25 Upcoming Animated Movies

If you’re like us, then you have probably been jamming out for days to “Everything is Awesome” from last weekend’s The Lego Movie. And for good reason: this is an incredibly awesome animated movie. As a euphoric marriage of toy licenses and trippy childlike glee realized in the only medium that could contain its vision, The Lego Movie is the second animated film in three months that has proven to be as appealing for adults as it is to children with its unbridled imagination. Also, Frozen enjoyed a milestone this weekend when it crossed $368 million domestically, making it the most successful animated film of 2013 and the third highest grossing movie at the U.S. box office from the past year. And soon enough, it will be letting it go to its own well deserved Oscar wins come March.

So, if you are starting to get the craving for more animated films that will feed your inner-child, no matter the age, then look no further. We have included on this list all of the upcoming animated movies for the next 24 months. And for the first time in forever, that sounds awesomely exciting.

How fortuitous that we are allowed to start this list with the other wonderful animated feature being distributed (in the U.S.) by Walt Disney Pictures during this awards season, The Wind Rises. The purportedly final film of Hayao Miyazaki—the writer-director of Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Ponyo—this charming aviation daydream creates its own magical lift off the screen and into every viewer’s mind with the same artistry that Miyazaki has imbued in all of his films. As his last effort, there is a bittersweet quality to this project from Studio Ghibli that has all the specialness of Disney Animation in its prime. Also, like many of those earlier animated classics, there is a shadow of controversy on this one, as it is a historical fantasy and love letter to Jiro Horikoshi, the brilliant engineer who designed the Mitsubishi airplanes used by the Empire of Japan during World War II. That leaves more than a shred of conflict for any viewer who had relatives at Pearl Harbor, but for animation enthusiasts who appreciate the art form, this wind truly does rise.

Over a decade in the making, Mr. Peabody & Sherman finally comes to U.S. theaters in March. It’s hard to fathom how long it’s taken for this fruition to be realized, as Rob Minkoff, a co-director on The Lion King, has been chasing the project since he first pitched it to Sony’s Columbia Pictures in 2003. Based off the still adored “Peabody’s Improbable History” animated shorts in the 1960s The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Minkoff and Sony originally envisioned it as a live-action CGI hybrid, not unlike the two Stuart Little films Minkoff also directed. However, once that production fell apart, Minkoff brought the idea to DreamWorks Animation in 2006, where the animation house behind Shrek and Kung Fu Panda has finally helped realize this vision. With the vocal talents of Ty Burell as Mr. Peabody, Max Charles as Sherman, and Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann, Ariel Winter, Allison Janney, Mel Brooks, and Lake Bell along for the ride, this project is stacked with the DreamWorks signature of star casting. And Den of Geek’s Simon Brew already has plenty of nice things to say about it in his review.

Based on the popular series of children’s books by Belgian author Gabrielle Vincent, Ernest & Célestine is a French-Belgian animated film from directors Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, and Benjamin Renner that has been playing the film festival circuit, including Cannes Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival, for years. This has led to its recent nomination for Best Animated Film by the Academy Awards, and it finally having an American release with the talented vocal contributions of Forest Whitaker, Mackenzie Foy, Lauren Bacall, Paul Giamatti, William H. Macy, and Megan Mullally giving life to the story of what happens when orphaned mouse Célestine (Foy) is taken in by a cantankerous bear named Ernest (Whitaker). When all of French society wishes to see these two creatures apart, as bears are meant to eat mice, their unlikely friendship will be challenged in this heartwarming fable.

If you don’t necessarily recall 2011’s Rio, we wouldn’t blame you. Released by 20^th Century Fox, Blue Sky’s animated film followed the adorable high jinks that ensued when a male blue macaw named Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) is forced to travel to a zoo in Rio to mate with Jewel (Anne Hathaway). Also featuring the celebrity voices of Leslie Mann, George Lopez, Jamie Foxx, and Jemaine Clement, the most standout feature of Rio was that it featured the rather exotic animal protagonists of macaws—which were a late change by director Carlos Saldanha when he discovered that the chosen cuddly protagonist critter, a pair of penguins, was beginning to pop up in Happy Feet and Surf’s Up. Rio 2 continues Blu and Jewel’s story as they are happily domesticated as a pair of parents forced to travel from the safety of Rio to the wondrous Amazonian rain forest. There, Jewel will find her father, and both shall find the villainous Nigel (Clement) returning from the first film.

