Photo: Despicable Me movie poster

The story is set in a suburban neighborhood which has a whole lot of houses with gardens abloom with rose bushes and surrounded by white picket fences. In the midst of this pretty area is a black house with a dead lawn.

The residents don’t know it, but the black house shelters beneath it a huge secret hideout. The vast network of underground domelike rooms is where the evil-minded Gru (Steve Carell) is raising a small battalion of minions to pull off the biggest heist the world has ever seen.

Armed with an arsenal of shrink rays, freeze rays, and battle-ready vehicles for land and air, Gru has his eye on the moon, yes, the moon! Keen to outsmart his arch enemy Vector (Jason Segel, who’s the No. 1 super villain), wicked Gru hopes to become the biggest villain the world has ever seen after pulling off his robbery.

But in his house and outside, Gru continues to live a normal life. He goes to the stores and coffee shop; and sometimes – just sometimes – uses his freeze-ray to shorten the line a bit.

The stage is set for him to pull off the biggest heist of all when he runs into his biggest challenge –  three orphaned children who show up at his doorstep looking for a father. He fails in all his attempts to send the three kids – Margo, Edith and Agnes – packing or to discipline them, but ultimately lets them stay with him. Will Superbad Gru turn Superdad Gru? Wait till July 9, 2010, to watch Despicable Me and find out.

Steve Carell, who has voiced Gru, is known for his roles in the TV series The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (1999 to 2004) and The Office from 2005 onward. He has also starred in Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, and Date Night; and provided voiceovers in animated films Over the Hedge and Horton Hears a Who!

Jason Segel (the voice of Vector, Gru’s nemesis) is known for his work in TV (Freaks, Geeks, Undeclared), and movies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up, and I Love You, Man. Segel also played Marshall Erikson in CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.

How to Train Your Dragon sequel release in 2013

The Glendale animation studio has plans to release a sequel in the second half of 2013 and is also planning a live arena show, a TV series and an online virtual world based on the Dragon film, reflecting the company’s plan to leverage its characters across multiple platforms.

Released on 26 March, 2010, the 3D How to Train Your Dragon had a weak opening, but the animated film has since then benefited from good reviews. It has notched up about $375 million in worldwide ticket sales to date. The box-office performance of How to Train Your Dragon heralds a strong start to 2010 for DreamWorks.

Loosely based on the 2003 book of the same name, How to Train Your Dragon is set in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named Hiccup aspires to follow his tribe’s tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. When he captures his first dragon, getting a chance to gain acceptance from his tribe, he realizes that he no longer wants to slay the dragon. The rest of the film deals with how Hiccup befriends and then trains the dragon.

Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse have dubbed for the animated film.

How to Train Your Dragon, which grossed $180 million in the United States, seems on track to equal the box-office performance of Kung Fu Panda, which made $215 million domestically. We hope the sequel matches up to and hopefully beats the original.

DreamWorks will release Shrek: Forever After, the fourth and reportedly last Shrek film, on May 21, 2010. The film brings back the voice cast of Mike Myers (Shrek), Cameron Diaz (Fiona), Eddie Murphy (Donkey) and Antonio Banderas (Puss in Boots).

Shrek: Forever After, the first in the film franchise to be released in 3D, opened the Tribeca Film Festival in New York a month ahead of its U.S. release. The first three Shrek movies raked in more than $2.2 billion at the worldwide box office.

DreamWorks also has great expectations from Megamind (starring Brad Pitt, Tina Fey and Will Ferrell) and feels the November 5, 2010, film will do for the superhero genre what Shrek did for fairy tales.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus book by L. Frank Baum

Toon Animation India’s parent company Toonz Entertainment Pte Ltd will collaborate with Gang of 7 Animation and Hyde Park Entertainment to create The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

The animation movie will be directed by Tom Tataranowicz, Rich Arons and Dick Sebast. The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus will be scripted by Tom Tataranowicz and Mark Edward Edens. The production team will include artists who have earlier worked on films, such as Finding Nemo, The Lion King, and Iron Giant.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, Toonz Animation India’s first CGI movie, will be made at Toonz Animation India’s Thiruvananthapuram facility.

The company aims to release the movie on December 25, 2010.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is based on L Frank Baum’s 1902 book of the same name. The book tells the story of Santa Claus’ life, right from his birth in a forest, to how he is raised and educated by the Immortals of the forest, and his journey out of the forest to learn about fellow mortals.

Santa Claus lives in the Laughing Valley of Hohaho. He loves children and makes toys for them.  This attracts the ire of the evil Awgwas who intercept the gifts, because the kids become good and behave themselves. Santa, therefore, has to deliver his gifts at night, and slithers through chimneys because he cannot enter the children’s houses at night.

The project is estimated to cost $12 billion, a majority of which will be borne by Toonz, said P Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Group.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus will go into production by end-November 2008.

The movie will be distributed by Hyde Park overseas, which will share rights to the North American region with G7 Animation.

Meanwhile, Toonz Animation India is working on a film based on the stories from Chandamama, in collaboration withChandamama India Ltd. Jayakmar said, “The animation major and Chandamama India Ltd will join hands in producing a full-length animated feature film based on a prime property from the library of Chandamama.”

The film will be produced in Toonz Animation India’s Technopark studio, in Thiruvananthapuram, at a cost of Rs 20 crore.

Kung Fu Panda

Kung Fu Panda  made $560 million (£299 million) in global ticket sales, overtaking the Shrek movies.

Kung Fu Panda, for those who have not watched the movie, is the story of a clumsy but endearing panda, Po, who works in his family’s noodle shop and dreams of being a Kung Fu master. Po has to fulfill an ancient prophecy and gets to learn Kung Fu under Master Shifu, along with his idols, Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. Po gets a chance to face his fears and be a real Kung Fu master when he has to take on the dangerous snow leopard Tai Lung.

The voiceovers in Kung Fu Panda are provided by Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan, Ian McShane, Seth Rogen, David Cross, Dan Fogler, Michael Clarke Duncan, Wayne Knight, and James Hong.

Kung Fu Panda was directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Apart from Kung Fu Panda 2, Dreamworks plans to make two more Madagascar sequels after Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which will be released in November 2008 in the US and December 2008 in the UK. All the Madagascar sequels will be made in 3-D.