In a sign of Folivari’s widening ambitions, the French animation powerhouse will handle world sales of the Sherlock Holmes spinoff “The Baker Street Four” through its newly launched distribution branch Folivari International.

Adapted from a local comic book series that pairs Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective with four streetwise urchins, the title was developed in-house, with Folivari and Blue Spirit (“Blue Eye Samurai”) tackling creative duties and Canal+ set as commissioning broadcaster.

Headed by Melissa Vega – former acquisitions and international sales manager at Dandelooo – Folivari International has picked up three additional titles, among them Folivari originals “Nino Dino” and “Kiki & Ailen” and the Chilean/Brazilian preschool series “Guitar & Drum,” co-produced by Hype Animation and Punkrobot.

That Vega and Folivari founding partner Damien Brunner both share Franco-Spanish backgrounds lends the upstart distributor a desire to look for projects from further afield.

“What works in Latin America often works just...

French 2D animation specialist Disnosc will bring Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Fats Waller to a headset near you.

A family venture founded by Fabrice and Nathan Otaño – a father-son duo with respective experience in corporate analytics and high-end animation, with credits on films like “The Summit of the Gods” and “Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia” – the Biarritz-based studio launched in 2020 to bring pet-project “Blue Figures” to the small screen.

Co-directed by David Calvert and developed in-house, the hand-drawn anthology series follows a Parisian record store, staffed by jazz aficionados, that opens a wider window onto the world. Episodes will focus on individuals such as Davis, Baker and Waller, as well as pianist Mary Lou Williams and French author-scenester Boris Vian.

“Jazz isn’t just about music,” says producer Fabrice Otaño, evoking Miles Davis’ infamous police assault outside of New York’s Birdland. “It’s also about political and social struggle.

Oscar frontrunner “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” won a leading seven races at the Annie Awards on Feb. 17, including Best Studio Animated Feature over two of its Oscar rivals — “The Boy and the Heron” and “Nimona” — plus “Suzume.” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.” The fifth Oscar contender, “Robot Dreams ” won Best Independent Feature over “Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia,” “Four Souls of Coyote,” “The Inventor” and “White Plastic Sky.”

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” went seven for seven with wins also for director, character design, editorial, FX, music and production design. “The Boy and the Heron” picked up a pair of prizes from its seven bids: character animation and storyboarding. Likewise “Nimona” prevailed in two of its nine races: voice acting (Chloe Grace Moretz) and writing.

Eight of the last 12 Annie Awards champs have previewed the Oscar winner: “Rango” (2012), “Frozen” (2014), “Inside Out” (2016), “Zootopia” (2017), “Coco” (2018), “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse...

The Oscar-frontrunning Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” was the big winner at Asifa-Hollywood’s 51st Annie Awards (held February 17 at UCLA’s Royce Hall), grabbing seven awards, topped by best animated feature. As a 66 percent Oscar predictor, the Annie win bodes well for Sony and producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller.

The other “Spider-Verse” awards were for FX, character design, direction, music, production design, and editorial.

The Oscar-nominated dark horse, “Robot Dreams” (Neon), from Pablo Berger, won best independent feature, and “War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko” (ElectroLeague) took best short. The prestige short got a boost in its race for the Oscar. It’s directed by Pixar alum Dave Mullins and executive produced by Sean Ono Lennon, in partnership with Peter Jackson and his Wētā FX Limited animation team.

Hayao Miyazaki’s summary film, “The Boy and the Heron“ (Studio Ghibli-GKids), won two Annies for Takeshi Honda...

Not surprisingly, our five leading contenders for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars also dominate the Annie Awards nominations announced on January 11. The predicted Oscar winner, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” reaped a lucky seven nominations. However, it is another likely Oscar contender, “Nimona,” that topped the nominations chart with nine bids.

All three of these films contend for Best Studio Animated Feature as does six-time nominee “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.” We expect another six-time nominee, “Elemental” to reap an Oscar bid for Best Animated Feature even though it was snubbed in the top race by the Annies. That category is filled out here by “Suzume,” which earned seven nominations in all.