The title for the latest Baum-based film includes the subhead “Dorothy’s Return.” Yet, honestly between this, the new Disney franchise beginning with Oz: The Great and Powerful, rumblings that Warner Bros. will remake the 1939 Technicolor masterpiece, and Broadway’s very own Wicked prequel, it feels like we’ve never left. But Summertime Entertainment and Alpine Pictures are taking us back again in this adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and grandson Roger Stanton Baum’s Dorothy of Oz, which chronicles Dorothy’s (Lea Michele) revisiting of old Emerald City haunts. Also included are Dan Aykroyd as the Scarecrow, Kelsey Grammer as the Tin Man, and Jim Belushi as the Cowardly Lion, thus bringing back all the favorites with a lot of star power to boost. And that star power may have to go along way (it also features Hugh Dancy, Megan Hilty, and Patrick Stewart), because one look at the animation’s quality may cause this to be a Yellow Brick Road less traveled.

Fortunately for families looking for summer entertainment that does not involve spandex and capes, DreamWorks Animation is offering a sequel to one of the best films in their entire oeuvre: How to Train Your Dragon. The surprisingly tender and emotionally resonant first entry proved that DreamWorks Animation has more up its sleeve than pop culture references. And now, the studio is ready to return to the Island of Berk for more adventures with Toothless and Hiccup. Featuring the returning vocal talents of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrara, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, the gang is back together as Vikings and dragons live in co-existence, enjoying the new popular sport Dragon Racing. Sadly, that pastoral lifestyle is interrupted with war from aggressive neighbors that threatens their peace, as does the discovery of new ice dragons, including one mysterious dragon rider….who’s Hiccup’s mother?! And she’s voiced by Cate Blanchett, fresh off what will likely be another Oscar win?! Count us in. Then again, this could be said for almost everyone since How to Train Your Dragon 2 is standing poised to be the biggest animated movie of the year.

Planes is one of the more confusing animated properties bouncing around multiplexes these days. Despite being a spin-off of Pixar’s weakest brand, the anemic Cars films, they are not in fact made by Pixar but are instead a throwaway add-on license by Disney. However, this does not mean they are the product of the currently revitalized Walt Disney Animation Studios either. Rather, these films are quickies made by DisneyToon Studios, the animation house responsible for the dreadfully forgettable Direct-to-Video sequels to the WDAS classics that preyed upon unsuspecting parents in the 1990s and early 2000s. However, as the DVD market shrivels in the face of digitization, the DTV auxiliary income is not what it once was 10 years ago. Yet, Disney can still release these movies to theaters just fine with the ever-growing animation competitors who have equally diluted theatrical efforts. Enter 2013’s Planes, a passable DTV film that got a theatrical release before soaring safely above anyone’s memory. Planes: Fire & Rescue is another Pixar spin-off that got churned out even quicker for a less-than-a-year-later release. That’s always a good sign. Little is known about the project, save for that Dane Cook will be reprising his voice work as Dusty Crophopper, and Julie Bowen will be joining him as Lil’ Dip, a Super Scooper. This will undoubtedly play well for the youngest of audiences at the very least…

Stop-motion animation is something of a novelty that has remarkably taken hold as an enduring art form, especially since A Nightmare Before Christmas. Intriguingly, American studios are more willing to at least distribute this medium than the hand-drawn form. And there has not been one as intriguingly designed recently as The Boxtrolls. Based on the novel Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow, this is a trippy vision of how an orphan boy (voiced by Isaac Hempstead-Wright) is raised and cared for by secretive, dumpster diving trolls who spend their free-time in caves. When these boxtrolls become the intended prize of an evil exterminator called Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), things get hairy for the critters. Produced by the Laika animation studio, which made Coraline and ParaNorman, this may be the subtler 2014 animated feature for less mainstream-oriented youths. It also features the voices of Elle Fanning, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Tracy Morgan.

