CGTalk - AWN: Poducer John H. Williams talks about Happily N'ever After

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RobertoOrtiz

01-10-2007, 06:23 PM

Quote:
"Not surprisingly, the ads for Happily N'ever After tout the role of Vanguard Films ceo/producer John H. Williams, famous for producing PDI/DreamWorks' Oscar-winning Shrek franchise (http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=search&sval=Shrek). Mentioning Shrek also primes audiences to expect wisecracks, which Happily N'ever After delivers non-stop.
While Happily N'ever After is being released in the U.S. on Jan. 5, 2007, by Lionsgate Films just five months before the arrival of Shrek the Third, it actually was conceived before 2001's Shrek, according to Williams. "Vanguard was approached originally about seven years ago by Berlin Animation Film (BAF) which had a fund allocating $100 million for animated projects. I had not heard of any film they produced that ever got to the U.S., but there was one television series that was a Grimm's fairy tale-based story. They had funds put aside to do a feature film version of it. Rob Moreland, the original writer, and myself talked about it and Rob suggested that we have the wizard go away on vacation and the bad guys finally get their turn to be in the sun. That seemed like a really good staring point. We wrote this script six years ago, and that's how we attracted the cast that we got. We recorded them probably five years ago. It was a long process of getting things worked out." "

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3135

-R

rcronin

01-11-2007, 10:09 AM

Yikes.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/happily_never_after/

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=happilyneverafter.htm

gunslingerblack

01-11-2007, 05:31 PM

unfortunately no amount of producing gold could save that movie from it's untimely demise.

as a film it was incredibly weak. the best part of the movie was patrick warburton trying to do an english accent, and acting incredibly pathetic i found myself justifying my seeing the movie because of his character alone. not surprisingly it only did about 6 mil opening weekend. oh well i guess this proves that big name producers dont guarantee sucess.

Papa Lazarou

01-11-2007, 06:56 PM

From what I had heard, he had relatively little to do with Shrek, other than a screen credit. He was happy enough to make reference to it in the trailers and publicity. Makes much less reference to the previous film his Vanguard company produced, Valiant.

It remains to be seen how future Vanguard films will turn out and whether they will cement a reputation for animated mediocrity. What are the odds that when "Space Chimps" comes out the publicity will yet again mention the Shrek connection.

Anyway I wish him well, certainly some of the films his company is developing sound like interesting ideas. I haven't seen Happily N'Ever After, and I'm sure it has it's problems, but I can't imagine it's quite as bad as it's being made out to be. I imagine there's something about it that's just rubs people up the wrong way. I'll probably see it for the animation and design, which look decent enough regardless of other shortcomings.

gunslingerblack

01-11-2007, 07:01 PM

I'll probably see it for the animation and design, which look decent enough regardless of other shortcomings.

ik popping should not be happening at the feature film level...thats all im gonna say

design was fun but not stunning enough to set itself apart,

the animation style too was wierd, because it was a project that was worked on by several studios it didn't seem like there was a single defining style of animation, it ranged from mocap looking stuff to super cartoony movement. overall inconsistency wasn't visually appealing. but definitely go see it and form your own opinion.

vfx

01-12-2007, 12:22 AM

After the disappointment of Valiant - my faith in Vanguard dropped quickly... these guys need to learn to make half decent models too!! Only nice thing is the shading and lighting. Shame about the rest...

personally I think it's their lack of story telling abilities... go back to basics guys and storyboard - storyboard. Make the films work when they're edited together! Tell a coherent and nicely cut story!

Bah - they'll learn from the lack of dosh they make. shame.

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