Based on the Adam Rex book The True Meaning of Smekday, the Dreamworks Animation version is called Home, and it is scheduled to be in theaters on November 26th. This one looks like it will be a lot of silly fun. This particular short, Almost Home, was already on the big screen in front of the feature animation Mr. Peabody & Sherman.
The winner this time is X-Men: Days of Future Past, and I think the folks running the franchise made an excellent choice. By selecting the 1980 Days of Future Past comic book story line, they get to merge the cast from the three original X-Men movies with the reboot of the franchise from First Class. I like the thought that we haven’t seen the last of the original lineup yet, and I have to appreciate the timing, since the future they traveled back from in the original story was 2013. Also this week we finally get the much-delayed The Prototype… or do we? It is not very promising when the movie home page took down the trailer video; I am thinking this one might still not be available.
Katsuhiro Otomo’s Manga for Akira was impressive, and when they rolled out the Akira Anime it totally changed the way the world viewed Anime in general and Japanese Science Fiction in particular. Several years ago some folks in Hollywood bought the rights to turn it into a live action movie, but so far haven’t done so. Now the fans over at The Akira Project have made their own crowd funded live action trailer, and it looks amazing. If the official Hollywood version ever gets made, I hope it looks half this good. Thanks to the folks at Japanator for the heads-up on this one.
This week we have the latest rebooting of Godzilla, or Gojira if you prefer. The world’s most famous monster is pitted against evil creatures who threaten our very existence. Which was traditionally Gamera, Friend of All Children’s job, if you think about it. Those two were always my favorite Kaiju, so I will be in the theaters to check out this latest incarnation.
This week sees the animated Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return on the big screen, with quite an impressive collection of actors doing the voice work. The book it is based on was not written by L. Frank Baum, but rather his great-grandson, Roger S. Baum, who also writes books about Oz. Roger’s grandfather, Frank Joslyn Baum, didn’t write any books, but he did broker the deal with Samuel Goldwyn in 1934 that gave MGM the film rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Frank J. had the contacts to make that deal because he was in the business, having adopted two other Oz books into screenplays that became an animation in 1933 and a live action feature film in 1925.