Not much is known about 20^th Century Fox and Reel FX Studios’ follow-up project to last year’s Free Birds, save that it has a slightly mythological title that would sound ominous thousands of years ago, but stars the much more approachable voices of Channing Tatum, Zoe Saldana, Diego Luna, and Christina Applegate. It is also written and directed by Jorge Gutierrez, a Mexican artist and associate of Guillermo del Toro who is producing the picture. It is about a young man torn between “the expectations of his family and following his heart,” leading to him to embark on a quest of self-discovery over three fantastical worlds. More undoubtedly will be unveiled about this CG-animated film throughout the year.

When Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment’s illustrious stable in 2009, fans feared that there would be a Disney-ized version of Marvel characters. And while Marvel Studios’ brand of live-action spandexed altruism has remained chiefly in the studio’s hands, Disney CEO Bob Iger encouraged the House of Mouse side to consider other, lesser Marvel properties for adaptation, leading to Big Hero 6. As a team of Japanese superheroes, created in 1998, the super-squad was originally led by Silver Samurai (an X-Men villain who appeared in 2013’s The Wolverine). However like all super-teams, the roster has rotated. Set originally in Japan—where the heroes would face Eastern-centric horrors like the astral embodiment of the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings—this effort adapted by Walt Disney Animation Studios will be set in the futuristic San Fransokyo, a hybrid between San Francisco and Tokyo. There, Marvel’s child prodigy turned superhero, Hiro Hamada, and his trusty robot Baymax will find themselves in an origin story of criminal malfeasance. Joe Quesada, Marvel Entertainment’s chief creative officer, has said it retains Marvel’s “heroic arcs,” but with a Disney-flavor in the main characters’ relationship. Yet, considering that this will be the 54^th Walt Disney Animation Studios film and is a direct follow-up to the Disney Revival triple-header of Frozen, Wreck-It Ralph, and Tangled, that may be the best thing to happen to a Marvel movie in a long while.

And DreamWorks has one more trick up its sleeve for 2014 with Home, the forthcoming adaptation of Adam Rex’s children’s book, The True Meaning of Smeckday. Directed by Tim Johnson of Antz and the less-remembered Over the Hedge, Home follows the animated critter of choice these days: aliens. While being chased by an even bigger, badder alien, Captain Smek (voiced by Steve Martin) takes his alien race of Boov to Earth, however there is the problem of the current indigenous species on the planet. Thus, Smek kindly rounds up all humans for relocation, save for a resourceful young girl named Tip (Rihanna) who teams up with a bumbling invading alien named Oh (Jim Parsons). Also including the voice of Jennifer Lopez, the vocal cast seems to be a heavy factor in this one.

As a love letter to pineapple inhabiting enthusiasts everywhere, Nickelodeon and Paramount Animation shall be reuniting next Valentine’s Day for SpongeBob SquarePants 2. A sequel to 2004’s The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, this one was a long time coming, as producers weren’t sure it would ever be made. Julia Pistor threw shade on the idea of another one as early as 2004, and in 2009 SpongeBob Executive Producer Paul Tibbitt said it was possible, but wondered if SpongeBob worked best in the 11-minute short form. Yet in 2012, Philippe Dauman, president and CEO of Viacom, announced to investors that a 2014 sequel to the original film would be produced. While it has taken a little longer than that, it is now only a year away, and under the sea veterans like Tom Kenny (SpongeBob), Bill Fagerbakke (Patrick Star), Clancy Brown (Mr. Krabs), and Mr. Lawrence (Plankton) are all returning. Plus, Antonio Banderas has been cast as a live-action pirate. Nice.

DreamWorks Animation has made good use of the Madagascar franchise, and not unlike Puss in Boots, they have found another property to spin-off with its unending succession of sequels. Enter The Penguins of Madagascar, which will follow the little guys left off on that island in their own adventure. It should be noted this has no relation to the TV series currently airing on Nickelodeon (though this could change). Co-directed by Simon J. Smith of Bee Movie, the project will see the return of Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, John DiMaggio, and Christopher Knight in their vocal penguin suit bests, AND Benedict Cumberbatch and John Malkovich will be joining the festivities. Cumberbatch will be an animal-friendly CIA agent while Malkovich is playing an unspecified villain. Somehow, I feel those penguins should still be more terrified of Cumberbatch.