The Best Independent Feature nominees are: “Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia,” “Four Souls of Coyote,” “Robot Dreams,” “The Inventor” and “White Plastic Sky.”

These precursor prizes are presented by the Hollywood chapter of the International Animated Film Association.

“Nimona,” Netflix’s sci-fi fantasy about a disgraced knight and a shape-shifting teenager, led the features category of the 51st Annie Awards nominations with nine, including best feature, director, character animation, character design, production design, storyboarding, voice acting, writing and editorial.

In the feature race, “Nimona,” produced by Annapurna Animation for Netflix, will go up against critical darling “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” from Sony Pictures Animation, Japanese fantasy-adventure “Suzume” from CoMix Wave Films and Story and distributed by Crunchyroll/Sony Pictures, Paramount and Nickelodeon’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” and newly minted Golden Globe winner “The Boy and the Heron,” the first feature from auteur Hayao Miyazaki in a decade, out of Studio Ghibli and distributed by Gkids.

“Blue Eye Samurai,” also a Netflix project, topped the field in the TV/media categories, picking up seven noms. It was followed closely by Disney TV Animation’s “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur...

“Nimona,” the underdog Oscar contender from Annapurna Animation/Netflix, was the surprise leader for Asifa-Hollywood’s 51st Annie Awards with nine nominations. Meanwhile, the leading Oscar frontrunners, Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” and Studio Ghibli/GKids’ “The Boy and the Heron” each scored seven nominations. The awards ceremony will be held February 17 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

They will compete for best feature honors with Crunchyroll/Sony’s “Suzume,” the latest 2D fantasy/adventure from anime master Makoto Shinkai, which also collected seven nominations, and Nickelodeon/Paramount’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” which grabbed six noms.

Pixar’s “Elemental” also earned six nominations, while Neon’s “Robot Dreams,” an indie Oscar hopeful from Spain/France, earned five nominations.

The other best indie feature contenders are GKids’ “Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia,” “Four Souls of Coyote” (Cinemon Entertainment), “The Inventor” (Curiosity Studios), and “White Plastic Sky...

The Academy has revealed the list of eligible films for consideration in best animated, documentary and international feature of the year, encompassing a broad range of blockbusters and critically acclaimed titles.

GKids’ “The Boy and the Heron,” Pixar’s “Elemental,” Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” are among the 33 animated films in the running. This is up from 27 in 2023, when “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” took home the prize.

The eventual five nominees are determined by members of the shorts and animation branch, and any Academy members outside the branch who wish to participate. The number of outside members who opt in is unknown. All films submitted for animated feature also qualify for the Academy Awards in other categories, including best picture.

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

There are 88 films representing their countries for the international feature Oscar,...

Superprod Animation Moves Into Tween Fare With ‘Heroic Football’

French animation studio Superprod has announced new series Heroic Football, set against a fantasy land in which soccer is its only salvation. The project brings together a host of French animation talent including writers Guillaume Mautalent and Sébastien Oursel (Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia). They are joined by Antoine Charreyron, who directed Batwheels, produced at Superprod Animation for Warner Bros Animation, as well as the movie The Prodigies and cult-animated series Galactik Football. Art director Florent Auguy is also attached. Superprod will present the 26 x 22 minutes series at Cartoon Forum 2023 in Toulouse on September 20. The series marks the company’s first foray into animation aimed at the tween demographic. “Each project we undertake is a chance to delve into fresh realms. With Heroic Football,...

London- and Paris-based Film Constellation has boarded sales on 2D family animated feature “Carmen,” a contemporary adaptation of the opera, to be directed by 2023 Annecy Film Festival winner Sébastien Laudenbach. Variety revealed first details of the project last year exclusively.

Laudenbach, who won the best film award at Annecy for “Chicken for Linda!,” is teaming up with renowned French animation studio Folivari on “Carmen.”

It’s 1840 in Seville, a pulsating town of sailors and small-time crooks. Salvador, a young assistant to the gifted knife grinder Antonio, meets a captivating gypsy girl named Carmen. Her rapturous beauty and independent spirit are the talk of the town, but Antonio’s ability to glimpse the future foretells a tragic fate. With unwavering resolve, Salvador will muster an eclectic band of misfit kids, led by the spirited Belén, to protect Carmen against the unyielding threads of destiny, igniting the ancient city’s alleyways in a symphony of emotions.

