Fox has canceled the animated comedy series Sit Down, Shut Up! and reportedly will not air any further episodes.
A repeat of King of the Hill is slated for Sit Down’s normal Sunday at 7 p.m. time slot.
Ratings on the series have been low, with the most recent episode earning a poor 0.7 rating/3 share among adults 18-49, according to Variety.
Developed by executive producer Mitchell Hurwitz of Arrested Development fame from a live-action Australian sitcom, Sit Down, Shut Up! mixed animated characters and live-action backgrounds in following the lives of teachers at a typical high school. The series features the voices of Will Arnett, Henry Winkler, Jason Bateman and Will Forte.
Only four episodes have aired, leaving the fate of the remaining nine completed episodes up in the air.
Comedy Central is betting on animation to bring in the laughs, giving the green light to seven episodes of David Stern’s new series Ugly Americans and developing animated projects from Jamie Foxx, Judah Friedlander and Dan Vebber.
Ugly Americans is based on an idea from illustrator Devin Clark about an alternate New York in which a human social worker helps creatures from horror, fantasy and sci-fi movies adapt to life as ordinary citizens. Stern, a former producer on The Simpsons, developed the project and will serve as executive producer.
"During these tough economic times our viewers need a good laugh now more than ever," said Lauren Corrao, the channel’s president of original programming and development. "With the pick-up of Ugly Americans, our viewers will be able to escape into a fantasy world like they've never seen before."
Ugly Americans is set to premiere in the first quarter of 2010.
Comedy Central also announced a trio of animated projects it’s developing, including:
• The Foxxhole, a workplace comedy from Jamie Foxx based on his satellite radio program.
• Gypsy Cab, in which Judah Friedlander of 30 Rock fame plays a wacked-out taxi driver.
• And The Invadersteins, a series from Futurama and American Dad! producer Dan Vebber about a family of aliens who stay behind on earth after a failed invasion.
Angels & Demons will try to bring Star Trek back down to Earth this weekend.
The Ron Howard thriller, a sequel to 2006’s The Da Vinci Code, will open in more than 3,500 theaters this weekend. The film would love to repeat the performance of Da Vinci, which opened three years ago with a $77 million weekend. It went on to gross $217 million domestically.
Based on Dan Brown's best-selling book, the movie features some nice vfx-driven set pieces and an eye-popping climactic sequence showcasing a helicopter, a night-time explosion and a parachuting priest. CIS Vancouver, Moving Picture Company, Plowman Craven & Assoc. and Senate handled the film's visual effects.
Star Trek continues to look strong heading into its second weekend. Its opening weekend gross turned out to be just a bit higher than originally projected, taking in $79.2 million from its May 7 evening debut through May 10.
Also still in play is X-Men Origins: Wolverine, now entering its third weekend of release, and holdovers Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Obsessed, The Soloist and the resilient Monsters vs. Aliens.
Angels & Demons will only have six days as the sole new major release before Terminator: Salvation arrives Thursday, May 21, followed a day later by Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and the comedy Dance Flick.
Henry Selick's Stop Motion Coraline Comes to Home Video in 3-D
It wasn't that long ago that we found ourselves in the cinema, dazzled by Coraline in 3-D on the big screen. Well, in a couple months time, July 21st to be exact, we'll be able to re-live our experiences as best as current home theatre tech will along when Henry Selick's stop motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's story comes to Blu-ray and DVD in 3-D!
While the DVD versions will no doubt suffice, we recommend the Blu-ray edition for added clarity and definition as well as a host of exclusive special features such as deleted scenes, tours and voice sessions, and animatic picture-in-picture.
Get all of the details of the Coraline Blu-ray here: The Blu-ray Blog
A plug for Mo Willems
One person who doesn’t need a plug on Cartoon Brew is Mo Willems. Successful animator turned popular children’s book author, Willems now returns to animation with two new short films based on his books.
This Saturday afternoon at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass. Mo will be premiering two new animated shorts based on his books, produced by Weston Woods: Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! - animated by Pete List with Willems voicing the Pigeon and Jon Scieszka as the Bus Driver; and Knuffle Bunny Too - animated by Karen Villarreal with the voices of Willems, his wife and daughter as the family. For more info on this Saturday’s film screening and book signing, go to the museum’s website.
