Will Vinton Studios, the Portland, Ore.-headquartered dimensional character animation company, has promoted Zilpha Yost to executive producer, a new position in the advertising division which is headed by president David Altschul.
Yost has been a senior producer at Will Vinton Studios since ’92, taking a leave of absence in ’95 to run the stop-motion studio in Los Angeles for Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks, where the characters and significant elements of production design were developed. When Warner Bros. chose to complete the animation in CGI, Yost returned to Portland, accompanied by some of the principal creative artists on that production.
Yost has acted as supervising producer on the M&M’s campaign during much of its five-year history. In that time, Will Vinton Studios has produced over 50 M&M’s commercials with BBDO New York, as well as with BBDO offices in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
“Smile 2” Tops Weekend Box Office; “Anora” Glitters In Limited Release
Horror movies topped the domestic box office charts and an Oscar contender got off to a sparkling start this weekend. "Smile 2," in its first weekend, and "Terrifier 3" in its second proved to be the big draws for general movie audiences in North America, while the Palme d'Or winner"Anora" got the best per-theater average in over a year.
"Smile 2" was the big newcomer, taking first place with a better than expected $23 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. Parker Finn returned to write and direct the sequel to the supernatural horror "Smile," his debut. Originally intended for streaming, Paramount pivoted and sent the movie to theaters in the fall of 2022. "Smile" became a sleeper hit at the box office, earning some $217 million against a $17 million budget.
The sequel, starring Naomi Scott as a pop star, was rewarded with a bit of a bigger budget, and a theatrical commitment from the start. Playing on 3,619 screens, it opened slightly higher than the first's $22 million.
Second place went to Universal and DreamWorks Animation's "The Wild Robot" in its fourth weekend with $10.1 million, bumping it past $100 million in North America. Family films often have long lives in theaters, particularly ones as well reviewed as "The Wild Robot," and some have speculated that it got a bump this weekend from teenagers buying tickets for the PG-rated family film and then sneaking into "Terrifier 3," which is not rated, instead. Either way, Damien Leone's demon clown movie, which cost only $2 million to produce, is doing more than fine with legitimate ticket buyers. It added an estimated $9.3 million, bringing its total to $36.2 million.
"Rumors like that are PR gold," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. "There's... Read More