The Marvelization of movie studio logos
Dreamworks Animation Studios released a new logo sequence and why that's bad.
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On Friday, Dreamworks Animation unveiled its new theatrical fanfare (the animated studio logo that plays before each movie). The new 32-second sequence features a reworking of the score from Shrek, and highlights several characters from the studio’s filmography: characters from The Bad Guys, Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, Po from Kung Fu Panda, Ted from The Boss Baby, Princess Poppy from Trolls, and Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey from Shrek. (You can read more about the thought process behind this new intro via The Hollywood Reporter.) This new fanfare is yet another example of Marvel Studio’s influence and how everyone keeps trying to copy Marvel but do it worse.
Marvel had one of the coolest and most iconic fanfare before it became the MCU-driven studio that it’s known for today. The effect of pages flipping through a comic book is so clever, and it was seen from Spider-Man (2002) until 2013, when Thor: The Dark World introduced a new 3D version of the fanfare. While the original was quick and lasted only a few seconds, the 3D version was 30 seconds long and had a new score composed by Brian Tyler (Iron Man 3), making it feel more important or event-like. It was also created to make it clear that Marvel Studios was its own entity under the Disney umbrella because the original fanfare was used for Marvel films licensed out to other studios, such as Sony/Columbia’s Spider-Man films and Fox’s X-Men films, as well as Marvel Studios’s own in-house films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, distributed by Disney. Regarding the 2013 revision, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said:
“We designed the very first Marvel logo for the first Spider-Man film. We’ve used that logo for eleven years, and with ‘Thor: The Dark World,’ it felt like a good time to update it because this is the very first film that only has the Marvel logo in front of it. You look back at the other films, and they’ve also featured our studio partners’ or distribution partners’ logos. But now that we are our own entity within the Walt Disney Company, it is only the Marvel logo in front of the movies. So that felt like the time to update it and have something that is more substantial as a standalone logo in front of our features.”
Both the original and 2013 versions kept the imagery ambiguous, though. The comic pages being flipped don’t show any specific characters, so the fanfare was still about the company behind the film, not about specific IP. (Only on rare occasions would the Marvel logo sequence feature comic book pages for characters featured in the film, like X-Men: The Last Stand or Logan.)
However, just three years after releasing the 2013 redesign, Marvel changed the fanfare again to the version still being used today, created by motion design company Perception. This version opens with comic book pages, just like the first two, but transitions into footage and art of actors/characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and features a new score composed by Michael Giacchino (Ratatouille). It’s not bad, it still makes sense because the characters in the sequence are the only movies the studio makes, but in my opinion it’s not as good as the original, which was quick, simple, to the point, and timeless.
Not unlike rival studios’ many tried and failed attempts at replicating Marvel Studios’s success with its cinematic universe (remember Dark Universe?), some companies are also trying to replicate Marvel’s iconic fanfare to mixed results.
I’d say the most successful copy is Marvel’s rival DC Studios (rebranded this past October from “DC Films”), which makes movies based on its DC Comics characters. The DC fanfare, which debuted with 2017’s Wonder Woman, depicts some of the company’s most iconic superheroes, including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, The Flash, before showing a large group of various DC Comics superheroes and supervillains. The best part: It’s only 15 seconds long! Like Marvel, this works because DC Films is solely dedicated to releasing films about characters we already know. But unlike Marvel, despite also featuring iconic characters, DC’s version doesn’t depict the actors we see in its specific films, details of their faces are hidden in shadows, signifying their universality. (Side note: DC has a longer, 30-second version of the fanfare that it apparently only uses for its non-theatrical animated films. Also, Aquaman had a nice underwater version, and Teen Titans Go! To the Movies had a fun animated version!)
Not as successful is Blumhouse Productions, the studio known for producing horror films. With the release of The Black Phone earlier this year, Blumhouse debuted a new fanfare that depicted various characters across its different horror films, including Halloween, The Purge, Paranormal Activity, Get Out, Happy Death Day, and (for some reason) Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash. While I’m glad it’s a short 15 seconds long, the reason I believe Blumhouse’s version is not as good is because it doesn’t feel appropriate. It makes more sense for Marvel and DC to have IP-driven fanfare because they’re both almost exclusively dedicated to releasing films within their own respective cinematic universes. Blumhouse is not (currently) in the game of making a horror cinematic universe (again, remember what happened to Dark Universe). The scariest horror films are ones that effectively set creepy, anxiety-inducing moods. Having an introductory corporate logo sequence depicting various IP is distracting and removes us from the atmosphere these horror films want us to have.
