DreamWorks Animation’s Grabs Hot Trio for “Master Mind”

Robert Downey Jr., Tina Fey and Ben Stiller are in negotiations to lead the voice cast for DreamWorks Animation’s superhero lark “Master Mind,” which is set for a Nov. 5, 2010 release. Stiller is also a producer on the movie through his Red Hour Films so I don’t think his ‘negotiations’ are going to be a problem.

The satiric film, concerns a brilliant superhero villain who loses his life’s purpose when he accidentally kills his good-guy nemesis.

DreamWorks Animation’s (DWA) has had an amazing run described below so they can certainly afford top talent.  I am often asked and sometimes wonder myself why do studios now go for high paying actors as voice talents?  There are certainly plenty of TV animations that have been wildly successful with lesser known voice talents. Well Hollywood does have a habit of overkill, hedging their bets by bringing in well known stars believing they will get people into the theatres, and they’re probably right to an extent.  All the promo work with red carpet appearances and interviews done by the big name stars, give these animation features a lot of attention to peak people’s interest.  Still I would love to see these big studios buck the current trend and release good animation flicks without the high profile actors.

DWA lead by Jeffrey Katzenberg had a banner year in 2008 with its releases “Kung Fu Panda” and “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” (also starring Stiller), which together have grossed more than $1.2 billion worldwide. DWA has quite a pipe-line too with “Monsters vs. Aliens” in theaters in March, “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Shrek Goes Fourth” in 2010, and a “Kung Fu Panda” sequel scheduled for 2011.

Paramount, which distributes DWA’s output, has its own animated feature, “Rango,” starring Johnny Depp, in production for a March 2011 release.

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