In recent days, the Interweb's coughed up a couple of new posters for upcoming Sony animated movies: Sony Pictures Animation's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Ilion Animation's Planet 51. How do they rack up? Check them out below.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Stars Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Andy Samberg
Sony Pictures Animation is hoping to reverse a rough start with this CGI animated film, based on the children's bestseller by Judi and Ron Barrett. The script follows a brainy scientist (Bill Hader) who tries to invent a cure for world hunger by causing the sky to rain down food. Of course hijinks ensue when his plan doesn't work quite as he hoped. Anna Faris (Scary Movie, The House Bunny) voices the presumed love interest, a perky weathergirl.
It's brought to you by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, the folks behind the cult TV show Clone High. In several interviews, they've announced that the film's a spoof/homage to Michael Bay disaster flicks.
The overall feeling from this poster (brought to you by the International Movie Poster Awards) is 'meh.' The image isn't especially compelling, featuring a skinny guy in a lab coat getting pelted by meatballs. The tagline "This September, prepare to get served" doesn't really have a lot of kick to it, either. Clearly the advertising department at Sony was having an off day. Either that, or they're not terribly excited about marketing this film.
I fits with the most telling aspect of this flick: Sony's decided to release it in the dump period of mid-September, after all the kids (the main audience) have gone back to school. This implies that, advertising hype aside, Sony doesn't have high hopes for this film, especially when compared to Disney/Pixar's Up or DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs. Aliens.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs comes to theatres on September 19th.
Planet 51 Stars Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel, Justin Long
The latest poster for Ilion Animation/Sony's Planet 51 (courtesy of the good folks at Latino Review) is a case study in how to blow a perfectly good joke. The line "Something strange is coming to their planet . . ." is perfect: it gives a vague clue as to what's about to happen, enough to make the audience want to know more. However, that particular stroke of genius is obliterated by the next line . . . "Us!" Now we know the premise, and the flick isn't quite so tantalizing. Nice job, Sherlock.
Despite the stunt casting of Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel and Justin Long - actors not necessarily known for their voice work – this flick has real potential. Early reports have indicated that this film might be a sleeper: getting a lower key release but hopefully developing a cult audience a la Laika Animation's Coraline.
Planet 51 invades theatres on November 20th.
 |
 |
