Does anybody outside of Europe remember Shaun the Sheep Movie? No? I thought so. Released in February 2015 in its home country of the United Kingdom, the critically-acclaimed film found itself dumped by Lionsgate in the United States of America about six months later.
Nonetheless, it did well enough to warrant a sequel, and that is currently set for April 5, 2019...in the United Kingdom. Lionsgate has picked it up for US distribution, and it still does not have a release date! You may think to yourself, "hold your horses, Ethan! Patience is what you need, my friend!". I have nothing against being patient or anything, but this is why I'm rambling...
When I saw Early Man this past Saturday(great movie by the way, go check it out if you haven't seen it yet), one of the previews they happened to play was for Shaun the Sheep Movie 2, or as the trailer calls it, Farmageddon: A Shaun the Sheep Movie. For whatever reason, neither Lionsgate, StudioCanal, or even Aardman themselves have put it online, so here is a link to a theater-recorded version of the trailer. Credit goes to niall noone.
It's one thing to release a trailer in theaters before it comes out online if the movie in question has a concrete release date, but to release it in theaters before an exact date is inked? I understand that the trailer was already rolling before UK prints of Early Man, but it still seems a little weird. Besides, what if Lionsgate decides to wait until 2020 or so to release the film in America, or even worse, they cancel its US release?
Take New Mutants for example. That was, at one point, set to open on April 13, 2018. About a month ago, distributor 20th Century Fox pushed it back to February 22, 2019, even though there was a trailer out! This kind of thing does happen to other movies, but at least the studio actually has/had an idea of when to release them.
Also, is it me or do studios really have a thing for releasing their trailers in theaters before they hit the Internet? The earliest example I can think of is Sony Animation's The Smurfs 2. I remember the weekend when their previous film, Hotel Transylvania, came out and I was struck a little odd that a teaser for Smurfs 2 had not yet been released online. When I finally saw Hotel Transylvania that Sunday, I see the teaser trailer and I'm like "Hey, this hasn't been released online yet!" The teaser wouldn't show up on YouTube for another two months or so. Last year, I read an article from one of my favorite blogs, Kyle's Animated World, that he had seen a teaser trailer for The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature when walking into a screening of Monster Trucks...the day before the trailer itself was released online! Read here. About a month later, I saw Rock Dog in the movie theater and they played a trailer for Spark: A Space Tail, which wouldn't be released online until a few days afterward. Coincidentally, both movies are distributed by Open Road Films. I'm not sure if they did that with Duck Duck Goose or any of their live-action films. I've also heard rumors saying that Disney did just that with the Cars 3 teaser.
So, to reiterate, it's not bad to release a trailer in theaters before it pops up online, but I feel that studios would be better off doing it if the film in question has a concrete release date. Farmageddon: A Shaun the Sheep Movie does not have a US release date, and while I can see why Lionsgate decided to release the trailer with US printings of Early Man, I still think it was kinda stupid.
Another thing I'd like to mention is that Early Man is currently doing poorly at the American box office. I hear it has only grossed $3 million on its opening weekend, similar to Rock Dog, which is another animated film that Lionsgate brought to the US. I mean, it could achieve some President's Day legs later today, but I won't get my hopes up(though I do feel that Rock Dog could have somewhat benefitted from that had Lionsgate decided to release it a week earlier). Hell, when I saw the film, there were only like 2-3 groups of people in the theater watching it with me. Meanwhile, you should have seen the amount of people who presumably showed up for Black Panther! Anyways, since both Shaun the Sheep Movie and Early Man are pretty much domestic bombs. I have a bad feeling that Aardman may end their relationship with Lionsgate before Farmageddon comes out. I mean, if it happened to both DreamWorks and Sony, why can't it happen to Lionsgate?
So, if the film is indeed set to open sometime next year, whether it ends up being distributed by Lionsgate or not, then I predict we'll get it sometime that Summer. What's weird to me is that out of the three months of the season, only June is occupied when it comes to animated films. Illumination opens The Secret Life of Pets 2 on the 7th, and that is followed by Pixar's Toy Story 4 on June 21st. After that, no animated film until Rovio's The Angry Birds Movie 2...on September 20th!
I say that Shaun goes for either July or August, since Lionsgate released the first film around that timeframe. The pessimist in me thinks that they'll release it on July 19th where it will get pummeled by Disney's Lion King remake. However, if I had it my way, it would open on July 31st. Now, you may ask yourself, "isn't that a Wednesday in 2019?" Yes, yes it is. However, the first Shaun film was released in the US on 8/5/2015, which was also a Wednesday. Why not do the same for the sequel?
On the other hand, if Aardman does break away from Lionsgate, who could they go to? Definitely not one of the "Big Six" (Disney, Paramount, Fox, Universal, Warner Bros., and Sony, for those who aren't up to speed), for they view stop-motion animation as box office poison due to the domestic failures of Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, and The Pirates! Band of Misfits, all of which were released in 2012.
I have one immediate suggestion...
Hear me out first. I don't know a whole lot about what A24 puts out, but here is what I do know. Back in August 2016, actor Jonah Hill was interviewed on The Howard Stern Show as promotion for Sausage Party. He had talked about a film he did for A24, whose title escapes me at the moment, and he said something along the lines of "A24 has the best marketing campaign out of all the studios! Everyone else will try to make your movie look like shit, but A24 knows where it's at."
If that is the case, then I say Aardman should go for it! Like I said, if the "Big Six" won't do shit about it, go for someone smaller! Although, there is a slight possibility that Fox could pick it up since their recent departure from DreamWorks Animation has encouraged them to ramp up their animation game. I wouldn't rule it out, but I'm not necessarily counting on it. It would be nice to even things out before 2020 when they are seemingly planing to get three films out a year for each season.
A rough idea...
01/18/2019-Spies in Disguise
07/31/2019-Farmageddon: A Shaun the Sheep Movie
12/25/2019-The Call of the Wild(which may or may not be a Fox Animation film)
02/14/2020-Nimona
07/17/2020-Bob's Burgers
11/06/2020-Ron's Gone Wrong
03/05/2021-Foster
I would continue this list to include stuff that could happen after Foster, for I do think it's possible that Blue Sky could start doing two films a year by 2021 should the Disney/Fox deal fail, but then that would turn this into an updated version of "The Predictions", and I kinda want to stay on the main subject, you know?
Actually, I think I'll start a poll for you readers. It will be on the right side of this article. What do you think will happen with Farmageddon: A Shaun the Sheep Movie? Do you think it will still be distributed by Lionsgate? Or do you think it will be picked up by another studio? Or will it possibly go to streaming or whatever? Cast your votes quickly, for the poll will close on March 16th.
(UPDATE - 3/17/2018):
The poll is now closed, and only one person voted. Whoever it was thinks that Aardman will eventually break away from Lionsgate and have Faramageddon released by somebody else.
We shall see...
