Galleries setting tales far, far

'Cars 2''Rio''Puss in Boots'With the exception of "Rango," all this year's American-backed large-studio characters occur abroad, varying from "Rio's" beautiful Brazilian vistas to "Cars 2's" whirlwind tour of the world lived on only by cars. Such exotic configurations might not appear surprising considering animation's lengthy tradition of moving auds to foreign mobile phone industry's, though recently, there appears to become a new incentive for telling global tales.First of all, while domestic box office remains relatively flat, worldwide audiences -- particularly individuals within the emerging marketplaces of China, South america and Russia -- are quickly growing, together with the amount of screens."Because the technology enhances, you are able to really embrace other cultures along with other nations in ways which was never done before," states Bill Damashke, chief creative officer of DreamWorks Animation. A just to illustrate is DWA's "Kung Fu Panda 2," which did $653 million, which $500 million was worldwide. Carefully designed and animated as "a version of China along with a celebration of Chinese culture and art," the follow up did great business throughout Asia, he reviews.The way a toon will have overseas affects from writing the script towards the casting of vocal talent. For DWA's "Puss in Boots," that is occur what Damashke calls a romanticized version of The country, "It simply made sense to place Salma Hayek opposite Antonio Banderas. She's an excellent match and it has the best Latin sense of the role," he states. Similarly, "Kung Fu Panda 2" features Asian stars Jackie Chan and James Hong alongside Julia Roberts and Dustin Hoffman. "We wanted a really mixed, worldwide cast," he states.Sony's "Arthur Christmas" was created by U.K. animation house Aardman (of "Wallace & Gromit" fame). "Once they found us it already had Santa's sled journeying in the North Pole all across the globe,Inch states Bob Osher, leader of Sony's digital production division. After 18 several weeks of labor in England, the director, producers plus some crew then gone to live in Sony's Culver City facility, and then again to complete publish-production working in london. "So dealing with an British team from Aardman, who're so well-known all over the world, gave our film a built-in worldwide look and feel.InchWith "Cars 2," Pixar abandoned the essential Americana setting of Radiator Springs in support of a wider worldwide scale, with pit stops in Tokyo, japan, Paris, London and Italia."It had been developed being an worldwide story from the get-pass John Lasseter," states "Cars 2" producer Denise Ream. "He got the first idea on a trip around the globe marketing the first -- together with a few of the humor, like driving around the 'wrong' or opposite side within the U.K."In getting pregnant "Rio" at Blue Sky, Brazilian-born director Carlos Saldanha made the decision around the eponymous city and built the storyline around it, benefiting around the creative team's drive "to understand more about a global and put that had not been done yet," the director states. "When I was writing, I believed about how exactly 'Ratatouille' used Paris so well, so why wouldn't you Rio? It is so photogenic and exotic. After which everything -- the animation palette, the look, the background music -- all just ran naturally from that."Native boy Saldanha is very happy to observe that "Rio" may finish up being the greatest film of the season in South america. "Everyone was so proud to determine a movie set there, while for American audiences, there's much more of a cultural challenge." He notes that after the project was initially greenlit, "We understood it had been just a little dangerous, setting the storyline in Rio. But when we'd managed to get and done all of the trailers and promotion, we simply considered it as being a worldwide movie.""It's certainly ideal for worldwide audiences to have the ability to visit the movies and find out something that's relevant and a part of their world," concurs Ream, who indicates the global trend can also be associated with filmmakers growing their storytelling muscles: "They are well informed in exploring unfamiliar mobile phone industry's, and also the technology allows us to become much more adventurous. From the Pixar perspective, it is all about the storytellers just letting their creativeness really go wild."Osher stresses that animation happens to be quite strong worldwide. "Effective animated films often well outshine worldwide compared to what they do locally," he states. "They are typically named into 40-plus languages, so that they seem like local films, whether you are watching in South america, Japan or Cuba. This is a large edge on live-action films with subtitles."RELATED LINKS Live-action pros blur toon lines Contact Peter Debruge at peter.debruge@variety.com