Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What was Don Bluth's second film to direct?
Donald Virgil Bluth (; born September 13, 1937) is an American animator, film director, producer, writer, production designer, video game designer, and animation instructor. He is known for directing animated films, including "The Secret of NIMH" (1982), "An American Tail" (1986), "The Land Before Time" (1988), "All Dogs Go to Heaven" (1989), and "Anastasia" (1997), and for his involvement in the LaserDisc game "Dragon's Lair" (1983). He is also known for competing with former employer Walt Disney Productions during the years leading up to the films that would make up the Disney Renaissance. He is the older brother of illustrator Toby Bluth.
Banjo the Woodpile Cat is a 1979 animated short film directed by Don Bluth. It follows the story of Banjo, an overly curious and rebellious kitten who, after getting into trouble for falling from a house to see if he could land on his feet, runs away from his woodpile home in his owners' farm in Payson, Utah by catching a truck to Salt Lake City. Produced in a shoestring budget, and created in Bluth's garage, the film took four years to make and it was the first production of Don Bluth Productions, later Sullivan Bluth Studios. It had a short theatrical run from December 21 to 28, 1979 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Peppertree Cinema in Northridge as an opening short for the holiday re-release of "The Muppet Movie", but did not appear on network television until 1982.
The Secret of NIMH is a 1982 American animated dark fantasy adventure film directed by Don Bluth in his directorial debut. It is an adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's 1971 children's novel "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH". The film was produced by Aurora Productions and released by MGM/UA Entertainment Company for United Artists and features the voices of Elizabeth Hartman, Dom DeLuise, Arthur Malet, Derek Jacobi, Hermione Baddeley, John Carradine, Peter Strauss, and Paul Shenar. The "Mrs. Frisby" name in the novel had to be changed to "Mrs. Brisby" during production due to trademark concerns with Frisbee discs. It was followed in 1998 by a direct-to-video sequel called "", which was made without Bluth's involvement or input. In 2015, a CGI/live action remake was reported to be in the works.
There are four animated feature films based on the "Bleach" series, all of which are directed by Noriyuki Abe, director of the "Bleach" anime series. The films were released annually each December starting in 2006, though none were released in 2009. Each movie features an original plotline along with original characters designed by Tite Kubo, which is contrary to the normal practice for anime-based films, as the original author usually has little creative involvement.
Bold Films is an American independent film production and finance company. Bold was founded in 2004 with the mission of producing talent-driven, studio-quality films, which have worldwide commercial appeal. Bold's first three films were "Slingshot", "Come Early Morning" and "Mini's First Time". In 2006 the company had its first hit, producing and financing the Golden Globe-nominated period piece "Bobby", written and directed by Emilio Estevez. In 2009 Bold produced and released Joe Dante's 3D thriller "The Hole", which Roger Ebert called the best use of 3D ever. In 2010 Bold had its first major studio film "Legion", which was co-financed and released by Screen Gems, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. In 2011 Bold co-produced and co-financed with OddLot Entertainment the critically acclaimed "Drive" starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, for which director Nicolas Winding Refn won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival while also receiving accolades from the BAFTA Awards, The Golden Globes and Academy Awards. In 2014 the company garnered worldwide recognition for producing and financing the critically acclaimed films "Nightcrawler" starring Jake Gyllenhaal, and "Whiplash" with Blumhouse Productions, which received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Other awards nominations for the film include the Spirit Awards, PGA Awards, SAG Awards, and WGA Awards.
Blaxploitation is a mix of the words black and exploitation. It makes a point to enforce stereotypes that have been afflicted on African Americans by the so-called white media. The first movie to be considered blaxploitation was "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song" (1971). Melvin Van Peebles directed, produced, and took the lead role of this hyper sexual film. It is about a male prostitute who is out to fight "[the man]" (white oppression). It spanned a new type of film genre that evolved all the way to what is now the urban blaxploitation horror films of the 21st century.
The Incredible Hulk is a 2008 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character the Hulk, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Universal Pictures. It is the second film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Louis Leterrier, with a screenplay by Zak Penn. It stars Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, alongside Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell, and William Hurt. In "The Incredible Hulk", Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk as an unwitting pawn in a military scheme to reinvigorate the “Super-Soldier” program through gamma radiation. On the run, he attempts to cure himself of the Hulk before he is captured by General Thaddeus Ross, but his worst fears are realized when power-hungry soldier Emil Blonsky becomes a similar, but more bestial creature.