John McElwee over at the Greenbriar Picture Shows blog has posted a fascinating overview of Paramount’s Superman cartoons. Despite the wide acclaim and Oscar nomination that greeted the first short, McElwee finds quotes from regional theatre managers who just couldn’t take the character - and the idea of dramatic adventure cartoons - seriously. The piece is liberally illustrated with trade ads, pressbook pages and news clippings even I hadn’t seen before. Well worth a look.
A new poster for Disney’s motion-captured adaption of The Christmas Carol can now be seen on Yahoo! Movies. The one-sheet gives us a look at the character of Scrooge, who is portrayed by Jim Carrey. The retelling of the classic story is set to hit theaters on November 6th, 2009.
Insider launches Kutcher’s Blah Girls
Blah Girls, a series of short interstitial animated shorts co-created by Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst production company, will use the syndicated entertainment news show The Insider as a launching pad for a potential TV series.
The series, which will run in short one-minute segments, began airing on The Insider this week, Variety reports.
The goal is to spin off Blah Girls into its own half-hour series to run on first-run syndication or on a cable outlet.
The series, created by Katalyst and David & Goliath, features pop culture-obsessed teens Krystle, Tiffany and Britney talking about all the latest gossip.
Kutcher told the trade paper the Blah Girls indicated “Katalyst's intent to further develop social content with an eye toward cross-platform reach.”
4Kids Entertainment has acquired the licensing and merchandising rights for the Nordic territories to the upcoming animated feature film Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard and Arthur and the War of the Two Worlds.
The two films are sequels to the 2006 film Arthur and the Invisibles. Besson directed the film, which featured the voices of Freddie Highmore and Mia Farrow. It grossed $15 million in the United States, but was much more successful overseas and earned a worldwide gross of $113 million.
The licensing deal covers the territories of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway.
Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard has a budget of $65 million and is set to open in the Nordic region onDec. 4, 2009. Arthur and the War of the Two Worlds will follow in 2010.
“We anticipate a very strong positive response to these sequels along with the wide range of licensed products we’ll bring to market in support of this franchise,” said Sandra Vauthier-Cellier, Managing Director of 4Kids Entertainment International.
Comedy Central and its web partner atom.com have picked up The Fuzz, a new five-episode animated web series from Waverly Films, a team of seven filmmakers based in Brooklyn who met at New York University. Created by Christopher Ford, the show mixes puppetry, live action and animation to deliver a spoof of procedural cop series. Comedy Central will eye the project as a potential pilot for on-air pickup.
Atom and Waverly previously collaborated on the Webby Award-winning series Stickman Exodus, which centered on a band of stick figures struggling to reach the “promised page” in a high school kid’s notebook. The show debuted on Atom.com in 2008 and it has passed the 500,000 play mark to date.
Following a record-breaking ratings premiere of Nickelodeon's newest animated series based on a Dreamworks film The Penguins of Madagascar, Nickelodeon today announced that it has ordered 26 episodes of its second co-production with DreamWorks Animation: Kung Fu Panda: The Series- a new CG animated comedy series adapted from the studio's 2008 blockbuster film. Today's announcement, which strengthens the strategic alliance between two of the world's most prolific producers of television and feature film animation, was made by Brown Johnson, President, Animation for Nickelodeon and MTVN Kids & Family Group.
Today's announcement comes just six weeks after Nickelodeon's unprecedented March 28 debut of the hit CG-animated series The Penguins of Madagascar, which ranked as the most-watched series premiere in the network's history, drawing 6.1 total million viewers (P2+). The half-hour premiere also delivered more kids 6-11 than any other Nick animated series premiere, averaging an 11.0/2.3 million K6-11. Since then, The Penguins of Madagascar has already become a top program with kids on all of broadcast and cable television, averaging nearly 13 million kids 2-11 each week and also averaging nearly 28 million total viewers (P2+) every week. The series is currently the #2 program (live action or animated), only behind only SpongeBob SquarePants, with kids 2-11 and 6-11 and is the #2 kid-targeted program (live-action or animated) among total viewers (P2+) on all of broadcast and cable television.
"Our seamless collaboration with DreamWorks Animation has now reached an anticipated 78 half-hours of unparalleled television CG animation," said Brown. "With the pick-up of Kung Fu Panda: The Series, we are thrilled to be bringing to our audience the rich stories and energy-packed character and action sequences Po the panda delivered on the big screen."
