Imagi’s latest CG feature, Astro Boy, arrives in theaters today in the US, China and Canada. While some estimates put the opening weekend take at $10 million, a sequel may already be in the works, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Here’s a clip from the film featuring the ironically named Peacekeeper.

The release of Imagi CG feature Astro Boy is about a month away, and below you can see a 3-minute clip from the film. Here we see Astro trying to escape from a variety of would-be-captors including The Spirit of Freedom. Astro Boy is in theaters on October 23rd.

By Keith Staskiewicz

The season of animation is upon us. The hotly-anticipated new feature 9, not to be confused with the upcoming musical Nine nor the German negative “Nein!” arrived yesterday in theaters on 9/9/09, making it the most numerologically apt release date since the June 6, 2006 unleashing of the Omen remake.

And after 9, the deluge. From now until the end of the year we’ll be seeing an unprecedented avalanche of animation hitting mainstream American cinemas, and one that demonstrates just how many formats can huddle in under the medium’s single umbrella. We’ll see a not-so-classic adaptation of a much-adapted classic, an eagerly awaited return to form, the ambitious realization of a long-gestated original vision, and a live-action auteur’s first foray into animation, among many others, brought to us via CGI, stop-motion, traditional hand-drawn cel, and the latest performance-capture technology. It’s a good time for animation fans.

9

Focus Features and Starz Animation
September 9

In between putting finishing touches on orcs and trolls for the Lord of the Rings at Peter Jackson’s famed Weta Workshop, Shane Acker worked for over four years on a short film that would eventually be nominated for an Academy Award in 2005. Now, another four years later, his meticulously imagined world of ragdoll protagonists, apocalyptic malaise and an entire mechanical ecosystem of things that go bump in the night, is coming to the big screen. 9 is produced by Tim Burton, a man who also likes his fairy tales on the darker side, and Timur Bekmambetov of Wanted fame, and features the voices of Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer and John C. Reilly. Expanding on the mythology established in the 11-minute short and giving vocal cords to the once silent characters, Acker follows nine sentient dolls as they try to unravel their own existence as well as the terrible fate that has befallen humanity, both of which might be tied together in what Acker has dubbed “a Geppetto/Oppenheimer figure.”

Expect the film to be dark and genuinely scary. I had the opportunity to speak with Acker a number of months ago and he emphasized his desire to lend the film a genuine aura of fear and peril: “What I’m trying to evoke here is fairy tales, the real ones. They were moral tales and there needed to be severe consequences to teach those lessons. (In) some of these animated films nowadays, you don’t feel like there are any stakes. It’s set up so much as a series of gags. You don’t really feel the nature of the threat. But I tried to make that threat present in 9.” The TV ads have warned that 9 is “definitely not your little brother’s animated movie,” which sucks for my little brother, because he, like myself, thinks it looks totally badass.

I always enjoy seeing how various entertainment projects are marketed in different counries. Take, for instance, the upcoming CG feature Astro Boy (in theaters October 23). The Japanese trailer doesn’t appear to include one gag, focusing mainly on heroism, valor and fighting, while the US version includes prat falls, butt guns and a silly robot dog. Also, you’ll see that Ham Egg, the cruel circus manager, appears only in the Japanese version, while the producers may have assumed he seemed out of place in this futuristic world to US audiences (or at least figured us Yankees aren’t familiar enough with the backstory to miss him).

The Japanese trailer:

and here’s the latest US trailer:

A new, extended trailer for Astro Boy has emerged, illustrating more of the father/son storyline. The CG film was animated at Imagi and it flies into theaters on October 23, 2009.

I only got in a day and a half at Comic-Con this year, but I managed to squeeze in some great panels and events. After the Astro Boy panel, I managed to capture some interviews with cast members and the creative team. Here’s the exclusive Lineboil interview with the young Freddie Highmore, who plays Astro Boy. The CG film, which was animated at Imagi, is in theaters October 23, 2009.