Tite Kubo, author from the "Bleach" manga, authored a one-shot based on Tōshirō, prior to the film's premier in order to promote it. He was also allowed to participate in the making of the film, to design the character of Kusaka. However, Kubo could not add Kusaka to his one-shot due to the fact the original concept came from the manga. In order to promote the second film of "Bleach", the trailer had the line "Execute Hitsugaya!". Kubo admitted that it was his own idea to make everybody be surprised, but he and Masakazu Morita, the voice actor of Ichigo Kurosaki, received a lot of letters from worried fans, causing Kubo to apologize in response.
In the 1980s, Vestron Pictures hired Danny Steinmann to write and direct a sequel, though the film fell apart in pre-production due to rights issues. Mario Bava's film "Twitch of the Death Nerve" was also released under the titles "Last House on the Left – Part II", "Last House – Part II" and "New House on the Left".
Penelope Spheeris, who directed the first film believes that Myers encouraged the studio not to have her back for the sequel due to personality conflicts with Myers during the making of the first film. She went on to direct another TV to big screen adaptation, "The Beverly Hillbillies" instead and was replaced by Stephen Surjik for the sequel.
"First Contact" is the first documentary in what later became known as "The Highland Trilogy". The other two films are "Joe Leahy's Neighbours" (1989) and "Black Harvest" (1992). These three films, between them, have won some thirty major awards, included each film winning both the Grand Prix at the Festival Cinéma du Réel in Paris and AFI Award for Best Documentary.
Bumblebee is a 2018 American science fiction action film centered on the "Transformers" character of the same name. It is the sixth installment of the live-action "Transformers" film series and a prequel to 2007's "Transformers". Directed by Travis Knight and written by Christina Hodson, the film stars Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz, Jason Drucker, and Pamela Adlon, with Dylan O'Brien, Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux, and Peter Cullen in voice roles. It is the first live-action "Transformers" film not to be directed by Michael Bay, though he still produced, and Travis Knight's first live-action film. Principal photography on the film began on July 31, 2017, in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California.
The film was released by Touchstone Home Entertainment on Blu-ray Disc, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, and digital download on December 13, 2011. The release was produced in three different physical packages: a 3-disc combo pack (Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, and DVD with Digital Copy); a 2-disc combo pack (Blu-ray Disc and DVD); and a one-disc DVD. The film was also released digitally in 3D, high definition, and standard definition. The DVD version will include the "Gag Reel" and "Squid Man – Extended and Uncut" bonus features, as well as an uncensored music video for Kid Cudi's song "No One Believes Me". The digital download version will include the same features as the DVD version, plus "Live in Las Vegas: An Interview with Peter Vincent" and "The Official 'How to Make a Funny Vampire Movie' Guide" bonus features. Both the 2-disc and 3-disc combo packs will include five deleted scenes with introductions by director Gillespie, a gag reel, an uncensored music video for "No One Believes Me", "Squid Man – Extended & Uncut", "Peter Vincent: Swim Inside My Mind", "The Official 'How to Make a Funny Vampire Movie' Guide" and "Frightful Facts & Terrifying Trivia" bonus features.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a dark fantasy action-adventure game developed and published by the British video game development studio Ninja Theory. Self-described as an "independent AAA game", it was created by a team of approximately twenty developers led by writer and director Tameem Antoniades. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 in August 2017, with an Xbox One version in April 2018. The game features support for virtual reality, which was added in an update in 2018.
Kleiser directed several television movies in the mid-1970s, including 1975's "" and 1976's "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble", which starred John Travolta. Kleiser was then tapped to direct his first feature film, the 1978 film "Grease", in large part because of Travolta's recommendation based on their work together on "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble". Kleiser would go on to direct several more feature films, including "The Blue Lagoon" (1980) with Brooke Shields, "Summer Lovers" (1982) with Daryl Hannah, "Grandview, U.S.A." (1984) with Jamie Lee Curtis, "Flight of the Navigator" (1986), featuring the first use of digital morphing in a film, "Big Top Pee-wee" (1988), "White Fang" (1991) and "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" (1992).
Sean S. Cunningham made his directorial debut with the white coater film "The Art of Marriage". His film grossed $100,000 and attracted the company Hallmark Releasing (unaffiliated with Hallmark Cards Inc.). Cunningham made the film "Together" as a "better version" of film. Wes Craven, who had no money at the time, was put on the job of synchronizing dailies for Cunningham's re-shoot. He soon began editing the film with Cunningham and they became good friends. Hallmark Releasing bought the film for $10,000 and it was considered a "hit." Hallmark Releasing wanted them to do another film with a bigger budget and gave them $90,000 to shoot a horror film.
