A Look at Animated Movies Coming Out in 2003

(by Joe Tracy) With 2002 coming to an end and 2003 on the horizon, Digital Media FX has assembled a list of animated movies scheduled to hit theaters in the new year. 2003 has a little of everything: sequels (Jungle Book 2), anime (Cowboy Bebop), combined movies (Rugrats Meet Wild Thornberries), and just plain weird movies that make you ask why? (Lil' Pimp). Here is a list of animated movies and the scheduled release date (subject to change, of course):

Title: Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
Studio: Bandai (U.S. Distributor is Sony)
Release: January 2003
Brief Synopsis: This is a Japanese anime movie based on the TV series, “Cowboy Bebop”. The movie is set in the distant future on Mars where the Cowboy Bebop crew investigates a virus that kills hundreds of colony people.

Title: The Jungle Book 2
Studio: Walt Disney
Release: February 2003
Brief Synopsis: This is the sequel to Disney’s animated movie, “The Jungle Book”. The sequel picks up where the original left off with Mowgli deciding to return to the jungle. The villain Tiger is back, trying to seek revenge. Sound familiar?

Title: Piglet’s Big Movie
Studio: Walt Disney
Release: March 2003
Brief Synopsis: Disney is releasing animated movies back to back (Jungle Book 2 in February and Piglet’s Big Movie in March). Piglet’s Big Movie follows the adventures of Winnie the Pooh’s Piglet character where Piglet must save all of his friends.

Title: Finding Nemo
Studio: Pixar
Release: May 2003
Brief Synopsis: A father and son fish get separated and the son ends up in a fish tank, where a romance blossoms with another fish. Meanwhile, the father sets out on a journey to find and save his son.

Title: The Rugrats Meet the Wild Thornberries
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Release: June 2003
Brief Synopsis: The Rugrats have had their own success in the theater and this time they team up with the Wild Thornberries in the wilderness. Can the Thornberries save The Rugrats or will their adventure lead to a strange conclusion?

Title: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
Studio: DreamWorks
Release: July 2003
Brief Synopsis: Sinbad and his friends must conquer the Goddess of Chaos in this Sinbad adventure, which has had many different movie versions. Brad Pitt voices Sinbad. It is a blend of 2D and 3D animation or to use one of DreamWorks favorite words – “tradigitally.”

Title: Lil’ Pimp
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Release: July 2003
Brief Synopsis: This will likely be a PG-13 rated movie (ala Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights) that is designed completely with Macromedia’s Flash. It is based on an animated Flash series about a 9-year old boy that is a pimp.

Title: Looney Tunes: Back in Action
Studio: Warner Bros.
Release: Winter 2003
Brief Synopsis: This is a mixture live action and animated movie where the human characters are real and the cartoon characters are animated (like Warner Bros. Space Jam). In this movie, the cartoon characters parallel their lives in the real world where Bugs and Daffy are actors until Daffy quits to go on his own adventure to find a valuable diamond. Can Bugs Bunny find him and convince him to return?

Title: Bears
Studio: Walt Disney
Release: Winter 2003
Brief Synopsis: A young Indian boy sets out to kill the bear that killed his father only to be transformed into a bear himself to see what life is like through the animal’s eyes.

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Joe Tracy is publisher of Digital Media FX and editor of AnimationProducts.com.

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