Creative Question

A few years ago I was invited down to DreamWorks to see if there was any potential for collaborating on something non-Dilbert. Nothing ever came of that meeting, but in the process I learned something fascinating that I’ve been puzzling about ever since. Maybe you can help me figure out something.

The problem with creating a G-rated CGI blockbuster, like Shrek, or Cars, is that all the obvious categories have been taken. Kids are interested in only a few things in their movies:

1. Other kids
2. Creatures of any kind
3. Princesses
4. Magic and super powers

Shrek III, for example, has all of those elements. It’s no surprise it’s a huge hit. So here’s your creative question for the day: What subject and setting hasn’t yet been done as a kid-oriented CGI movie?

Here are some that HAVE been done:

Bugs
Monsters
Super heroes
Cars
African animals
Suburban animals
Robots
Toys
Fairy Tale creatures
Fish
Dinosaurs
Ghosts

Pixar has a new movie coming out about a rat that works in a kitchen. I’m sure it’s a fine film and will do well, as all other Pixar movies have. But honestly, my first reaction on seeing the rat in the kitchen trailer was “they ran out of creatures.” It’s no one’s fault. There are only so many types of creatures in the universe.

I’ll get the ball rolling with a few types of creatures that haven’t been in recent kid-oriented CGI blockbusters as far as I know:

Aliens
Birds
Angels

Now it’s your turn. What creatures are left for the next movie?

[Update: Okay, okay. Penguins and Chicken Little and Valiant were birds. See how hard it is to come up with something new?]

Comments

[appoixevipusa]

new super sites
good worck baby
senks

[Jeremy]

How about a cartoon about office supplies? It could be more like paperclips vs. staples gang war. Then they team up against the evil rubber bands, who are trying to take over, while the 3-hole punch is trying to keep the peace. We could also do punctuation mark adventures for the toddlers. The poor semicolon tries to find his place in the world (sentence).

[Marklar]

CGI with more aliens: Final Fantasy, Titan AE

Toy Story did not have aliens in, it had toys in which were manufactured in a factory on Earth.

[Anon]

Dragons
Griffins

As the *heroes*. For max effect, have an approximately humanoid dragon (reasonably close to human sized) as the hero, and the hero succeeding depends mostly on brains, like in Sherlock Holmes. By "close to human sized", I mean closer than Shrek is.

Other than that, the Spellsinger books (by Alan Dean Foster), and the Dragons of Pern books (by Anne McCaffrey) might make good films, although you might have trouble making a reasonably good adaptation that gets even a PG rating, let alone G.

[Mov]

What about a futuristic setting where planets are run like corporates and the CEO of one planet trying to take over another?
There will be a lot of scope to show takeovers in a new light.

[Melanie Nadeau]

A movie about talking vegetables would show kids that eating their veggies is cool! Therefore their parents can stop nagging them.

[LateRain]

Okay. I saw the rat movie on Friday night with my best friend's two kids. I live in the midwest now, but am from New York City originally. The rats were KIND OF cute one-on-one, and the story was entertaining enough, but I almost tossed my cookies whenever more than half a dozen of the rats were in one place. (SPOILER) The scene that almost did me in was when there were forty or fifty of them WORKING IN THE KITCHEN.

anyway, my point is: I basically left there thinking, "Cockroaches. They might as well have done a movie featuring cockroaches."

I still feel vaguely ill when I think about the movie.

[Tmac]

Ever seen pictures of microscopic, dinosaur-like parasites that live inside one's eyebrows? I can see a whole series of movies based on friendly, jingle-singing body bugs ala "The Little Mermaid." Now, that's cool. Hollywood, give me a call.

[Terry]

How about whatever Disney scrapes up from the bottom of the barrel this fortnight, thats got to be interesting for a movie trilogy

[jczubach]

I'm showing my age here, but does any one recall
H.R.Puffinstuff, or the Banana Splits? not usually one for rehashes, but in my child's mind's eye there is some nostalgic appeal. Zany Pandemonium, musical, colorific...

[kat]

Furniture that comes to life?

[loupgarou]

cthulu for kids....

invader zim = aliens...