In 2013 he worked on the Spike Jonze movie "Her" as animation director on the sequences where the characters are playing video games. His work there inspired him to explore developing real video games for release. His first was "Mountain", released in July 2014 in partnership with Double Fine Productions for personal computers and mobile devices. "Mountain" features little interactivity but allows the player to create and watch a solitary mountain floating in space as it offers its thoughts to the player, and as random objects collide and become embedded within it. It was generally praised by critics, noting it as a subversion what one normally expects for a video game.
Filming for the second "Hustle" series took place in mid-2004, again in and around central London. Lester described the second shoot as "much easier" than the chaotic first series. "On the first series we didn't know each other... we were trying to work out what roles we were going to play and the scripts were still being written as we were shooting it; it was all a case of finding out what exactly "Hustle" was going to be.. second time around it was much easier, much quicker... when we were reading the script you could really hear the other actors doing their lines because you knew kind of how they were going to do them..." With the success of the first series, "Hustle's" team of writers were able to be more inventive in creating new plots for the second six-episode run, including issues some of the characters had to deal with, and stories which could keep the audience guessing until the end.
Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The films, though receiving backlash for stereotypical characters, are among the first in which black characters and communities are the heroes and subjects of film and television, rather than sidekicks or villains or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
Writer/Director Ron Judkins is best known as Steven Spielberg's go-to production sound mixer, having won two Academy Awards for Best Sound (Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan) and has been nominated for another three in the same category. ""Finding Neighbors"" is his first film since 1999's The Hi-Line which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, and won the Austin Film Festival Audience Award. The film was shot primarily in Atwater Village in Los Angeles, CA.
"Kubo and the Two Strings" is a 2016 American stop-motion action-adventure film directed by Travis Knight and produced by Laika. The screenplay, written by Marc Haimes and Chris Butler, revolves around Kubo, a 12-year-old boy with an eyepatch. Kubo's left eye was stolen in infancy, and he must subdue his corrupt family members now coming to get the other eye. The film features the voices of Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, George Takei, and Matthew McConaughey.
"The Secret of NIMH" was the first feature film to be directed by Don Bluth. In September 1979 he, fellow animators Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy, and eight other animation staff left the animation department at Walt Disney Productions to set up their own independent studio, Don Bluth Productions. The studio worked, at first, out of Bluth's house and garage, but moved to a two-story, facility in Studio City, California, several months later. While they were still working at Disney, they produced the 27-minute short film "Banjo the Woodpile Cat" as a side project to gain other production skills that the company and their animation program were not addressing. Bluth asked Ron W. Miller, Walt Disney's son-in-law and the president and CEO of the company at the time, to view "Banjo", but Miller declined. As Goldman recalled, "that pulled the enthusiasm rug out from under us. We had hoped that the studio might like what we were doing and agree to buy the film and allow us to finish the short film in the studio, which would allow us to recoup what we had spent in terms of money and the many hours that we and the other members of the team had invested in the film."
The film was released on March 29, 1996. Don Bluth, the director of the original film, had no involvement with it. It was the second of only two theatrical sequels to a film directed by Don Bluth to not involve Bluth himself, the first being "", as 13 sequels to "The Land Before Time" and a single sequel to "The Secret of NIMH" were direct-to-video releases along with two sequels of "An American Tail" in 1998-2000, as well as "An All Dogs Christmas Carol". This was MGM's last theatrically released animated film until 2008's "Igor", and 2018's "Sherlock Gnomes". It had a DVD double feature release with the first one on March 14, 2006 and January 18, 2011. It was also released on Blu-ray on March 29, 2011.
Bluth returned to college and got a degree in English Literature from Brigham Young University. Bluth returned to the animation business and joined Filmation in 1967 working on layouts for "The Archies" and other projects. He returned full-time to Disney in 1971 where he worked on "Robin Hood", "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too", "The Rescuers" and directing animation on "Pete's Dragon". His last involvement with Disney was the 1978 short "The Small One". Then he made and produced his first short film, "Banjo the Woodpile Cat", which takes place in his hometown Payson, Utah during the 1940s as Banjo travels to Salt Lake City to find the urban world.
The studio's first feature-length film was "The Secret of NIMH" (1982), an adaptation of "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH", the 1972 Newbery Medal winner. Bluth employed 160 animators during the production and agreed to the first profit sharing contract in the animation industry. Though a moderate success in the box office, the movie received critical acclaim. Later, with the home video release and cable showings, it became a cult classic. Nevertheless, due to its modest box office take, and an industry-wide animation strike, Don Bluth Productions filed for bankruptcy.