Filed under: Movies

“Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties” was number 7 over its opening weekend and only took in $7.2 million according to The Numbers.Most reviews that I read thought the script was less than stellar, but I’m sure as a parent, if I had a choice between Pixar’s “Cars” and “Garfield,” I’d take the former.  “Cars” is in its second week at number 1 and took in $31.2 million over the weekend for a growing total of $114.5 million.Here are a couple of more reviews: The Patriot News in Harrison, PA thinks it wasn’t too bad, but the VUE Weekly hopes Garfield doesn’t have nine lives; The Boston Globe wasn’t impressed as well.

I’m late in getting in contact with the Garfield/20th Century Fox crowd to see if there is a prescreening of the new Garfield movie that is coming out this Friday, so I’ll try to be diligent in posting links to other reviews.First up we have a disappointed MSNBCDespite (Bill Murray) droll delivery and a couple of amusing lines here and there, Murray can?t wring many laughs out of the mostly lame script from returning writers Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow….  A sure sign of complete creative bankruptcy in any sequel, this time the action shifts overseas to England, where Garfield (voiced by Bill Murray) is given the opportunity to do the usual European vacation things, including a pit stop at Buckingham Palace where his dog pal Odie pees on the stoic royal guards.

Like clockwork, every time a successful movie comes out, someone comes out of the woodwork claiming that the movie idea was based on their earlier work and that the creators are plagiarists who are raking in money off of someone else’s idea.According to Minnesota public radio, Moira Manion is a cartoonist from Minnesota who had a comic strip about a fox and a snake living on the edge of suburbia back in in the early 1990’s that was distributed through Argonaut Entertainment….  Despite the hand-written notes of encouragement in their margins, she decided to lay down Franky & Ralph temporarily to pursue other ideas.A few months later, with her suburban streetwise fox and naive rattlesnake still fresh in her head, Manion ran across a notice in a newspaper trade magazine.”It said that coming in October, United Feature Syndicate would be launching a new strip about a streetwise raccoon and a practical, naive turtle who lived in the suburbs because their woods had been destroyed by the suburbs,” Manion says.It was her first notice of a strip called Over the Hedge.

Wall Street estimates Wall Street trims “Hedge” box-office forecast | Reuters.com:LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – “Over the Hedge” managed a modest 30 percent box office decline in its second weekend, though some analysts are concerned that the animal cartoon still could underperform and put pressure on the stock of its producer, DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.The film earned $84 million in its first 11 days, after a $35.3 million performance over the Memorial Day Holiday weekend, but has just one more weekend to itself before arch-rival Walt Disney Co.  releases the Pixar-produced “Cars.””It now appears unlikely that ‘Over the Hedge’ will reach either our estimate of $195 million in domestic box office or original consensus expectations of $180 million,” Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen wrote in a research note Wednesday after others had raised concern last week.The analyst said DreamWorks Animation likely will earn less than 50 cents per share this year, which would be a significant earnings miss relative to her 57 cents per share forecast.The analyst said she is reining in her box office prediction to $150 million-$160 million domestically for “Hedge.”

The new Garfield movie “A Tail of Two Kitties” opens up in theaters on June 16 and the first Garfield movie will be re-released on DVD as a collectors edition by Fox Home Entertainment.  The collectors version will have several special features such as: games, 10 jigsaw puzzles, 17 deleted scenes, a Garfield documentary, story board and of course the ever popular feature often called “and a whole lot more.”If that wasn’t enough, two new Garfield books will be published next month according to E&P.

Michael Fry and T Lewis’ movie “Over the Hedge” was up against two other new movies this week end….  The third and last place honor went to “See No Evil” which earned $4.4 million over it’s initial weekend.Over the Hedge has three more weeks to be the top animated movie in the theater until Disney/Pixar’s movie “Cars” is released on June 9.All figures are according to IMDB.

Last night I caught a prescreening of T.  Lewis and Michael Fry’s “Over the Hedge” movie.

T. Lewis and Michael Fry with the cast of “Over the Hedge.” ‘ DreamWork SKG Animation. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved.Regardless of how well the “Over the Hedge” movie does this upcoming weekend, Michael Fry and co-creator T. Lewis will claim one honor that no other comic strip can boast: “Over the Hedge” will […]

With the launch of “Garfield 2” later this summer, The Game Factory will be releasing the video game, based on the movie, for the PS2, Nintendo DC and the PC.

With less than 2 weeks before the public release of Michael Fry and T….  From the New York Times, comes an article that will step you though the history of how RJ made it to the Silver Screen and the challenges that had to be overcome to get the movie to the public.

This section features audio interviews of actors, writers and directors of past and upcoming DreamWorks films.  If you feel there is info missing here and can help expand it e-mail me at jawad@dreamworksfansite.com.

Before Ann Telnaes became the 2001 Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartooning, she was an animator for Disney.  One of her animated shorts that she created while a student at California Institute of the Arts will be part of an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City according to Editor and Publisher.The exhibit, entitled “Tomorrowland: CalArts in Moving Pictures” runs May 25-Aug.

Matt Groening was recently interviewed by AV Club about some of the projects he’s working on. While still cranking out “Life in Hell,” he’s also working on the upcoming Simpson feature film, and four Futurama DVD feature films.  If you’re a fan of Groenings print or television work, this is a good interview.

Lewis’ “Over the Hedge” movie is starting to create some buzz as it gets closer to it’s May 19 nation-wide opening.  Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation CEO had this nice thing to say about the movie:”That was the genius of the strip.

Slightly Off-topic. It’s been rumored for quite sometime, then production started, now a release date of July 27, 2007 has been set for the full length animation movie of The Simpsons.A 25 second trailer has been showing in theaters before Ice Age 2.I’ll link to the trailer should it appear online.UPDATE: Looks like it’s more […]