[Matt]

How about an animated remake of Caddy Shack?

There'd be lots of dialogue about that they could use for the lines of Rodney Dangerfield :)

[Kenneth]

you don't need creatures, as such. all you need is imagination. the Proboscians, for instance, might make a good kids' movie.

okay, true, they're creatures. but they are somewhat different from the norm. like Froons, for instance, or even the Matrix Hedgehog.

it's always possible that there is currency nowadays for illogical ideas that might not at first make any sense.

[Roby Bang]

Depending on who you talk to, there are anywhere from eight to thirty-six different plotlines, everything else is some sort of take on something else. CGI is relatively new, but if you rolled in the entire history of animation, then you have even less options. A cartoon about a mouse who wants to do something bigger could be Steamboat Willy or Felix the Cat. Tex Avery made cartoons about cars, jets, and airplanes that could talk WAAAAYYY before Pixar ever made Cars. Even you should know that, considering you said once that Dilbert was the name of another comic strip character that you discovered acidentally. So, it doesn't matter what characters you use, it's how good the story is that makes something a hit.

[TMS]

Search Engines + Tron

Search engines imitate intelligence. That makes for the perfect adventuresome playground. You could have characters like searchers and search optimizers and queries and results. Add in a Google colored landscape and the kids will be squealing with joy.

[Dane Cofer]

I would like to reiterate the request for a story about dirt. the same entry above had a great idea about the beavers/otters. But I think something oriented towards the innate love and fascination li'l boys have around plain and simple dirt and mud would be amusing.

Of course a movie about the secret society of li'l girls and all the mischief that girls get boys into would be funny... ;-).

[Montoya]

Aliens haven't been done? Did no one see Jimmy Neutron?

[Dalebert]

How about an alien angel animal? Combine all three for extra marketing potential!

[Paul C]

Serious suggestion.

The ancient Welsh and Irish myths: Disney has had a go at everyone else's, and while the Celtic mythos has already been commited to film, both as live action and animation, it's been either in Welsh or Irish Gaelic and therefore doesn't travel well.

These stories have everything:

Legendary heroes;(Cuchullain, a sort of proto-Conan)
Gods;
Dragons: (satisfying the monster theme)
Love interest (the classic star-crossed lovers theme)
Lots of sword-and-sorcery action (a la Lord of the Rings)

And for Hollywood, the Braveheart theme of valiant Celts taking on the nasty evil English, or Saxons as they were called in those days.

As long as Disney isn't allowed to stink it up with too much sentiment, this could be a winner...

[Bruno Berthold]

Flesh-eating bacteria
Blood-thirsty zombies
Disease-filled genitalia
Money-hungry Real Estate Agents
Drug-using Beauty Pagent Winners
Women-lusty Porn Tycoons

I think Pixar still has a few options up their sleeves...

[reeverse]

Umm national monuments?? I know it sounds weird but I thought I’d pick something that you would have to work on.. I’m not going to give you all the answers!!
All the monuments congregate say in Australia (you'll need lots of space for all those big monuments plus the added bonus of Australia jokes/accents etc) near Ularu (aka Ayers Rock) for a big party or some other purpose. With multinational theme and lots of strange accents cue the Eiffel tower “Zis Reverse! She is ow we say Brilliant!”

[Paul]

Something has just struck me. This meeting with DreamWorks that (ahem) nothing came of - are you sure this isn't a kind of brainstorm session or focus group on their behalf? ITWSBT

[Jonna]

When I was a little girl, I really loved a series of books by Mary Norton called the Borrowers. The Borrowers are a race of tiny little people that live in the walls of regular people (us), and when we lose our things, it's actually the borrowers that have taken them, and used them to build their world. They are very creative books, with charming characters. Would make fantastic CGI films.

[Chris Benson (Asparagus Pee Guy)]

I'm going to think about your question, but in the meantime, I think the whole new Disney/Pixar/Rat thing exists only becuase of that old sitcom guy from Busom Buddies who was the original of the Jack character from Will & Grace used to get a huge laugh whenever he said "rat-a-tat-tat-a-too-wee!"