The year 2023 is expected to be remembered for its highly anticipated movies and inventive animation. Feature-length animation is going to enter a golden year of creative experimentation and celebrations of the medium’s greatest contemporary artists, from franchise upgrades and sequels to years-long passion projects.
The eight most anticipated animated movies in the forthcoming year are listed below:
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
Aardman’s 2000 smash movie Chicken Run has waited 23 years to continue with its Netflix produced sequel, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, unlike James Cameron’s Avatar which only had to wait 13 years. The sequel, directed by Sam Fell of Flushed Away and ParaNorman, will follow Ginger and Rocky, now portrayed by Thandiwe Newton and Zachary Levi, as they set out on a perilous journey to defend all of chickenkind from the egg-hungry appetites of humanity. Here’s hoping that the sequel to Chicken Run will live up to the expectations and be a fine-feathered feature worth waiting decades to hatch, as the first Chicken Run still holds the record as the highest grossing stop-motion animated film.
Elemental
What if objects had emotions? What if vehicles had emotions? What if feelings existed? With Elemental, Pixar is now adding emotions to the elements found in nature. Elemental, from The Good Dinosaur director Peter Sohn, depicts a universe in which creatures of fire, water, plants, air, and rocks dwell in a large city called Element City. The plot centres on an improbable romance between the fiery Ember and the watery Wade (Mamoudou Athie) (Leah Lewis). Similar to Disney’s Zootopia, the idea does lend itself to an allegory that can explore issues of racial variety and the contradictory nature of society, but the animation alone distinguishes it as one of Pixar’s most ambitious movies. Since the CGI animation explosion over 20 years ago, Pixar and many other computer animation studios still believe that rendering realistic elemental effects like water and fire is the most challenging. Pixar’s ability to create an entire universe centred around these kinds of effects demonstrates how its tales may spur advancements in animation technology and vice versa.
How Do You Live?
Ghibli Studio Miyazaki, Hayao Most fans of animation and movies regard those names alone as legendary, to the extent that Ghibli movies are frequently shown in a few cinemas all year long to raucous acclaim. Ten years after the release of his last movie, The Wind Rises, renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki is back with his most recent “farewell” work, How Do You Live? While there isn’t much information available about the movie just yet, it is based on the Yoshino Genzabur novel of the same name and promises to be a magical story that explores the meaning of life and the human condition in the typical Ghibli style.
Nimona
The animation industry was rocked by the abrupt and unceremonious closing of Blue Sky Animation Studios in 2021, just as Nimona, the studio’s most ambitious feature to date, was about to wrap production on the mansion that Ice Age built. Nimona, the next expansive animated epic from Blue Sky and the filmmaking team behind 2019’s Spies in Disguise, is based on the book by She-Ra and the Princesses of Power showrunner ND Stevenson. By the time the studio shut down, Blue Sky had completed 75% of the animation, putting hundreds of artists out of a job and the film’s future in doubt. Thankfully, Annapurna Pictures, who took up production of the eagerly awaited adaptation after a passionate social media push saved it from limbo, will now premiere the movie on Netflix in 2023.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The movie that fans of comic books and animation have been anticipating Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, co-directed by Kemp Powers and Joaquim Do Santos, catches up with Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a friendly neighbourhood kid from Brooklyn, as he finds himself in the middle of a multiverse full of other spider-heroes who are out to get him, including Spider-Man 2099 himself, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac). In the four years following its release, movies like The Bad Guys and television shows like Arcane have used the original Spider-Verse as a benchmark for animation style and as an instant classic. The huge challenge of raising its own aesthetic bar and advancing Miles’ story in even more thrilling ways falls to the next sequel. With animation that not only violates major studio traditions but also pushes its own already soaring style to great heights, the movie already represents a remarkable evolution of the aesthetics from the previous picture, according to the previews that have been released thus far.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
The Super Mario Bros. Movie quickly developed into a puzzlingly divisive film for hardcore fans to get excited for, even sceptical that creator Shigeru Miyamoto’s involvement could prevent this from becoming yet another dud for video game films, thanks to the initial announcement that Illumination Entertainment would be tackling a feature film of Nintendo’s most iconic franchise, the casting of Chris Pratt as Mario, and the directors Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath from Teen Titans Go! The film’s extraordinary attention to detail, bright visuals, and lighthearted character approach were revealed in its first hopeful trailers, which soon dispelled any worries and seemed to bring the Mushroom Kingdom to life like never before. A far cry from the 1993 live-action picture, the movie, which also stars Charlie Day, Anya Taylor Joy, Keegan-Michael Key, and Jack Black, already seems to be one of Illumination’s most aesthetically stunning films and a standard for authentic video game adaptations.
TMNT: Mutant Mayhem
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have returned with a brand-new version. The pizza-loving twins have starred in two live-action movies and two different animated television series alone in the previous ten years. Since Viacom bought the property in 2009, Nickelodeon has worked hard to win over both younger viewers and devoted longtime followers of the TMNT. Mutant Mayhem, which is produced by Seth Rogen and directed by Gravity Falls alum and The Mitchells vs. The Machines co-director Jeff Rowe, may appear to be poised to be another origin story that follows the franchise’s history closely, but it offers a fresh take on the turtles with a mix of 2D and 3D animation akin to Rowe’s work on Machines and a primary focus on the characters’ adolescent sides. The movie will have plenty of animated martial arts action to please even the most seasoned TMNT fan, whether or not this is a turtle shell of a different colour.
Wish
In 2023, The Walt Disney Company and Walt Disney Animation as a whole will commemorate “100 years of Wonder” with a variety of activities and events that span almost all of its divisions (theme parks, streaming, etc.). Wish has the particular honour and high anticipation of being released during this centennial anniversary in addition to being the 62nd animated feature picture produced by the animation studio. Wish follows Asha (Ariana DeBose), a young girl from a mythical kingdom who discovers a living wishing star that leads her on as great an adventure as you’ve come to expect from Disney. Chris Buck, who also co-directed Tarzan and Frozen, wrote Raya and the Last Dragon. Wish may use its standing as the studio’s 2023 animated film to explore the strength and allure of dreams, which have remained in the business for a century and across its most cherished classics, even though the plot sounds pretty basic and conventional for Disney. The movie also promises to merge traditional and contemporary Disney animation styles, which many people anticipate will be the first time Disney uses the trick that dazzled fans in the 2012 short PaperMan.
Being a binge-watcher himself, finding Content to write about comes naturally to Divesh. From Anime to Trending Netflix Series and Celebrity News, he covers every detail and always find the right sources for his research.
