Animation Glut

I used to think all computer animated movies were made by either Dreamworks or Pixar. With the exception of a few titles (Over the Hedge and Wallace and Gromit), I thought that Dreamworks was the lesser of the two companies and its releases were more crude while Pixar's were more classy. While browsing a list of all movies released in 2008 last week, I noticed several titles I knew could be neither Dreamworks nor Pixar: Fly Me to the Moon, Igor, Space Chimps, Tale of Despereaux, and Tortoise vs. Hare. This led me to do some research, which also took me back to my days in a college film studies class.

If you'll allow me to elaborate on the history of Hollywood studios for just a minute, there were originally eight movie studios, called "the majors," as far back as the silent era. They were (in alphabetical order) Columbia, Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, RKO, Universal, and Warner Bros., and each one had an individual identity when it came to the kinds of movies they released. For example, Columbia made cheap comedies, MGM had big stars and big money, and Warner Bros. did mostly gangster films but also the Busby Berkeley musicals. To this day there are still eight "majors," but they're a different eight from before and identities have somewhat fallen by the wayside. Here's the new list, along with the years the studios got started and some examples of CG movies they've each produced:

1. Disney (1923, includes Touchstone and Miramax, just to name two) Bolt, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons

2. Dreamworks SKG (1994, the "S" stands for Spielberg) Bee Movie, Madgascar, Shrek

3. MGM/UA (1924) Igor

4. Paramount (1916) Barnyard, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

5. Sony (1989, formed from Columbia, 1920, and Tristar, 1982) Monster House, Resident Evil: Regeneration, Surf's Up

6. 20th Century/Fox (1933/1915) Horton Hears a Who! Ice Age, Robots

7. Universal (1912) Barbie straight-to-DVD series

8. Warner Bros. (1905) The Ant Bully, The Polar Express, TMNT

As you can see, I was way off in thinking there's just Dreamworks and Pixar. In fact, more than three studios shared production of Beowulf, and none of them were the two I just mentioned. I haven't seen the movie, but I'm sure it lives up to the saying "too many cooks spoil the broth." Another point that Beowulf brings up is that CG releases, whether theatrical or straight-to-DVD, are not limited to cutesy animal comedies and/or sci-fi children's fare. By now you might have wondered, is Pixar included under Disney on the above list? Technically no, at least, it wasn't for the releases listed below, along with those from other smaller studios. Interestingly, I came up with eight same as "the majors" although there may be others:

1. Big Idea - Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

2. Fathom - Delgo (supposedly the worst CG movie to date)

3. Jim Henson - Unstable Fables straight-to-DVD series

4. Lucasfilm - Star Wars: The Clone Wars

5. Illuminata/nWave - Fly Me to the Moon

6. Pixar - A Bug's Life, The Incredibles, Toy Story

7. Vanguard - Happily N'ever After, Space Chimps, Valiant

8. Weinstein - Hoodwinked!, The Nutty Professor (animated sequel to the 1963 original)