In case you missed the first installment, this is a little series I’m writing as a lark to identify ten of animation’s most fascinating characters. These characters are supremely interesting in-and-of-themselves, regardless of their varying fascinating plots/settings, etc. Check out number 10, Norman from ParaNorman, if you haven’t already. Today’s spot belongs to a character that is so out-of-this world that you have to go to infinity and beyond to find someone as fascinating as him.
So there I was, listening to The Walt Disney Company’s Q4 and fiscal year 2014 earnings conference call when amid all of the talk about numbers and “franchises” (which, I believe, is the favorite word among the senior business leaders at Disney), comes a surprise announcement from Disney CEO Bob Iger that Toy Story 4 is on its way from Pixar Animation Studios on June 16th, 2017 and that it will be directed by none other than John Lasseter himself. I immediately sent a text to our fearless editor-in-chief Marc Vibbert and then tried to sort it all out.
What a Tease! Inside Out Trailer is as Dazzling as it is Devoid of Plot, per the norm for Pixar.
Though they didn’t invent the practice, Pixar has certainly done a lot to raise the bar of what a teaser trailer should be over the last twenty years. After watching the much-anticipated teaser trailer for Pixar’s fifteenth full length feature film, Inside Out, it got me thinking about the ways Pixar has messed with our minds over the decades and how (literally) they are doing it again.
Over the weekend, Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Frozen took the number 10 spot in the list of the highest grossing films of all time. Its current take is standing at $1.072 billion (earning $398.4 million in the U.S. and $674 million in international markets so far). Frozen has now overtaken both Disney Animation’s The Lion King ($987.5 million) and Pixar Animation Studio’s Toy Story 3 ($1.063 billion worldwide) in total worldwide box office earnings, making it Disney’s most successful animated film ever in its first run and also giving it the bragging rights as being in the top 10 of the all-time worldwide box office.
Animation Fascination 