They’re probably playing off Valentine’s Day, but February doesn’t have much of a history of being a hot ticket month for animated movies. My guess is Disney doesn’t expect it to be a flying success at the box office. For all I know, it’s just another bad marketing job, or maybe it really will be a good movie.
There’s also Hop in April for you to add to your list. I forget if there are others. It looks like I’m going to have to make quite a few trips to the theaters in late spring!
This seems like a total spin-off of in Toy Story 2, where Hamm says, “The lawn gnome in the neighbor’s lawn says it’s not there, but he’ll keep looking.”
Not sure how much CG will be in Hop along with the live action, but it doesn’t seem to be 100% CG like the others mentioned–maybe Chipmunks-esque? Perhaps such distinctions warrant a new topic…
Agreed, there’s more than a little Toy Story vibe in the Gnomeo trailer. Even so, it also looks like it could find its own path departing from a few Pixar-ish points.
I’m curious about how much Gnomeo and Juliet will succeed, if for no other reason than to see a non-major CG outfit like Starz find happiness with a US distributor. If Gnomeo and Juliet turns out to be the last such attempt by independent CG animators…I don’t know, maybe something worthwhile will be lost.
Cheers! Steve
Oh, I haven’t even seen the trailer! Ha. I figured it was all animation. I wouldn’t count it in that case.
One thing I realized is the pig on the top of the house is a lookout so is Hamm in Toy Story 
Just like Shrek 4 I’m skipping it.
I saw Yogi Bear today, and there were a lot of kids. During the trailers of Rio and Cars 2 parents and children were excitied and laughing. As for the Gnomeo and Juliet trailer? Near dead silence.
Yeah, this film is going to be horribly bad. I agree with Consuela when she said it’s a bad spinoff of that one line from TS2.
I swear, they definitely were influenced by that line. I just watched the trailer, and it seemed even more that way!!! I may rent, or watch it on Starz, but I’m not seeing this in theaters.
I love how Disney didn’t even put their name on the trailer. Usually they just use the Touchstone name when a movie isn’t appropriate for the “Disney” title, but it seems that this one they were just too ashamed to soil Walt’s name on the trailer.
And considering what they have plastered Walt Disney’s name onto, that really says something.
Perhaps Touchstone is the appropriate label given that WDAS didn’t produce the animation. It would be misleading to label it Disney. But as Gnomeo really is being distributed by Disney, someone there must have found enough worthwhile about it. So Touchstone would be the way to go–it’s probably more straightforward than the TinkerBell series with Disney’s name on it but largely outsourced to Prana Studios in India.
On another note, will we see gnomes at the local Disney Store?
Cheers! Steve
Do you think that it was different for films like The Wild and Valiant because they were released several years ago before changes were made (perhaps due to Lasseter)? Those weren’t the greatest movies and yet Disney still put their valuable name on them.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if Lasseter is a factor in doing things differently. On the other hand, it’s strange to see Disney’s name on Studio Ghibli films, which is apparently still done (not sure how that plays out in a theatrical release as I’ve only seen Ghibli fims on video).
It could also be that, if Lasseter shut the project down earlier, it was politically appropriate to have gno Disney label on Gnomeo. At any rate, it doesn’t seem like Disney is distancing itself from Gnomeo based on its quality. Gnomeo could turn out to be “better” than Valiant or The Wild.
Cheers! Steve
Disney releases things not made by their own studios under their name all the time (The Wild, Valiant, Mars Needs Moms, Polar Express, and pre-purchase Pixar movies, for example.)
And it was kind of a half-joke, you know.
Silly me, I didn’t even half get the joke! I think Disney owns ImageMovers Digital, so it makes sense for them to release Mars Needs Moms! under their name. I thought Warners released Polar Express. But sure, Disney does it all the time, which makes it no less puzzling in certain instances (e.g., Ghibli).
Anyway, Gnomeo and Juliet might have a better chance at success being distributed by Touchstone (as opposed to Weinstein or Lionsgate), and maybe Disney will come out of it with some money in pocket. Gnome is where the heart is?
Cheers! Steve
It looks like Disney premiered Gnomeo and Juliet at the El Capitan Theater on January 23, and the following very positive review probably came out of that. There are a few spoiler-ish comments and some nice notes about the quality of the animation and 3D experience:
hollywire.com/2011/01/introd … %99-review
Anyway, perhaps there’s hope that G&J will break the magic $140 million worldwide box-office barrier and become the first independently produced CG-animation film to venture into big-league territory. But it better do good business quickly, because Rango is hot on its heels a-gunnin’ fer it…
Mmmm. This review certainly leaves me more intrigued then I was before.
Perhaps quite like HTTYD, Megamind and (while not as bad in advertising as these two), Tangled, the trailers are a bit misleading with regards their full potential and putting in the scenes which wouldn’t be considered that great?
Even if YES, it’s gnomes playing shakespeare stories with (probably) a happy ending. But then a lot of film descriptions sound pretty stupid on paper when you think about it.
I guess I’ll be giving this movie a chance then- though I still maintain a small amount of skepticism.
Guuuuh. I have so many movies I have to watch this year (going to watch Tangled some time in Feb along with Black Swan.) It’s a good thing on the one hand- but also I don’t know if I’ll be able to see them all if I’m too busy.
yes, I would see it
imo, this film doesn’t look that bad, but it seems to be focused on jokes, expecting to see its grade in Rotten Tomatoes
now, it has 5 reviews and only 1 of them is negative
80% at this moment
The only thing about this movie that makes me interested is the fact that Elton John wrote the songs. But that’s not a good enough reason for me to spend a lot of money at the theaters!
^Exactly same here. XD