ANIMATED FILMS RIDING HIGH

Animated Films accounted for half the top-ten movies of 2010, and they’re leading the field in 2011 as well, the Los Angeles Times observed in a blog post by entertainment writer Steven Zeitchik on Monday. “In a winter-spring period when few movies have mobilized us to the theater, animated movies have been the exception,” Zeitchik writes. Surprisingly, he indicates, studios have not been expanding their planned slate of animated films despite their success. He notes that one of the reasons may be that it takes several years to produce an animated feature versus months for a live-action one. However, DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg recently said that his studio plans to release at least two features each year, doubling its annual production, and Zeitchik notes that other studios are pushing their animation units to work faster. However, he suggests, such a strategy could backfire. “After all,” he concludes, “what makes animated movies desirable is precisely that we aren’t bombarded with a new one every week, while those that we do get come out fully cooked.”