2020 in Animated Features

It's official. The 2010s are over, and it's the beginning of the 2020s. This year, Blue Sky Studios, who are now owned by Disney, will not release a new movie. Like DreamWorks, they are under new management. In this case, Disney Animation president Andrew Millstein will serve as co-president of Blue Sky. Their next film is Nimona, based on the web comic and graphic novel of the same name. It is set to be released on January 14th, 2022. Let's pray and hope that it doesn't end up getting cancelled like Gigantic.

Anyway, let's see what 2020 has in store for us in animated features!

In March, Pixar will release their next feature film, Onward. In a similar fashion to Zootopia, Onward will be set in a suburban town called New Mushroomton, populated by a menagerie of mythical creatures like centaurs, gnomes, mermaids, fairies, and elves. Two elf brothers, Ian and Barley Lightfoot, discover an old wizard's staff with a message from their dad, who died when they were too young to remember him. In this note are instructions for a magical spell that could resurrect their father for 24 hours. However, the spell doesn't work at first, so Ian and Barely go on the quest of a lifetime. My main concern is that this movie will be released three weeks before the release of Mulan and be overshadowed by it.

In April, the colorful happy Smurf-like creatures return for an all-new adventure called Trolls: World Tour. In this film, Poppy learns that there are more Trolls out there that focus on different kinds of music. Queen Barb, a rock & roll Troll, wants to unite the Six Strings so she can destroy all music except rock. To stop her, Poppy and the gang have to travel all over the world to unite all the Trolls. I'm baffled that DreamWorks greenlit a sequel to Trolls, which didn't even become one of the top 5 highest-grossing animated movies of 2016, yet they cancelled two projects that sounded like they had potential.* Not to mention that there's already a Trolls TV special and a Netflix series.

There will be two new animated movies in May. The first, from Warner Animation Group, the creators of The LEGO Movies, Storks, and Smallfoot, comes Scoob! It will be a CGI reboot of the world-famous mystery-solving mutt Scooby-Doo. The animation for Scoob will be done at Reel FX, the same studio behind Free Birds, The Book of Life, and Uglydolls. Too bad neither Grey Griffen or Kate Micucci, the modern-day voice actresses of Daphne Blake and Velma Dinkley, won't return.

The second will be SpongeBob's third feature film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run. In this movie, when SpongeBob's pet snail Gary goes missing, he and Patrick go on an adventure across the ocean floor to find him. Instead of being 2D like the previous films, Sponge on the Run will be all CGI.

In June, from Pete Docter (Monsters Inc, Up, Inside Out) comes Pixar's 23rd feature film Soul. In this film, a musician who lost his passion for music is transported out of his body, and must find his way back with the help of an infant soul who is learning about herself.

In July, the popular (and annoying) banana-loving Twinkies will return for an all-new movie called Minions 2: The Rise of Gru. Not much is known about this movie yet, though one thing is certain: I'm 98% sure that I'll skip it and see Disney's Jungle Cruise instead (if it's worth seeing).

September will be the release of Sony Pictures Animation's next endeavor after The Angry Birds Movie 2 (they weren't involved with the first one), The Mitchells vs the Machines. The sci-fi comedy envisions a world in which technology suddenly turns on humanity, interrupting a dysfunctional family’s road trip. In the producers' chair are Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the same duo behind Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The LEGO Movie, and Spider-Verse.

In November, Disney will release their 59th (yes, I counted) animated movie Raya and the Last Dragon. In a realm known as Lumandra, a reimagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a female warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon. This movie will be the directorial debut of Paul Briggs, Deam Wellins, and John Ripa, who have been in the animation industry for more than 20 years.

And finally, in December, the prehistoric family from a past that never existed return for The Croods 2. In this film, the Croods are challenged by a rival family called the Bettermans, who claim to be better and more evolved. Original Croods directors Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco do not return, since Sanders was busy with the live-action film Call of the Wild, while DeMicco is busy with one of Sony's upcoming animated projects, Vivo. Instead, Joel Crawford, storyboard artist on Bee Movie, the Kung Fu Panda trilogy, and Rise of the Guardians, and director of Trolls Holiday, will be directing. Of all the new animated movies coming this year, I'm most excited for Onward, Scoob, and Soul. I also might see Raya and the Last Dragon if the teaser trailer looks any good. Once again, there will be more animated films than the ones listed above that will premiere this year, but these were the ones I wanted to cover.
I'm sorry that there's no poster for The Croods 2 shown here. As I am typing this, there are no posters or sneak peak art for the film, yet.

*The two cancelled DreamWorks projects I referred to earlier are Me and My Shadow and Bureau of Otherworldly Observations (BOO for short). I will talk about both of them on January 8th. Update! 3-5-20: The Mitchells vs the Machines is now called Connected, and will be released September 18th, 2020. Here's a trailer below. https://www.imdb.com/video/vi3669999129?playlistId=tt7979580&ref_=tt_ov_vi