure "Up" flew to the top of the North American box office Friday with a solid $21.4 milllion in ticket sales (the film opened at 3,766 locations). That's just $1.7 million less than the studio's previous film, "Wall-e."

Directed by Pete Docter, the film follows a 78-year-old man who decides to fulfill his dream and take his entire house on an exciting trip to South America. Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer and Jordan Nagai lead the voice cast.

At No. 2, Shawn Levy's Ben Stiller vehicle "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" grabbed another $7.5 million, lifting its domestic total to $87.3 million.

Meanwhile, Sam Raimi's latest horror flick "Drag Me to Hell" debuted in third place Friday, earning $6.4 million from 2,508 locations. Starring Alison Lohman, the film follows a loan officer who is cursed by a creepy old lady.

McG's "Terminator Salvation" took home $5 million at No. 4, bringing its cumulative gross to $79.6 million.

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Franck Tabouring

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‘Up’ Review

30 May 2009 8:11 AM, PDT | From ScreenRant.com | See recent Screen Rant news

Short Version: Up is arguably Pixar’s finest achievement to date, and is surprisingly mature (and moving) in its subject matter. Oh, and the 3D visuals are pretty awesome too.

Screen Rant Reviews Pixar's Up (in digital 3D)

There’s nothing better than an easy review: Pixar’s latest summer offering, Up, is a fantastic film. Simply fantastic. Seriously, if Ratatouille and Wall-e deserved to be in the running for Best Picture of the Year (as many said they did at the times of their releases) then Up certainly does.

It’s that good.

 

The film - which was written by Bob Peterson (Finding Nemo, Ratatouille) and directed by Peter Docter (Monsters, Inc.) - delivers all the things we’ve come to expect from a Pixar animated feature: gorgeous visuals, a strong story rife with moral lessons and (gasp) good character development; humor both low-brow (for the kids) and high-brow

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Kofi Outlaw

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Up (review)

29 May 2009 12:42 PM, PDT | From www.flickfilosopher.com | See recent FlickFilosopher news

If there’s magic in them thar Pixar films, it’s not just the magic of supernaturally gorgeous animation and inexpressibly poignant characters and a touch so light that it turns the deeply profound into something ethereal. It’s that, Damn, do the Pixar wizards have a crystal ball, or are they just mystically prescient? Anyone with half a brain could see years ago that tough times were on the horizon, but how did the Pixar folks time it just right, especially with the looong production schedules these animated movies require, to get this cheerful and fantastical yet never unrealistically optimistic movie before our eyes just as we are getting desperate for a movie to hug us reassuringly? How did they know that a story about dreams deferred and ambitions reconsidered and making the best and the most of what you have was exactly the kind of thing we’d

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MaryAnn Johanson

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"Up" review. Another winning film from Pixar that will please both adults and kids alike

29 May 2009 | From Movie Jungle | See recent Movie Jungle news

"Up" review by Eric Sloss (4 out of 5)       “Up” is another triumph in the books for Pixar Animation.  This is the studio that brought you “Toy Story”, “The Incredibles”, “Finding Nemo” and “Wall-e”.  “Up” is an exciting film with some laughs mixed in with some heart.   Young Carl Fredricksen is a boy who greatly admires the famous explorer Charles Muntz.  Muntz is called a fraud when he produces a skeleton of a rare bird.  He vows to get a living specimen of this bird and redeem his name.  However he disappears in South America.   Carl meets up with plucky Ellie.  They both share a love for exploring.  Ellie wants to one day go to Paradise Falls.  It is a magical place in South America where many adventures can take place.  This dream gets put on the back burner as these two fall in love and eventually get married.  “Up” has a

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Movie Review - 'Up'

29 May 2009 12:02 AM, PDT | From GetTheBigPicture.net | See recent Get The Big Picture news

Up

Featuring the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, and Jordan Nagai

Directed by Pete Docter

Rated PG

Up is the tenth Pixar movie in 14 years and the first one the company has ever made in 3-D. With the remarkable – perhaps even unmatched – reputation the studio has with its audience, Pixar has broadened the artistic horizons of mass appeal animation over the past few movies, especially last year's Wall-e.

Even with the 3-D, Up is not the staggering technical achievement of that film, but it is likely more accessible and may feel more familiar, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that.

The story seems borne out of a childhood daydream: Tying thousands of helium balloons to a house and taking a joyride in the clouds to South America, all wit/eet on the ground, now filled with melancholia over never taking that trip with his late wife, Carl Fredrickson (Ed Asner

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Colin Boyd

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Moving on ‘Up’: Disney, Pixar Score Another Masterpiece in 3-D

28 May 2009 11:08 PM, PDT | From HollywoodChicago.com | See recent HollywoodChicago.com news

Chicago – There is an art to music. There is an art to writing a story and an art to telling that story. There is art in a great drawing, a great painting and a great photograph. There is an art to communication. And it may only be a matter of time before museums expand to include a whole new category of modern art: the animated film from Disney and Pixar.

Rating: 4.5/5.0 For what the studio duo accomplished in 2008 with its “Wall-e,” which is known for its groundbreaking achievements in many of the above-listed categories, their newest film, “Up,” has also managed to ace much of the same. Though two very different films both strong for different reasons, the two establish the Disney and Pixar revolution of the animated genre.

