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‘Encanto,’ ‘Flee’ and ‘The Mitchells vs. the Machines’ Artists Detail How They Designed Their Animated Characters

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‘Encanto,’ ‘Flee’ and ‘The Mitchells vs. the Machines’ Artists Detail How They Designed Their Animated Characters

LUCA

Luca (Disney/Pixar)

Character art director Deanna Marsigliese describes the title character as “direct, playful and expressive,” citing as examples the “[bold shapes] and exaggerated proportions, much like those found in children’s drawings.” She adds that Luca represents curiosity, and so his eyes are the largest of any character in the film. Additionally, Japanese block prints, antique maps and mosaics, scientific illustration, puppets and folk art were textures that inspired the looks. “You won’t find any perfectly straight lines or regularly spaced patterns in our character designs. Even our sea monster scales were organized with great care to have rhythmic irregularity in size and placement.”

Luca, a sea monster who turns into a human boy, has exaggerated features that represent the Disney/Pixar film’s childlike perspective.
Courtesy of Pixar Animation Studios

MIRABEL MADRIGAL

Encanto (Disney)

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In the Colombia-set Encanto, protagonist Mirabel, voiced by Stephanie Beatriz, is the only member of the Madrigal family without a magical gift. Of her look, associate production designer Lorelay Bové relates, “We started with a traditional Colombian-inspired skirt and covered it in embroidery designed to look imperfect and handmade. Similar to what you may find in a 15-year-old girl’s scrapbook, we created different icons [for the skirt] to represent each member of her family, reflecting her love for each of them.” Mirabel also wears glasses, which was an important aspect of her look. Says Bové: “One of the film’s main themes is perspective — how different points of view can affect a relationship — and having our main character wear glasses was an intentional choice to reinforce that theme.”

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Encanto’s Mirabel wears traditional and handmade Colombian-inspired clothes. Her enlarged glasses follow the film’s theme of seeing the world from different perspectives.
Courtesy of Walt Disney Animation Studios

KATIE MITCHELL

The Mitchells Vs. The Machines (Netflix)

Teen film student Katie “had to be as bold and interesting on the outside as she was on the inside,” notes director and co-writer Mike Rianda. The animators used her clothing as a way to signify her creativity. “Katie is trying to connect with people and be seen … so her clothes are this homing beacon attracting people like her — whether that’s with film Easter eggs, like her socks that share the pattern from the rug in The Shining, or her rainbow button signaling to others that she’s LGBTQ+,” says Rianda. He adds that production designer Lindsey Olivares “nailed the specificity of what it’s like to be a creative teenager who is searching for both her artistic voice and connection to others.”

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“We [externalized] all her creativity by having Katie draw on her own shirt and draw faces on her pants and hands, like she couldn’t help herself,” explains Mitchells director Mike Rianda.
Courtesy of SPAI/NETFLIX

RAYA

Raya and the Last Dragon (Disney) 

Set in a Southeast Asia-inspired fantasy world called Kumandra, Raya and the Last Dragon follows Raya, a young warrior princess whose costume needed to be functional while also authentic. Research included the formation of a Southeast Asia Story Trust of consultants and research trips to Laos, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia. “The team was inspired by the breathable draping styles in clothes of the region, landing on a combination of the sabai top and dhoti pants, allowing her to move in a believable way,” explains production designer Paul Felix. Raya’s costume design included input from Lao visual anthropologist Steve Arounsack, who led the story trust.

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The slope of Raya’s hat is an homage to stupas found at temples throughout Southeast Asia.
Courtesy of Disney

JONAS POHER RASMUSSEN

Flee (Neon/Participant) 

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Flee‘s writer-director appears in his animated documentary as he interviews Afghan refugee Amin. “I really wanted to create contrast between Amin and me,” Rasmussen says of the decision to make his onscreen persona blond. “Flee is Amin’s story, and I wanted that to be clear from the very beginning. Another thing was Amin wanting to be anonymous. As I’m the one representing the film in public, I thought me being blond would be a nice, subtle way to show that people in the film don’t look exactly like they do in real life.”

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Flee writer-director Jonas Poher Rasmussen appears blond in the animated doc in order to differentiate his character from that of Amin, the film’s subject.
Courtesy of Neon

RON

Ron’s Gone Wrong (20th Century Studios) 

Director Jean-Philippe Vine says the design of the personal robots was meant to evoke the “iconic feel of products made by an Apple or a Google,” but the bots also had to be a child’s best friend. “We landed on the idea that the entire bot is a screen that could be ‘skinned’ with beautiful animated skins.” The malfunctioning Rob was “stripped down to utter basics to really sell his lack of software. That gave us tons of opportunity to use his glitchy pixels and erratic movement to make him a real clown.” Of Ron’s attitude, the helmer admits, “We couldn’t help referring to the old ‘Clippy’ character in Microsoft Word that tried to be cheerfully — and annoyingly — helpful all the time.”

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Ron needed “an elegant industrial design but at the same time [to] feel really compelling as a kid’s product,” says director Jean-Philippe Vine.
Courtesy of Locksmith Animation

BELLE/SUZU

Belle (GKIDS)

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Character designer Jin Kim brought a balance of modern and classical styles to Belle’s look.
Courtesy of Studio Chizu/GKIDS Films

Oscar-nominated writer-director Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle follows Suzu, a shy 17-year-old from a rural village who becomes international singing sensation Belle when she enters a virtual world known as “U.” Explains Hosoda of Belle’s costume: “The goal was to depict a more global perspective of ‘beauty,’ hence the rather unrealistic dress and pink hair. The dress was designed by different artists and a fashion designer who has designed clothes for the Paris collections in the past [Kunihiko Morinaga and the brand Anrealage]. It’s these unrealistic designs that portray a strong and empowered sense of beauty.”

This story first appeared in the Jan. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

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The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

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Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

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Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

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According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

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To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

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Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

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Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

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Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

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