All posts tagged: animation

Jacob Hair in Talks to Direct Adult Swim Film

Jacob Hair in Talks to Direct Adult Swim Film

Published by Daniella Wilson

Rick and Morty is taking aim at the big screen. Jacob Hair, who has directed episodes of the long-running Adult Swim series since 2019, is in talks to helm an animated feature version for Warner Bros., The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Plot details have not yet been publicly shared for the film that is in early development. Rick and Morty debuted in 2013, and the Emmy-winning series has ranked as basic cable’s most-watched comedy over the past several seasons. President Curtis, a spinoff series featuring voice actor Keith David in the titular role, is set to premiere soon from Adult Swim. Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland co-created Rick and Morty, which centers on inventor Rick Sanchez and his universe-spanning adventures with teen grandson Morty. In early 2023, Adult Swim cut ties with Roiland following felony domestic abuse charges that were later dismissed. Up until that point, Roiland had voiced both titular characters, with the roles having since been recast. Rick and Morty is set to launch its ninth season Sunday and has been renewed through …

French Gay Animated Comedy Tells Old Jokes

French Gay Animated Comedy Tells Old Jokes

Published by Daniella Wilson

One goes to Cannes to see the highest of high-minded cinema, bold and searing visions from the world’s foremost auteurs. We peek in on the social upheavals of contemporary Romania, explore the fringes of city life in Tokyo and Seoul, roam the lonely foothills of Anatolia, experience the bustle of Dakar, examine the fraught history of Chile. It is an enriching experience, to see what the planet’s premier and emerging film artists have newly dreamt up. Sometimes, though, one needs a little break from all that heavy stuff. Which is just what the French animated comedy Jim Queen offers this year. Directed by Nicolas Athane and Marco Nguyen, Jim Queen is a crass, profane, giddily stupid romp through a heap of stereotypes about gay life in Paris. It’s teeming with jokes about prostate orgasms, about tops and bottoms, about fetishes and bodily fluids and G’d out party bois. It comes as a welcome shock to the system here at this august, black-tie film festival. I just wish the movie was funnier and fresher than it …

Soccer Star Erling Haaland to play animated viking in Film Debut

Soccer Star Erling Haaland to play animated viking in Film Debut

Published by Daniella Wilson

Norwegian soccer superstar Erling Haaland is making his film debut, playing (natch) a Viking in Viqueens, the upcoming animated film from fellow Norwegian Harald Zwart (The Karate Kid, Agent Cody Banks), The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Haaland will voice an animated version of himself, a Viking called Haaland, in the film, described as an animated adventure-comedy set in a “world of fearless warrior girls, icy fjords, and Silk Road mythology.” For Haaland fans that casting could hardly be more apt. 6’5” and statuesque, with a muscular psysique, tremendous attacking speed and shoulder-length block locks, the Norwegian striker has long been compared to a Viking warrior. Just 25, Haaland is already a legend of the sport. He holds the single-season goals record in England’s Premiere League (36 goals in his 2022–23 season for Manchester City) and was the fastest player in history to score 100 goals, hitting the career landmark in just 105 matches. “As a Norwegian storyteller making a Viking adventure for a global audience, having Erling Haaland join ViQueens feels incredibly exciting,” said Zwart. …

Box Office Boom and New Films

Box Office Boom and New Films

Published by Daniella Wilson

The China Film Pavilion has returned to Cannes for the fifth consecutive year, and organizers have arrived with news of a booming domestic market and a slate designed to showcase the breadth of talent back home. The numbers alone make for compelling reading. The China Film Co-production Corporation reports that, as of May 5, China’s domestic box office had already reached $1.98 billion — around one-fifth of global revenue year-to-date. That follows a 2025 in which the Chinese market collected $7.45 billion, a year-on-year increase of 21.9 percent. Ticket sales across urban cinemas rose 22.57 percent, and the country added 2,219 screens over the course of the year, bringing the total to 93,187 — more than anywhere else in the world. The five-day May Day holiday, which ended May 5, added around $110 million to that tally, a modest rise on 2025. The top performers were Cheng Wei-hao’s thriller Vanishing Point, followed by the actioner Cold War 1994 ($21.2 million), 20th Century Studios’ The Devil Wears Prada 2 ($6.1 million) and Chen Sicheng’s comedy Being …

Warner Bros. Will Release Looney Tunes Movies Despite Coyote vs. Acme

Warner Bros. Will Release Looney Tunes Movies Despite Coyote vs. Acme

Published by Daniella Wilson

Warner Bros. Pictures Animation‘s event on Tuesday drew together filmmakers, creatives and journalists as the team’s leaders laid out their vision. WBPA president and chief creative officer Bill Damaschke hosted the open house at the Burbank studio lot, where Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chair and CEO Pam Abdy joined him to deliver opening remarks. The event was timed to take place in the lead-up to the studio’s presentation at next month’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival. During her speech, Abdy teased a number of the projects that are in active production, including The Cat in the Hat, with the Dr. Seuss adaptation featuring Bill Hader in the titular role and set to hit theaters in November. Abdy noted that this marks the animation studio’s first feature since its rebrand that began with Damaschke’s 2023 hiring. She explained that the film “sets the tone for what WBPA represents today: filmmaker-driven, visually ambitious and designed as a true theatrical event.” Abdy also expressed excitement that the Annecy presentation will include the debut screening for Daffy Season. …