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on September 7th, 2023, reviewing “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,” the third film that highlights that wacky Greek family. In theaters on September 8th.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Nia Vardalos is back as Toula, the Greek bride from the classic first film and now the middle aged Mom of college daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) and wife of Ian (John Corbett). The dying wish of Toula’s father is that she take his journal about his hometown Greek village and deliver it back to his childhood friends. When the gang take the trip to the village, with Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin) and Aunt Frieda (Maria Vacratsis), as well as brother Nick (Louis Mandylor), it’s not what they expect, since the village seems to only be populated by a wacky mayor named Victory (Melinda Kotse-lou) and a scary...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on The Eddie Volkman Show with Hannah B on a 3-Station Broadcast … Star 96.7 Joliet (Il), Star 102.3 Waukegan and Star 105.5 McHenry on September 1st, reviewing the animated French film “Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia.” In theaters since September 1st.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

This is a sequel to the Oscar nominated 2012 “Ernest & Celestine,” and again features the bear Ernest (voice of Lambert Wilson) and the mouse Celestine (Pauline Brunner as charming besties. In this new animated adventure Celestine breaks the prize violin of musician Ernest, and feeling guilty goes to the bear’s hometown of Gibberitia to get it fixed. With Ernest in pursuit they find out that the town, and Ernest’s father who is an authoritarian judge, has banned music. The friend duo may be there to save the day.

“Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia” in limited theaters since September 1st.

Jean-Christophe Roger and Julien Chheng’s animated film Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia begins with Celestine the mouse (Pauline Brunner) excitedly waking Ernest the bear (Lambert Wilson) from a long hibernation. Their simple domestic ritual—she clambers up to the stove to prepare bowls of hot chocolate while he lumbers groggily downstairs to join her—is quietly enchanting thanks to the film’s expressive, elegant hand-drawn aesthetic.

The fact that the film’s two protagonists are such different sizes also allows A Trip to Gibberitia to explore each part of its lovingly crafted world from two distinct perspectives. Throughout, the filmmakers continually find creative ways for Celestine to traverse Ernest’s mountainous furniture while he blunders over everything in his path like a one-man slapstick show.

Ernest and Celestine’s happy domesticity is interrupted when the mouse accidently smashes the bear’s prized violin, leading them on an...

The North American box office has been a challenge to track the past couple of years, first with movie theaters shuttering along with almost everything else due to the Covid pandemic, and then in 2023, just when thing were returning to normal, a pair of Hollywood strikes has further complicated studios’ release-date strategies.

Still, as of last weekend of August, the 2023 domestic box office is already past $6.6 billion in grosses, up 25% over the same frame a year ago, and there are still busy festival and holiday seasons to help boost awareness — and attendance.

Check out 2023’s latest U.S release date schedule for the major and specialty studios below and keep checking back for the latest updates.

September Friday, September 1

The Equalizer 3

Sony Pictures (Wide)

The Good Mother

Vertical Entertainment (Moderate)

Cheta Singh

Seven Colors America (Limited)

Don’t Look Away

Level 33 (Limited)

Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia

Gkids...

The French animated film "Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia" executes a music gag you wouldn't expect to be both world-building and silly. With the stoic seriousness of a concert professional, an anthropomorphic bear musician flexes his knuckles over a piano, as if prepping for Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto #2 in C Minor." But instead, he proceeds to plink the C-note repeatedly. There is no variation in the tune except a change in tempo. Then the editing expands the gag by revealing a payoff: the piano really only has one piano key. The crowd lauds his music. The lead bear and mouse, the eponymous Ernest and Celestine, are gobsmacked by this display of "music." At once, they learn the hard way that this country banned multi-note instruments. This gag best represents the family-friendly politics within the "Ernest & Celestine" sequel.

Dare I say the sequel might sing a better tune than the first?...

