Inside Out won’t be the only animated film to occupy a spot at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Courtesy of two different sources (Deadline and IGN), Mark Osborne’s adaptation of The Little Prince and the film adaptation of the Ratchet & Clank video game series will both have their world premieres during the festival and will presumably be screened out-of-competition.
Distributed in the US by Paramount Vantage (an indie division of Paramount Pictures), The Little Prince will be Mark’s second festival appearance since the first Kung Fu Panda was screened out-of-competition in 2008.
According to IGN, Cinema Management Group (one of the main distributors for the film) has listed two 3D showings for Ratchet & Clank on May 15 and May 16 (Friday and Saturday). Both showings will be held at 4 PM in the afternoon.
Despite having a reputation for mainly being a star-studded, high-profile showcase of indie filmmaking, Cannes has had a long and well-documented history of being one of the biggest supporters of animation. Said support for animation began as far back as 2001, when Thierry Fremaux (himself a huge fan and supporter of the medium) took over as festival director and shook the foundation to its core when he made the decision to screen the first Shrek (in-competition, no less) at the festival. This was the first time that an American animated film had been shown at the festival since Disney’s classic Peter Pan in 1953. The festival also made history when it screened Shrek 2 (a sequel, also in-competition) at the festival. From that point forward, feature animation (DreamWorks Animation in particular) became a fixture at Cannes ever since.
Last year, they screened How to Train Your Dragon 2 out-of-competition, with Fremaux calling it “a way to celebrate 20 years of DreamWorks”. Pixar had also become a regular for Cannes, particularly when Up premiered as an opener for the festival in 2009.
While Ratchet & Clank may seem like an odd choice for Cannes (in comparison with the more art-house feel of The Little Prince), do keep in mind that the festival has screened animated features of many different genres in the past (see above). This makes Cannes an unusually refreshing environment for animation, where it actually gets to be treated as a legitimate medium.
The festival will commence on May 13 and will run through May 24. The Little Prince will bow in theaters on an unspecified Fall 2015 release window. Ratchet & Clank will also head to theaters for an unspecified 2015 release.
What do you think? Any thoughts on both of these films being at Cannes?
Edited by: Morgan Stradling
