Computer Animation Arts

It's official: Despicable Me 2 's Fart-Blaster toy is the must have accessory... "In July, two weeks before Universal Pictures' Despicable Me 2opened in U.K. theaters, retailers and Thinkway Toys, the master license holder for the animated movie, pulled their TV and print advertising. The entire line of DM2 toys already had sold out. "Customers were coming in and getting very upset they couldn't get the Minions," says Stephanie Sperber, president of Universal Partnerships & Licensing. "And this is after three reorders and air-freighting in products, which in the toy business is unheard of. People don't air-freight. It makes things exponentially more expensive." What happened in the U.K. wasn't isolated. Sales for DM2 toys in the U.S., other parts of Europe, Mexico and Latin America were equally robust. In a summer heavy with animated family movies, surprisingly few exploded at the box office and at retail.Despic...

I don't think the future of feature-length CG animation is in any danger if the profit margins of Despicable Me 2 are anything to go by!  "The animated sequel has proven insanely lucrative - so successful in fact that NBCUniversal bigwig Steve Burke said in a conference call that ‘Despicable Me 2’ will become “the single most profitable film in the 100 year history of Universal Studios”.   This is pretty impressive, considering Universal's back catalogue - which includes Jaws , for example.  Is that the sound of more family friendly animation being greenlit by studio execs? Yes indeed, and the sound it makes goes 'kerching!'   If you're finding the whole 'cinema dies a death by sequels' thing culturally depressing, this news won't gladden your heart any.  However, if you were looking for evidence that CGI is booming and will continue to boom, this is probably it - until, I suppose, a run of CGI duds gives the money men the heebie-jeebies and ...

You'll enjoy this!

First official trailer for Despicable Me 2 ...   Looks like fun.