At the Annecy Animation Festival in France in June, DreamWorks Animation's feature film "The Wild Robot" was screened and received excellent feedback and laughter. After the film was played, all the audience gave a standing ovation, and such a post-screening response undoubtedly injected a shot of strength into the film's main creative team. "Wilderness Robots" is the main work promoted by DreamWorks this fall, starring Lupita ·Nyong'o (Lupita Nyong'o) and Pedro Pascal (Pedro Pascal· and directed by Chris Sanders· Chris Sanders.

A few days later, Pixar's "Inside Out 2" was screened at the Annecy Animation Film Festival and released around the world. The film continued the excellent performance of its predecessor, grossing more than $150 million in the first weekend of release, surpassing the $282 million of "Dune 2" with $285 million in 8 days of release, becoming the 2024 domestic box office champion in United States, and the current North American box office of "Mind Agent 2" is $558 million, the overseas box office is $735 million, and the global box office is approaching $1.3 billion.

The future is full of challenges

These two boosters came at the right time.

From last year's "double strike" by the Writers and Actors Guild in United States to the recent shrinking market share, animated feature films now face huge profitability challenges. The Hollywood animation industry has suffered a box office failure and the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) has caused various problems.

Producer Nicole ·Sorochan, who took "The Worlds Divide" to the premiere of the Annecy Animated Film Festival this year, is currently looking for a promotional partner. She believes that the animation market still needs to face many challenges this year, including budget cuts and the invasion of AI-generated content.

Before the release of "Mind Squad 2", that is, in May this year, Pixar announced a 14% layoff of its current staff, which is the largest layoff for Pixar since it was acquired by Disney in 2006. The layoffs have a lot to do with Disney's change in strategy in the animation market — during the coronavirus pandemic, "Soul," "Luca" and "Turning Red" have skipped theatrical releases and gone straight to streaming platform Disney+, and viewers' viewing habits may have changed. In addition, 2022's "Lightyear" suffered a box office fiasco; 2023's "Elemental" grossed less than $30 million in its opening weekend, setting a new low for a Pixar movie, and while it ended up grossing a modest $496 million, it fell short of Pixar's expectations.

Pete Docter, who succeeded ·John Lasseter as Pixar's chief creative officer in 2018· is the director of the first part of "Mind Squad." His remarks in a recent interview sparked discussion on social platforms - due to the continued slump at the box office, Peter · Doggett encouraged Pixar's directors and producers to put aside their personal growth stories for the time being and move closer to "more mainstream" themes. This suggestion is interpreted as saying that Pixar will no longer look for stories from relatively niche values in the future.

The remarks caused a lot of discontent within Pixar. Sarah Ligatich·, a former production assistant who worked on projects such as "Elements of Madness" and the yet-to-be-released animated series "Win or Lose," was one of the disgnots after being fired in May. She believes that Doggett's words are an unacceptable rejection of herself and other Pixar staff members who have devoted years of their energy to creating a story.

Dave Holstein, the ·screenwriter of "Mind Squad 2", believes that the film's success is due to the original "Toy Story": sincerity and humor. Holstein concluded, "Peter · Doggett has done an in-depth study of both Pixar's existing project library and previous successful IPs. Fortunately, by the time the company's strategy was adjusted, "Mind Squad 2" was already more than halfway through, and the film did have similar values to those works when Pixar first appeared, so it could smoothly get to the screen. ”

The future of streaming is unknown

The tightening of the streaming market is another challenge for animators.

Content providers are cutting their budgets these days. Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) canceled the animated feature film Scooby-Doo: Christmas Adventure (Scoob!). Holiday Haunt) and the live-action feature film Coyote vs. ACME (Coyote vs. ACME). Acme). Sam Register, chairman ·of Warner Animation, also had to admit that "post-streaming content streamlining is going on everywhere these days." ”

Of course, Warner's "Bugs Bunny" animated series "The Day the Earth Blew Up" is still moving forward as expected, and the film has also received a good reputation at the Annecy Animated Film Festival, which is expected to be released later this year. Reggist explained, "Because 'The Day the Earth Exploded' was originally planned to be streamed, it was retained by the company. ”

It's a similar story at Disney, where Moana 2, scheduled for release on Nov. 27, was originally developed as streaming content. Dan·ny Barnhart, a former special effects artist at Pixar who was also laid off in May, concluded, "Disney has misjudged the way the streaming service Disney+ is making money, and many projects have been rushed to launch, and there is a general situation of overhired staff." Now the top management has to adjust the strategy back, which will inevitably cause a lot of chaos and cause many people to lose their jobs. ”

For the past year and a half, Fox's late-night animation channel, Adult Swim, has been exploring its place in the streaming landscape. In fact, except for the parent company WBD, the entire industry is looking forward to them to find the answer. As it stands, whether it's the new season of "Rick and Morty" or the new series "Smiling Friends" and "Royal Crackers," the broadcast results are satisfactory. Michael Ouweleen, the channel's chairman·, said: "Cartoons for young children are really hard to do right now; But when it comes to human-oriented anime, WBD is a company with a lot of confidence. ”

Smiling Friends

In addition, it is unclear whether AI-generated content, like a cloud hanging over the heads of Hollywood practitioners, will bring shade or torrential rain.

The recent impact of AI technology is particularly evident in the employment of the Hollywood animation industry. Last November, DreamWorks ·founder Jeffrey Katzenberg predicted that with artificial intelligence, the future would require only one-tenth of the artists needed to produce a world-class animated feature film.

Nick ·Johnson, director of Sunburnt Unicorn, which is also in competition at the Annecy Animated Film Festival, said, "When I was teaching at university, I used to talk to my colleagues about things like, 'How often do students use AI?'" ''Do you want to teach this in class?'' ' and so on. It is undeniable that AI has improved the efficiency of some time-consuming and laborious special effects, and AI as a tool can help a lot; But to count on it to make decisions on creativity would be to demote art. ”

The demand for content is still there

Animation practitioners don't need to be too pessimistic, after all, the demand for animation content from global audiences is still quite strong.

Last year, Universal's "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, while Netflix's "Nimona" and Marvel's animated series "X-Men '97" have all received good reviews recently. Netflix's "Twilight of the Gods," which brought to the Annecy Animated Film Festival, is also highly anticipated. Based on Norse mythology, the series is directed by Zack Snyder · is scheduled to launch in September. Netflix revealed that platform data shows that 130 million users watch animated content every month.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

DreamWorks Animation has also experienced a recent round of layoffs, but the company's chairman, Margie ·Cohn, still has high hopes for "Wilderness Robots", "It's not that I don't like IP series, but I hope that original content with vitality, creativity and ambition will get more value." ”

Sam · Reggist and Maggie · Cohen thought the same thing. Warner Animation's two titles are "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim" and "Creature Commandos," the latter of which is the debut of the new DC Studios starring James · Gunn and Peter ·Safran. "In terms of the market, original animation is less competitive because buyers value relatively mature series IPs," Reggist said. Hopefully, in 5 years' time, our industry will be able to re-focus on original content, which is crucial for the development of the industry. ”

Image: Douban

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