Why do so many child actors struggle? To be a good actor, you need self-awareness and empathy, and those are traits many children don't have. This makes Isabelle Fuhrman's performance in Jaume Collet-Serra's "Orphan" all the more exceptional.

In "Orphan," a Connecticut couple -- Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) -- is still reeling from the miscarriage of their third child. So, they decide to adopt. They're instantly charmed by a young Estonian girl named Esther (Fuhrman) and welcome her into their home. But Esther shows increasing sadism, culminating in the horrible truth: she's actually a 33-year-old serial killer, afflicted with hypopituitarism that prevented her body from aging with her mind.

"Orphan" -- released in 2009 -- was shot in late 2007 when Fuhrman was only 10 years old. In what was her second film appearance, she was a child playing the part of an adult who is playing the part of a child.

Ben Stassen’s nWave Studios is set to produce “The Inseparables,” a 25 million animated feature based on an original idea by Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, the Oscar-nominated writers of “Toy Story.”

The feature is being jointly produced by nWave Studios in Belgium, Octopolis in France and A Contracorriente Films in Spain.

Cohen and Sokolow penned the feature with Cal Brunker, Bob Barlen, Matthieu Zeller and Jérémie Degruson.

Degruson, who previously directed some of nWave Studios’ biggest animated hits “The House of Magic,” “Bigfoot Junior” and Bigfoot Family,” is on board to helm “The Inseparables.”

The animated buddy movie follows the misadventures of Don, a runaway puppet with a boundless imagination and, DJ Doggy Dog, an abandoned stuffed animal toy in need of a friend, as they cross paths in Central Park and pair up against all odds for an epic adventure of friendship in New York City.

The movie...

“Mister Crocodile,” “Corgi, A Royal Family” and “Piggy Builders” are among 84 TV series animated projects set to unspool at the 2021 Cartoon Forum which takes place in Toulouse, southern France, over Sept. 20-23 in an entirely in-person format.

21 countries from Europe will introduce animated projects at pitching sessions and industry networking, the backbone of Cartoon Forum’s activities. The 84 projects were selected from 141 submissions.

Targeting children and produced by France’s The Magical Society, “Mister Crocodile” is penned by Simon Nicholson and Joann Sfar and based on Sfar’s graphic novel. The series depicts the friendship between a girl and a crocodile, who asks to be her pet.

One of the most anticipated titles at the Forum, “Corgi, A Royal Family” is produced by France’s Studio Redfrog and Belgium’s nWave Studios, the company behind Ben Stassen’s “A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventures,” “The House of Magic,” “Fly Me to the Moon...

Charades has scored a raft of pre-sales on Ben Stassen’s 3D animated feature “Bigfoot Family,” one of the biggest features competing at Annecy’s online film festival.

Directed by Stassen and Jérémie Degruson, “Bigfoot Family” (previously titled “Bigfoot Superstar”), is the sequel to “Son of Bigfoot” which was released internationally in 2017 and grossed more than $50 million worldwide.

Budgeted at more than $20 million, “Bigfoot Family” will be widely released by Francois Clerc’s Apollo Films in France on August 5. The movie was produced by Brussels-based nWave Pictures and stars Pappy Faulkner, Lindsay Torrance and Chris Parsons. “Bigfoot Family” is based upon an original story by Stassen, and was written by Bob Barlen and Cal Brunker (“Escape From Planet Earth”).

Over the last few months, Charades has pre-sold the anticipated film to most territories, including Germany (Splendid), Spain (Tripictures/A Contracorriente), Israel (Forum), Switzerland (Impuls), South Korea (Isu C&e), Greece (Odeon...

Included in today's MPAA bulletin is the rating for a new Walt Disney short called Paperman that I had not heard of before so I did a little snooping and it turns out it's directed by John Kahrs, an animator who worked on such Disney films as Ratatouille, The Incredibles and Toy Story 2. Kahrs also served as animation supervisor on Tangled and he's teamed with Tangled animator Patrick Osborne who posted the following on his personal blog on December 29, 2011: We're finishing up a rather exciting project at Disney in the next few weeks. It's been keeping me pretty busy and away from this blog. The short is called Paperman. Directed by John Kahrs, the short will be running the festival circuit next year. We're very proud of this one and can't wait to show the world. produced by Kristina Reed animation supervision by myself art direction by Jeff Turley Vfx sup.

Cave Of Forgotten Dreams (U)

(Werner Herzog, 2010, Can/Us/Fra/Ger/UK) 90 mins

Herzog's perceptive, musically accented voiceovers have become a trademark of his documentaries, but he's practically humbled into silence here by the world's oldest art gallery – or was it a cinema? Recently discovered, and unlikely to be seen by any of us for real, these 35,000-year-old cave paintings are a sight to behold, and Herzog wisely lets them speak for themselves, in fully justified 3D. We are given some insight into the history and the difficulties of filming, plus a few vintage Herzog musings (radioactive albino crocodiles!), but primarily, this puts us in the position of our supposedly primitive ancestors, gazing in awe at things we barely comprehend.

The Eagle (12A)

(Kevin Macdonald, 2011, Us/UK) Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, Donald Sutherland. 114 mins

A Roman soldier and his British slave band together in a boys' adventure mixing Gladiator-like action and sober historical bromance.

Paris -- French production, distribution and sales company Studiocanal will put on its 3D glasses to ride the nWave with a new exclusive, long term partnership with international 3D production and distribution powerhouse nWave Studios, Canal Plus said Monday.

Under the exclusive deal, Studiocanal will join forces with nWave for the development, co-financing and distribution of nWave's films in France, the U.K. and Germany and will have an equity stake in all of nWave's upcoming feature productions.

Studiocanal will release nWave's upcoming animated features in France under its own banner, in Germany under group subsidiary Kinowelt and in the U.K. via Optimum. Studiocanal will also handle international sales for those titles.

Studiocanal bought distribution rights to nWave's "Around the World in 50 Years 3D" last February and the film's sequel, already in the writing stages, will be the first Studiocanal-nWave project under the new partnership. "Around the World," also tentatively titled "Sammy's Adventures,...