The closest we may ever get to a “Ghosbusters 3,” B.O.O. is a new original property from DreamWorks Animation based on an idea by director Tony Leondis: what if ghosts were the paranormal investigators and captors of evil haunters? And so it is with the government’s top-secret organization, the Bureau of Otherworldly Operations, a group so successful that the agency’s Most Wanted Haunter is taking aim to bring them down. Featuring the voices of Seth Rogen and Melissa McCarthy as the new recruits Moss and Watts (how ready made is the buddy cop material with those handlers?), and Rashida Jones, Octavia Spencer, Matt Bomer, and Bill Murray as the villainous ghost Addison Drake, the cast is stacked. Intriguingly, Murray refused to do a third Ghostbusters film, having only originally suggested that he play himself as a ghost in that movie, and now here he is as a villainous ghost. Could this be the unofficial spin-off of Venkman’s Revenge?

It feels so painful to admit the truth: the closest Pixar movie is over a year away. With the delay of The Good Dinosaur taking it out of the 2014 line-up, we are left with a two-year gap between last summer’s Monsters University and Inside Out. However, for those fearing that Pixar has lost its ambition, Inside Out’s premise alone promises the most out-there Hollywood-produced animated effort in many years. Directed by one of Pixar’s original brain trust, Peter Docter (Monsters Inc., writer on Toy Story 2, Wall-E, Up), from an original story he had that has been scripted by Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), Inside Out goes big by entering the smallest, most confusing place imaginable: the brain of a young girl. When Riley is forced to move from Minnesota to San Francisco, a cornucopia of new emotions boil to the surface of her mind, effecting every single action she makes. These include the emotions of Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), and Joy (Amy Poehler). A tale that literally will take place in the battleground of a child’s mind, the next Pixar project ambitiously aims to explain from a fresh perspective why people’s emotions act the way they do. Right now, the thought of it is only bringing sounds of Poehler for us.

After the stunning success of Despicable Me 2 at the box office, Universal and Illumination Entertainment are preparing to go into overdrive as a major player in family entertainment beginning in 2015. The first of those efforts is Minions, a spin-off about the lovably adorable sidekicks from the first two Despicable Me films (there will be more). Directed by Pierre Coffin of the first two Despicable Me films and written by Brian Lynch who scripted the Puss in Boots spin-off, this follow-up acts more as a prequel than a sequel to the previous movies. It appears that the yellow henchmen have existed since the dawn of time, having served history’s most incorrigible baddies, before ineptly facilitating their demises, including the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Count Dracula. Discouraged, they have hidden in Antarctica for ages until, out of boredom and despair, they attend a villain convention in the 1960s and meet Scarlet Overdrive, an ambitious female villain seeking world domination. Minions was originally slated to come out in December 2014, but Universal was so happy with Despicable Me 2’s grosses that the distributor pushed this back for the maximum merchandising and box office potential that comes with a summer release.

Hotel Transylvaniawas the surprisingly fun 2012 animated film that featured Adam Sandler as Dracula, Kevin James as Frankenstein, and Steve Buscemi as a werewolf. Plus, it also had the voices of Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Molly Shannon, David Spade, Cee Lo Gren, Jon Lovitz, and Chris Parnell. But its real creative power most likely came from director Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars. Thus it is a shame that he is not directing the sequel. Greenlit shortly after its release in 2012, Sony Pictures Animation seemed eager to follow-up on its biggest hit (not counting the live-action Smurfs hybrid). However, there has not been much movement on this project since its announcement, and no director is currently attached. We would not be surprised if a delay is in the offing.

As every great cartoon is getting a CGI movie these days, it is unsurprising that the arguable greatest, Peanuts, will have its own for 2015. Coming out just in time for the 65^th anniversary of the original comic strip and the 50^th anniversary A Charlie Brown Christmas Special, the project will mark a celebration of all things Peanuts, and is even written by Charles M. Schultz’s son and grandson, Craig Schultz and Bryan Schultz, respectively. Also set to be directed by Steve Martino of Horton Hears a Who! fame, the new Peanuts movie will be animated by Blue Sky Studios at 20^th Century Fox.

