It was another big weekend of awards for animated titles. Fox-TV’s long-running animated series The Simpsons received a Writers Guild honor for the episode “Ned and Edna’s Blend Agenda” written by Jeff Westbrook. The episode was competing against three other episodes of the show and the “Forget-Me-Not” episode of Family Guy in the category!
- Spanish blockbuster Tad, the Lost Explorer (Tadeo Jones) which grossed $24.3 million in Spain, won first-time director, adapted screenplay and animation film at the Goya Awards (Spanish equivalent of the Oscars). Directed by Enrique Gato, the CG-animated feature will also unspool at the Cartoon Movie event in France next month. Also winning a slew of Goyas were Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves, the black-and-white silent reboot of Snow White set in bullfighting milieu of Seville and the tsunami epic The Impossible. The Goya for Best Animated Short Film went to Jaime Maestro for The Smoke Seller.
- Let’s not forget that this past weekend also saw another edition of the Streamy Awards, which honor the best of entertainment that is streamed on the Web. Among the winners were Halo 3: Forward Undo Dawn (Best Drama Series), H+ The Digital Series (Best Action/Sci Fi Series), The Walking Dead (Best Derivative Series), Tom Hanks’ Electric City (Best Animated Series) and DRONE (Best Visual Effects).
- In other animation news, The Weinstein Co.’ animated release Escape from Planet Earth managed to rake in over $16.1 million at the U.S. box office, ending at the No. 4 spot at the weekend box office. Directed by first-time helmer Cal Brunker, the sci-fi comedy adventure features the voice of Brendan Fraser, Jessica Alba, William Shatner, Rob Corddry and Sarah Jessica Parker. The pic rated only a 32% on the review-compilation site Rottentomatoes.com, but audiences seemed to enjoy its zippy sense of humor and take on blue, alien life forms. Bruce Willis’ A Good Day to Die Hard was the number-one film at the box office with a $33.2 million weekend.
