New Hollywood Hopefuls…

Last week, Jim Hill’s daily blog presented his review of the recent Licensing International Expo, held at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas. This is the annual show where t-shirt, candy, toy and a zillion other manufacturers look for “the next big thing” to put on their products before they get sold to the rest of us. And of course Hollywood studios are there in force, promoting their new upcoming movies and TV series to all the makers of tie-in merchandise. Among the interesting new items being presented: Dreamworks Animation was there advertising their new 3D Shrek spin-off movie that tells the origin of Puss in Boots; as well as Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom, the new sequel which features (along with the original voice cast) newcomer Gary Oldman as “a peacock who is far more than he seems”.  20th Century Fox was there advertising the 4th film in the Ice Age series, Continental Drift; as well as the upcoming “three-quel” for Alvin and the Chipmunks called Chip-Wrecked.  Before that new Ice Age film though comes Rio, Blue Sky’s next 3D project coming out next April. (If you haven’t heard of it, the film is about a nerdy macaw who can’t fly — but who gets a chance to escape when he visits his species’ native Brazil. It stars the voices of Anne Hathaway, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Jamie Foxx, and Will-I-Am. Check out the trailer on YouTube.) Illumination Entertainment (the same house that animated this year’s film Despicable Me for Universal) is hard at work on an adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ environmental fable The Lorax, scheduled for release in March of 2012 (also from Universal). And of course (as we’ve reported before) this December Fox will be releasing Walden Media’s long-awaited third entry in the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And then, there’s the live-action Smurfs movie coming from Sony in 2011… but let’s not go there, shall we?