A symphonic balance of captivating silence and clever dialogue, belly-laugh humor and tear-in-the-eye despair, fast-paced action scenes and scenes slowed for their precious detail,

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adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)

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Up Review

28 May 2009 6:42 PM, PDT | From Atomic Popcorn | See recent Atomic Popcorn news

Critics and audiences alike often get flack for championing Pixar’s films every time a new one is released. While everyone does go crazy with praise, just take a look at their catalog. Cars and A Bug’s Life may not be up to the standards of Toy Story 2, Wall-e, or Finding Nemo but they’re still better than half of the animated movies that are released over the years. If anything they’re probably the best studio around as they consistently churn out projects that above all put their story and characters first. One year ago, everyone crowned Wall-e as their finest achievement and was on many “best of” lists mine included. While Up is certainly going to be there this year, my question now is will it remain on top? That’s right, Pixar has crafted a film that is their finest to date and so far,

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Philip

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Blu-Ray Review: Pixar Continues HD Dominance With ‘A Bug’s Life’

28 May 2009 9:33 AM, PDT | From HollywoodChicago.com | See recent HollywoodChicago.com news

Chicago – If you have yet to jump on the Blu-Ray bandwagon or are new to the HD revolution and have yet to see a Pixar film in 1080P, the new edition of “A Bug’s Life” would be a great place to start. With releases like the great one for “Wall-e” and now this gorgeous transfer for “A Bug’s Life,” Disney/Pixar produces HD video clarity that really must be seen to be believed.

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0 With this week’s release of the fantastic “Up,” Pixar is back in the cinematic conversation. With Pixar back in the spotlight, go back to one of their earliest films, the underrated “A Bug’s Life,” a film that has held up surprisingly well in the decade since its release.

A Bug’s Life was released on Blu-Ray on May 19th, 2009.

Photo credit: Disney

I’ll admit that I had kind of buried

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adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)

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Up

28 May 2009 8:40 AM, PDT | From Pastemagazine.com | See recent PasteMagazine news

Release Date: May 29

Director: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson

Writer: Bob Peterson

Starring: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai

Studio/Run Time: Pixar, 96 mins.

I'm trying to imagine the pitch meeting at Pixar when it was decided that the studio would spend millions of dollars developing Up: "Let's see... We've already done toys, bugs, monsters, fish, superheroes, cars, rats, robots... I know, geriatrics!" The public hadn't balked at a Wall-e, a film whose first two acts were essentially dialogue-free. How would it react to a film whose protagonist is an elderly widower with a hearing aid, dentures and back pain—who looks like and is voiced by Ed Asner?

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The Secret Behind Up and Other Pixar Films

28 May 2009 8:03 AM, PDT | From Reelzchannel.com | See recent ReelzChannel news

Up, the first Pixar film to be released in Disney Digital 3-D, may be thematically different than previous Pixar releases, but the creators are banking that the unique nature of Pixar's filmmaking process will help Up succeed.

In a recent interview, director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.) said:

We have a system where people are selfless about giving up their own time, their own energy, their own comments.

Brad (Bird) will be off in the middle of directing something and we'll drag him in to watch this movie and he'll spew out all these great ideas that I get to use and then I'll do the same with whoever comes along next. Between that and the philosophy of "If you don't make mistakes, you're not taking enough risk." We're sort of expected to fail along the way. It's expected that we're going to falter and pull the emergency cord and get

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BrentJS Sprecher

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Interview: 'Up' Director Pete Docter

27 May 2009 7:05 PM, PDT | From Cinematical.com | See recent Cinematical news

With the releases of The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Wall-e, Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton may have opened the gates for directors of computer-animated features to be taken seriously as capital-f filmmakers, but it was Pete Docter who served as the medium's first great shepherd. After writing both Toy Story and Toy Story 2, Docter wrote and directed 2001's Monsters, Inc., a film that was not only a watershed moment in computer animation's history, but the real proof that Pixar - not to mention the studio's contemporaries - was a creative force that could transcend franchises and familiar characters to create something unique and memorable.

Docter returns to the director's chair this month for the release of Up, an epic new tale from Pixar that follows the adventures of a 78-year old widow named Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) and the wilderness scout who inadvertently tags along after the crusty septuagenarian

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Todd Gilchrist

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The Desire to Hide from the World Inspired Up

27 May 2009 12:05 AM, PDT | From Reelzchannel.com | See recent ReelzChannel news

Pixar, the CGI animation production company born out of Lucasfilm's Computer Division and acquired by Disney in 2007, has produced several of the most-enduring animated characters of the past two decades, from Buzz Lightyear to Nemo to Wall-e. In Up, Pixar's latest release, you won't find any animated toys or talking cars, only a curmudgeonly old man and his chubby 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer sidekick (and a few talking dogs, naturally).

With many of Pixar's other films -- Toy Story, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc. -- the title gives you a clue about what the film is about; not so with Up. When asked to describe the film, even director Pete Doctor had a hard time summing it up:

It's a hard movie to talk about in a way because it's got a lot of elements to it.... That's what we're trying to do all the time, is surprise people.

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BrentJS Sprecher

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3-D Effects in Up Designed To Be Subtle

26 May 2009 10:23 AM, PDT | From Reelzchannel.com | See recent ReelzChannel news

Pixar -- the Academy Award-winning digital animation studio behind such colossal hits as Toy Story, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Wall-e -- debuts Up this Friday, its first film presented in Disney Digital 3-D.

3-D films have not had a very impressive track record, but director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.) hopes that subtler 3-D effects in Up will keep the audience engaged:

We tried to learn from all the films that had come before us and what makes it work. The things that were important to me as a director was not to distract people with 3D. You don't want to pop them out of the movie by going "ooga-booga." We basically said, "Okay, the screen is like a window and you can see into it but let's not bring too many things out." That adds a certain sense of depth and I think, for a lot of people, they feel more transported into that world.

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BrentJS Sprecher

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2009 | 2008 | 2007

1-20 of 54 articles from 2009   « Prev | Next »

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