"We are thrilled to extend our ongoing collaboration with Nickelodeon, whose creative expertise in producing hit TV series is second to none," said Ann Daly, Chief Operating Officer of DreamWorks Animation."The characters and worlds we originally created for Kung Fu Panda are particularly well-suited to be further developed and explored in new and exciting ways."
Kung Fu Panda: The Series, is based on DreamWorks Animation's hit feature film, Kung Fu Panda which has grossed over $630 million at the worldwide box office and became the studio's most successful original feature film ever. Kung Fu Panda garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Animated Feature Film.
The series will chronicle the further adventures of Po, the energetic, enthusiastic, always hungry martial arts panda. He is aided by his mentor Shifu and the Furious Five: Tigress, Mantis, Crane, Monkey and Viper. Anointed "Dragon Warrior," Po protects the Valley of Peace from threats of all kind. Kung Fu Panda: The Series will be executive produced by Cheryl Holliday (King of the Hill, Still Standing, Father of the Pride). The show is being produced at the Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, California, currently the largest producer of television animation in the U.S.
Kung Fu Panda: The Series joins Nickelodeon's successful slate of animated series including pop culture phenomenon and number one ranked SpongeBob SquarePants (coming up on its 10th Anniversary this July), Emmy Award-nominated The Fairly OddParents from animation veteran Butch Hartman, The Mighty B! co-created by and starring actress/comedian Amy Poehler and Back at the Barnyard from the creative mind of box-office chief Steve Oedekerk.
New ‘Toy Story 3’ Character Hidden In ‘Up’ Trailer?
FROM MOVIES BLOG: Immediately after reading Larry’s post revealing the cameo appearance of a new “Toy Story 3″ character in Pixar’s soon-to-be-released “Up,” I tracked down the teaser trailer so I could see the image myself. Can you find it?
Ben studied animation under former Disney animator Milt Neil at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. He has been in the animation industry since 1984. He started doing animation for small commercials, then years later moved on to J.J. Sedelmaier Productions working on the "Cluckin' Chicken" parody for Saturday Night Live, which led to MTV, where he worked on "Beavis and Butt-Head", doing storyboard revisions, character and prop design, layout. animation on the hallucination sequence on the feature "Beavis and Butt-head Do "America" and also MTV's "The Maxx", doing character layout. As a freelancer, he's worked for various companies including Disney TV, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, HBO Family, Miramax, Warner Bros., Saatchi and Saatchi, General Mills and Comedy Central. Currently, he's still doing the freelancing thing, while developing some personal projects for pitching.
Fox has canceled the animated comedy series Sit Down, Shut Up! and reportedly will not air any further episodes.
Comedy Central is betting on animation to bring in the laughs, giving the green light to seven episodes of David Stern’s new series Ugly Americans and developing animated projects from Jamie Foxx, Judah Friedlander and Dan Vebber.
Angels & Demons will try to bring Star Trek back down to Earth this weekend.
Blah Girls, a series of short interstitial animated shorts co-created by Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst production company, will use the syndicated entertainment news show The Insider as a launching pad for a potential TV series.
4Kids Entertainment has acquired the licensing and merchandising rights for the Nordic territories to the upcoming animated feature film Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard and Arthur and the War of the Two Worlds.
Comedy Central and its web partner atom.com have picked up The Fuzz, a new five-episode animated web series from Waverly Films, a team of seven filmmakers based in Brooklyn who met at New York University. Created by Christopher Ford, the show mixes puppetry, live action and animation to deliver a spoof of procedural cop series. Comedy Central will eye the project as a potential pilot for on-air pickup.
Following a record-breaking ratings premiere of Nickelodeon's newest animated series based on a Dreamworks film The Penguins of Madagascar, Nickelodeon today announced that it has ordered 26 episodes of its second co-production with DreamWorks Animation: Kung Fu Panda: The Series- a new CG animated comedy series adapted from the studio's 2008 blockbuster film. Today's announcement, which strengthens the strategic alliance between two of the world's most prolific producers of television and feature film animation, was made by Brown Johnson, President, Animation for Nickelodeon and MTVN Kids & Family Group.
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