"This musical resistance needs us, Ernest!" The adorable bear and mouse are back once again! GKids has re-released the official trailer for the animated adventure sequel called Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia (this is for the original French-language version). The follow up to the Oscar-nominated Ernest & Celestine (2012) once again features the famous unlikely duo – this time returning to Ernest's hometown in Gibberitia. Nominated for Best Animated Film at France's 48th César Awards, Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia opened in French theaters in December, and had its US premiere as the opening night film of the New York Children's Film Festival. Jean-Christophe Roger, director of the Ernest & Celestine animated series, returned to the beloved characters as co-director, and is joined by Emmy-nominated co-director Julien Chheng, who worked on the original Ernest & Celestine feature as a character animator, and directed "The Spy Dancer" from the latest Star Wars: Visions series.

Gkids has unveiled the U.S. release date, first trailer and English-language voice cast for Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia, the sequel to the Oscar-nominated animated feature Ernest & Celestine, which it likewise released stateside.

Slated for a September 1 release at the Village East in New York, as well as at L.A.’s Laemmle Santa Monica and Laemmle Glendale and additional markets nationwide (view the full list here), the film based on the children’s books by Gabrielle Vincent has Andrew Kishino playing Ernest the bear, with Ashley Boettcher as his unlikely mouse friend Celestine. Others in this cast of the film, which is also coming to U.S. theaters in its original French-language form, include David Lodge, Anne Yatco, Lena Josephine Marano, Bill Lobley and Daniel Hagan. Check out its trailer above.

The new Ernest & Celestine flick nabbed a nomination for Best Animated Feature at the...

Sundance documentary “Stephen Curry: Underrated” and SXSW television premiere “I’m a Virgo” will open and close Sffilm, the 66th annual San Francisco International Film Festival.

Sffilm unveiled the full lineup for the fest along with the openers and closers. The Bay Area film festival, which screens in theaters across San Francisco as well as Oakland and Berkeley, will host 50 feature film programs (includes Workshop and “mid-lengths”), 46 shorts, and one TV screening (“I’m a Virgo”). Both directors behind “I’m a Virgo” and “Underrated” — Boots Riley and Peter Nicks — grew up in the Bay Area, more specifically in Oakland. Other films from Bay Area filmmakers whose projects will screen include W. Kamau Bell’s “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed,” Savanah Leaf’s “Earth Mama,” and Babak Jalali’s “Fremont.”

“It is Sffilm Festival season once again and I cannot wait to share this year’s program with local audiences,” Jessie Fairbanks, Sffilm’s director of programming,...

Updating previous exclusive with trailer: Watch the first trailer Nuclear Now, the pro-nuclear energy documentary from three-time Academy Award winner Oliver Stone. Abramorama and Giant Pictures on March 3 acquired North American rights to the pic, which premiered (as Nuclear) at last year’s Venice Film Festival.

Abramorama will open the film theatrically in New York, Los Angeles, and select markets beginning April 28, bringing it to theaters across the U.S. and Canada on its “Nuclear Now Day” of May 1st, with Giant Pictures then bringing it to digital and streaming platforms.

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The film that Stone wrote with professor & Ph.

Jean-Christophe Roger, Julien Chheng co-directed.

GKids has acquired all US rights to Ernest & Celestine: A Trip To Gibberitia the follow-up to Oscar-nominated Ernest & Celestine.

The French-language story centres on the bear and mouse friends who travel to Ernest’s country of Gibbertia to fix a broken violin and discover that all forms of music have been banned. The duo gather friends old and new to bring happiness back to the land of bears

Jean-Christophe Roger and Julien Chheng co-directed Ernest & Celestine: A Trip To Gibberitia which earned a César nomination and opened in French cinemas in December.

Gkids has snapped up U.S. rights to Ernest & Celestine: A Trip To Gibberitia — the sequel to the acclaimed Ernest & Celestine, which landed a Best Animated Feature Oscar nom in 2014. The decorated producer and distributor of animation, celebrating its 15th anniversary, will put both the original French-language version of Gibberitia and a new English dub in theaters this year.

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Both Ernest & Celestine films are based on the children’s book series by Belgian author-illustrator Gabrielle Vincent. The original helmed by Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner examines the unlikely friendship between a bear, Ernest (Lambert Wilson...