It’s been a long, long ride to get to Planet 51, which opens in theaters tomorrow. Since 2002, Illion Animation Studios has been perfecting their first feature length animated movie for theaters. Seven years of re-writing, re-recording and re-animating later, they finally launched their film into theaters, but will it be a smooth landing with audiences?
The best CG animation sweats the details, whether it’s tweaking a story beat or perfecting the bounce of an antenna, so it’s no surprise that Illion wanted to get everything just right for their debut feature. On the visuals, they scored a home run. A perfectionistic attention to detail makes the film pure eye candy.
The textures are especially well-crafted, from the peach-soft alien skin to the glossy metallic shell of Rover, the dog-like space exploration robot. You also can’t help but admire the backgrounds and visual touches, like the glossy bowling alley and the humorously stylized poster for the alien horror movie poster, “Humaniacs 2.” Read more »
Ilion Studios’Planet 51 will touch down in theaters on November 20th, but distributor Tristar Pictures may feel like they’re screening on the dark side of the moon…. a new moon that is. All the world’s focus will instead be on The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the highly anticipated sequel to the megahit Girls Dig Robert Pattenson (alternatively titled: Twilight), which releases on the same day. However, the million or so people who won’t get to the theater in time to land tickets very well might plunk down $8 for Planet 51. One of our Lineboil operative is previewing the film this weekend, so we’ll give you a heads-up next week. Here’s some EPK footage to tide you over:
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.
Ilion Studios’Planet 51 is still on track for a November 20, 2009 release, and a second trailer has been revealed. This $60 million CG feature about a reverse alien invasion is being released by TriStar Pictures.
If you haven’t heard of Ilion Studios, you’re not alone. This Spanish studio is fresh on the feature animation scene, but they’re already knocking out a $60 million CG feature – titled Planet 51. The film is slated for release on November 20, 2009, via the TriStar Pictures banner. Here’s the latest trailer for the project – which turns the whole alien invasion storyline on it’s head.
Since 2002, Illion Animation Studios has been perfecting their first feature length animated movie for theaters. Seven years of re-writing, re-recording and re-animating later, they finally launched their film into theaters, but will it be a smooth landing with audiences?
You also can’t help but admire the backgrounds and visual touches, like the glossy bowling alley and the humorously stylized poster for the alien horror movie poster, “Humaniacs 2.”
In between putting finishing touches on orcs and trolls for the Lord of the Rings at Peter Jackson’s famed Weta Workshop, 