After its year-plus delay, 2015 will have the unusual occurrence of two Pixar movies in the same calendar year (Finding Dory was originally slated for a November 2015 release date). Based on a story idea from its still only credited director, Bob Peterson, The Good Dinosaur pivots the amusing question of “what if?” What if the asteroid had missed Earth and didn’t wipe out the dinosaurs? Set in an alternate timeline, the dinos still rule the planet when Arlo, a teenage Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus) with a big heart, suffers a tragedy and looks for restoration through a quest with an unlikely ally, a human boy named Spot. The film was originally supposed to come out on May 30, 2014, but was pushed back last September following the removal of Bob Peterson as director and Denise Ream as producer from the project. Spun as simply being too close to the film to “crack” the its third act, Peterson’s exit has made way for John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich, Mark Andrews, and Peter Sohn to step in and temporarily work on different sections of the film. Given Pixar’s overall track record, we are more than happy to stay optimistic about what they can do with extra time to iron out the details, but there is no denying the sadness of this delay, which resulted in the termination of 67 employees from Pixar in November 2013.

Kung Fu Panda 3 continues the legendary adventures of awesomeness with Po (Jack Black), a panda with a mean tornado kick and even meaner noodle slurping skills. This Christmas-timed release for the DreamWorks Animation threequel marks the first time that a Hollywood animated film has been co-produced by a Chinese firm, in this case Oriental DreamWorks. Set to be distributed by 20^th Century Fox, it brings back Kung Fu Panda 2’s director, Jennifer Yuh Nelson, and the screenwriters of both previous films, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. All the original vocal talents are returning with the additions of Bryan Cranston, Mads Mikkelsen, and Rebel Wilson.

With a surprisingly strong opening weekend last month, The Nut Job earned $25.7 million in three days, paving the way for Open Road Films, Redrover Co., and ToonBox Entertainment to quickly greenlight this sequel to the effort. While I personally did not care for the previous film, its early 2014 success has proven that families appreciated this feature length exploration of Surly the Squirrel (Will Arnett) and all his furry buddies voiced by Katherine Heigl, Brendan Fraser, Maya Rudolph, and a villainous Liam Neeson. Not much is yet known about the sequel, save for its release date.

Conversely, Illumination Entertainment is laying out their next original property very thoroughly for its early 2016 release, Pets. While the title is subject to change, Illumination’s approach likely won’t: it chronicles the lives of cute animals living the good life in a Manhattan apartment building. When their owners leave for work and school, their day begins by socializing and revealing their owners’ most humiliating secrets. However, when the group’s leader, a terrier voiced by Louis C.K., finds himself displaced by his owner’s new dog Duke (Eric Stonestreet), the two are at odds quickly…and even more quickly on the street. Lost in the big city, they must rely on a fast-talking bunny named Snowball (Kevin Hart) to survive. Helmed by Chris Renaud, co-director of the Despicable Me films, and Yarrow Cheney, this is one to watch.

As the Sony Pictures Animation project that Genndy Tartakovsky passed over Hotel Transylvania 2 for, little is known about the project save for that it is based on the classic cartoon serial “Popeye.” Spinach eaters may be pleased to know (or not) that The Smurfs’ writers David Ronn and Jay Scherick have writing duties on the Sony release, which is also being produced by Imagi Animation Studios. However, as this project was previously slated for September 2014, little is still known about the movie, which has not yet cast any voices.

Fans of the Ratchet & Clank video games are about to learn how these characters first met with Rainmaker Entertainment and Blockade Entertainment’s origin film on that very subject. The film will detail how they saved the Solana Galaxy from Chairman Drek with the reliable voices of James Arnold Taylor as Ratchet and David Kaye as Clank. The film is being directed by Jericca Cleland and is purported to be released in early 2015.

And finally, there is the Warner Bros. 2015 effort, Storks. Little is known about the project, save for that it is written by Nicholas Stoller (The Muppets, Get Him to the Greek, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and is directed by Pixar’s Doug Sweetland. But considering the massive success WB had this past weekend with the over-performing juggernaut that is The Lego Movie (their first foray back into animated features), odds look good that the studio will be keen to move forward heavily with this and other animated features.

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