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The somewhat troubled path to release of the sequel to 2014’s The LEGO Movie has bumped through another pothole. Warner Animation Group has announced that veteran animation and live-action director Mike Mitchell is taking over on the film at the helm of The LEGO Movie Sequel.

Lighthouse Studios is a newly announced animation studio to be based in Kilkenny, Ireland. A joint venture of Cartoon Saloon (also of Kilkenny) and the Canadian animation studio Mercury Filmworks, the new studio is expected to open up at least 140 new jobs in Ireland. Both partners will continue their own separate TV and film operations, and use the new studio to develop children’s and family TV entertainment, for multi-platform global distribution.

This morning the nominees for the 89th Academy Awards were announced in Beverly Hills California. In animation, we saw a good mix of big budget, popular films and smaller film releases. Disney came in with two nominations for best animated film, and Pixar struck out after wining last year with Inside Out. 

Disney announced via Facebook Live that Oscar-winning animated film Wreck-It Ralph will be treated to a sequel in 2018. Though currently unofficially titled Wreck-It Ralph 2, the film will see the return of John C. Reilly as Ralph and the anticipated return of Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch as Vanellope von Schweetz, Fix-It Felix, Jr., and Sergeant Calhoun, respectively.

With the seeming unstoppable success of Disney’s live-action adaption The Jungle Book, and previous box-office toppers Maleficent and Cinderella– Disney is sifting through a lot of old animation classics with an eye to live-action remakes. With the box office success of each successive live-action adaption, it is no surprise at all that we see more adaptions on the horizon. Now Disney is saying they are already working on The Jungle Book 2, with both director Jon Favreau and writer Justin Marks returning to the film.

The video-game inspired animated film Ratchet & Clank opened this weekend, but could not overpower the 1-2 punch of Disney animation. Despite opening on nearly 2900 screens, the Rainmaker Entertainment and Blockade Entertainment production could not overcome the almost universal panning by critics, and the film only took in 4.8 million, and coming in at 7th in the box office.

In a stunning shake-up of animation studios, NBCUniversal has picked up DreamWorks Animation for 3.8 billion dollars, in a deal announced April 28th. Comcast- the parent company of NBCUniversal- says that Dreamworks “will become part of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.

From the late 19th century everything had changed in the new world. The working class had been growing fed by thousands and thousands of new immigrants, who, unlike the first ones who came from Britain, Canada, Germany, Ireland and Scandinavia, these arrived from Hungary, Italy, Poland and Russian. The new immigrants were often Catholics and Jewish and, often as well, their cultural and religious heritage collided with the one of the first colonists.

ToonBox Entertainment’s The Nut Job 2– originally to be released January 15th- is now looking at a release next month on May 19. The sequel to 2014’s The Nut Job features the return of Will Arnett as Surly Squirrel.

The idea that cartoons are created only for children is a pretty common one. However you may find that this preconception is a lot farther away from reality than you would think. Disney became the king of cartoon- land, and in doing so turn animation into an integral part of the film industry, with his philosophy dominating the market until the end of the century. But animation- not even in Walt Disney original intentions- was never intended only for kids.