Dreamworks Could Trump Pixar This Year

Cinemablend’s Josh Tyler has posted this Pixar Toy Story 3 poster with, he thinks, some kind of hidden message, and wonders what Pixar is hiding behind that egg:

In other Pixar news, the studio is flying out several bloggers on a paid junket, Fantastic Mr. Fox style (although they are going to San Fran, not London). These include peeps from Chud, Coming Soon and Collider. Never sure what to think about these things but they are becoming more and more popular as a way to bypass traditional press and hype up the fan base. They’ve always been around, of course, but never with much Oscar crossover.

However, I personally feel like Dreamworks at last has the Animated Feature Oscar. If it is going to be down to How to Train Your Dragon vs. Toy Story 3, the Dragon will take it. For one thing, Toy Story 3 is not directed by John Lasseter, and not written by the Pixar dream team (which varied names between TS1 and TS2 but always had the main guys on board: Lasseter, Stanton and Docter. Instead it’s been written by Little Miss Sunshine’s Michael Arndt.

The director, Lee Unkrich, is listed as co-director for Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc. So it’s possible it will be up to the level of the first two. But I’m not so sure it can beat How to Train Your Dragon THIS year. And it might not come down to those two anyway. It’s early yet. The junket thing makes me nervous.