Illumination Entertainment’s most successful franchise is the Despicable Me series, specifically the yellow pill-shaped Minions. The fanfare that plays before each Illumination film features these Minions engaging in high jinks and speaking gibberish, even if the film the logo is playing for isn’t a Despicable Me or Minions film. The purpose of this fanfare is to remind you “this is the studio that brought you Despicable Me and Minions.” Depending on your tolerance for these Minions, you’ll either love the Minions-heavy variations of Illumination’s logo, or you’ll find them annoying. I think Illumination’s might be the worse one I’ve seen because it doesn’t have any creative imagery that would help to make it iconic, and it doesn’t have any memorable music.
Dreamworks Animation is the latest studio to “Marvelize” its logo and, while beautifully animated, I don’t think it’s the right direction. Like Blumhouse, Dreamworks is not currently in the business of cinematic universes. It releases many different animated films. Featuring characters from its various IP just feels cheap and desperate. I much prefer the fanfare from its rival studios Walt Disney Animation, featuring Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse, and Pixar Animation, featuring Luxo Jr. the desk lamp. The reason why Disney Animation and Pixar’s work is because they’re both rooted in the studios’ respective histories: Steamboat Willie is the first animated short film to feature Mickey Mouse, and Luxo Jr. is from Pixar’s second computer-animated short (also titled “Luxo Jr.”). (Fun fact: Steamboat Willie and Luxo Jr. were both deemed “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry.)
Another reason why I don’t like Dreamworks Animation’s new fanfare is because it loses the ability to be remixed based on the film it introduces. For instance, Walt Disney Pictures’s iconic castle logo has been remixed throughout the years depending on the film it’s playing with, while still keeping the same flow and images. Some of the best examples include:
However, producer Suzanne Buirgy and production designer Kendal Cronkhite, who helped lead the revision of Dreamworks Animation’s fanfare, did say that there’s room for the logo sequence to change slightly with upcoming films, with characters currently featured in the sequence swapped out with other Dreamworks characters (with the exception of Shrek, who Buirgy says is Dreamworks’s Mickey Mouse, and should always be included in the sequence). “If we open another movie with these characters, we don’t necessarily want to repeat the characters that will be in the next film, if indeed that’s what happens, so we’ve made it so that they’re ‘plug and play,’” Buirgy said. “You can literally pull one out and put a new character from one of our beloved franchises in place of another one.” However, this is still not exactly the same as the examples of customization I’d previously mentioned and it still prioritizes product placement.
The new trend of IP-heavy theatrical fanfare is just another result of today’s IP-driven media climate. Every company is trying to own everything or take back things they used to own, to start their own streaming services where they’re the only place you can watch their stuff. Quality doesn’t seem to matter as much as quantity now. Maybe I’m just being cranky but I much prefer the non-IP-driven fanfare we grew up watching. They’re classics and remind us of each studio’s rich history. And they’ve all been able to modernize without losing their iconic imagery and sound. (See: 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Picures, and Dreamworks Animation.) These legacy studios have also been able to have fun and be remixed throughout the years depending on the film it’s played before. Some of the best examples that I haven’t already mentioned include:
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’s 8-bit variant of the Universal Studios fanfare
Alien 3’s creepy, skin-crawling variant of the 20th Century Fox fanfare
Sonic the Hedgehog’s golden rings variant of the Paramount Pictures fanfare
The Lego Movie’s lego bricks variant of the Warner Bros. logo
Lilo & Stitch’s alien variant of the Walt Disney Pictures logo
Soul’s middle school band variant of the Walt Disney Pictures fanfare
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s multi-verse breaking variant of all its production logos
Wreck-It Ralph’s 8-bit variant of the Walt Disney Animation Studios fanfare
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa’s penguins variant of the Dreamworks Animations fanfare
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