Chuck Jones’ The Dot and the Line Celebrates Geometry & Hard Work: An Oscar-Winning Animation (1965)

Chuck Jones’ The Dot and the Line Celebrates Geometry & Hard Work: An Oscar-Winning Animation (1965)

Published by José Betancourt

The ani­mat­ed short above, The Dot and the Line, direct­ed by the great Chuck Jones and nar­rat­ed by Eng­lish actor Robert Mor­ley, won an Oscar in 19656 for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film. Based on a book writ­ten by Nor­ton Juster, “The Dot and the Line” tells the sto­ry of a romance between two geo­met­ric shapes—taking the arche­typ­al nar­ra­tive tra­jec­to­ry of boy meets girl, los­es girl, wins girl in the end (find­ing him­self along the way) and inject­ing it with some fas­ci­nat­ing social com­men­tary that still res­onates almost fifty years lat­er. One way of watch­ing “The Dot and the Line” is as a “tri­umph of the nerd” sto­ry, where an anx­ious square (as in “uncool”) Line has to com­pete with a hip­ster beat­nik Squig­gle of a rival for the affec­tions of a flighty Dot. The Line begins the film “stiff as a stick… dull, con­ven­tion­al and repressed” (as his love inter­est says of him) in con­trast to the groovy Squig­gle and his groovy bebop sound­track. With the pos­si­ble sug­ges­tion that this love trans­gress­es mid-cen­tu­ry racial bound­aries, the Line’s …

MAGA Is Confused About ‘Animal Farm’

MAGA Is Confused About ‘Animal Farm’

Published by skeptic

If you read George Orwell’s classic political satire Animal Farm in seventh grade, you probably remember the basic contours of the plot: fed up with human rule, a group of well-intentioned barnyard animals set up their own egalitarian society, with disastrous results. Published in 1945, Animal Farm has a timeless (and, certainly, contemporarily relevant) message: it’s about how the impulse to retain power will always come at the expense of our basic morality. That message, however, seems to have been lost on most MAGA influencers assigned the book in middle school (if they even read it at all). After their failure to cancel Barbie or the Wicked movies, conservatives have moved onto a new film adaptation of Animal Farm. (The animated film, which is directed by Lord of the Rings star Andy Serkis, opens May 1). The problem, however, is that they’ve failed to reach a consensus on what the actual message of Animal Farm is. The right-wing outrage cycle over a movie featuring Seth Rogen making fart jokes appears to have been sparked by …

‘The Last Airbender’ Leaked Online. Some Fans Say Paramount Deserves the Fallout

‘The Last Airbender’ Leaked Online. Some Fans Say Paramount Deserves the Fallout

Published by skeptic

The online leak of a full version of Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender—a highly anticipated animated film in a multimedia fantasy franchise—has divided passionate fans while upsetting those who spent years working on the film. The leaks began on X late on Saturday night, about six months before Aang was scheduled to premiere on Paramount+. User @ImStillDissin posted two short clips from the film. “Nickelodeon accidentally emailed me the entire Avatar aang movie,” he claimed. He also threatened to stream the entire movie if Paramount didn’t release an official trailer and posted a still from the movie’s end credits, revealing previously undisclosed voiceover cast and roles. The media from @ImStillDissin’s posts were later hit with copyright strikes and removed. But within 48 hours, links to download the full movie appeared on 4chan and X, where some users also directly streamed the film. Across the web, fans said they had successfully pirated and watched what appeared to be a nearly finished and “beautiful” animated film. While some argued Paramount deserved to be punished because of certain …

This Animation Startup Wants to Make It Easier to Tell Open-Ended Stories

This Animation Startup Wants to Make It Easier to Tell Open-Ended Stories

Published by skeptic

The current wave of generative AI animation often feels like a magic trick that only works once. You type in a prompt, a video appears, and if you don’t like the result — maybe the feet are all wonky, which is a regular issue with AI generations — your only real option is to try a different prompt. This “black box” approach is exactly what Cartwheel, a new 3D animation startup, is trying to dismantle.  Andrew Carr and Jonathan Jarvis, two veterans with roots at OpenAI and Google, respectively, founded the company, which is working to build a future where AI handles the technical drudgery of animation while leaving the creative soul to the artist. I spoke with Carr and Jarvis about launching their company, defining “taste” with AI, and the technical and creative difficulties of animation in 2026.  What sets Cartwheel apart  According to the founders, one of the biggest hurdles in this space is that 3D motion data is remarkably scarce compared to the endless oceans of text and images available online that …