Persepolis may not exactly be It’s a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street, but Sony Pictures Classics is hoping audiences in New York and Los Angeles come out for the film’s limited North American release on Christmas Day. Opening wider on Dec. 25 is Columbia Pictures’s The Water Horse, a family adventure about a boy and his CG-animated sea creature, and 20th Century Fox’s vfx-laden monster mash-up sequel, Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem.
Based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis tells the autobiographical tale of a spirited Iranian girl who has to face the oppressive Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979. Co-written and co-directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, the black-and-white, 2D-animated pic is France’s official Oscar entry, and also stands a good chance of getting nominated in the Best Animated Feature category. The film was animated by French studio 2.4.7 Film and co-produced by The Kennedy/Marshall Co., France 3 Cinema and Sofica Europacorp.
Walden Media, Revolution Studios and Beacon pictures offer The Water Horse, in whch a young boy brings a mysterious egg home form the beach and ends up raising a mythical creature of Scottish lore. Vfx supervisor Joe Letteri and the team at Weta Digital handled the film’s creature animation and other effects. The film is based on the popular book by author Dick King-Smith and illustrator David Parkins, and is one of 15 releases short-listed for this year’s vfx Oscar.
Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem features effects by Hydraulx and Pixel Liberation Front as nasty creatures from two different planets continue to wage war on Earth. Brothers Colin and Greg Strauss pulled double duty as co-directors and visual effects supervisors on this second film based on the Dark Horse comic-book series.
It’s gong to be a crowded holiday week as a fresh batch of new releases spills into theaters. Getting a head start by opening this weekend are National Treasure: Book of Secrets from Disney, Tim Burton’s Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street from Paramount and DreamWorks, the musical comedy Walk Hard: The Dewy Cox Story from Columbia Pictures, the political dramedy Charlie Wilson’s War from Universal Pictures and the romantic comedy P.S. I Love You from Warner Bros.
