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“How to Train Your Dragon” director Dean DeBlois grew up wanting to be a comic-book artist. After meandering his way through fine-arts classes at Sheridan College for a year, however, he managed to get into the school’s summer animation program, where he found his calling.

“Animation had everything I love about comic books — you design your world and your characters, tell your story — but it was brought to life and could reach a worldwide audience in a way that I didn’t think comic books could,” says DeBlois, who is being honored by Variety as a Billion Dollar Director.

As that first summer came to a close, he submitted his portfolio to Hinton Animation Studios, where he started out as an “inbetweener” on the hand-drawn TV series “Raccoons,” later transitioning into the layout department for Hinton’s first feature, “The Nutcracker Prince.”

“It was terrible, but it allowed me...

Disney’s “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” opened to a paltry $20.4 million ($58.5 million worldwide) last weekend, a box office bomb given its production budget of $130 million. But it is far from the first time a version of Tchaikovsky’s ballet has failed financially — and critically.

So why can’t Hollywood get “The Nutcracker” right? TheWrap spoke with three box office experts to find out.

But lets start with the sordid box office history of “The Nutcracker” on the big screen:

In 2010, Freestyle Releasing put out “The Nutcracker in 3D,” starring Elle Fanning, Richard Philipps and Richard E. Grant. It grossed only $195,000 (from 45 locations) its opening weekend, and was widely panned by critics.

Before that was “The Nutcracker,” released by Warner Bros. in 1993. It grossed just $2.2 million its opening weekend and received mixed reviews. Similarly, 1986’s “Nutcracker: The Motion Picture,” 1990’s “The Nutcracker Prince” and 1998’s “The IMAX Nutcracker” all underperformed at the box office.

The Dallas International Film Festival Announces Scott Z. Burns to receive the Dallas Shining Star Award

Horton Foote to be posthumously honoured with the Dallas Star Award

Chris Sanders and Dean Deblois named as recipients of the Texas Avery Animation Award

Additions to the Festival Line Up

The Dallas International Film Festival presented by Cadillac (March 31 . April 10, 2011) announced today that two new Honorees have been added to the slate of Dallas Star Award recipients . writer, producer and director Scott Z. Burns (The Informant, The Bourne Ultimatum) and posthumously to Texas legend and Academy-Award winner Horton Foote(To Kill A Mockingbird, Tender Mercies). The popular Texas Avery Animation Award presented by Reel FX Entertainment will be awarded to the writers and directors of the Academy Award nominated How To Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch, Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders. Previous recipients include Pete Docter (Up), Henry Selick (Coraline),Chris Wedge (Robots)and Brad Bird (Ratatouille,...

According to Pajiba, filmmaker Robert Zemeckis is already planning his next feature project, which will reportedly again be a Christmas film. The new project is an adaptation of "The Nutcracker". This project will not be based on the popular Tchaikovsky ballet, however, but rather on Eta Hoffmann's original novel "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King".

The story will be a set in 19th century Russia and will explore the battle between the dolls and the mice, and how the cursed Nutcracker character came to be. Zemeckis will once again use 3D animated motion capture to make the movie.

There was a stop-motion version of "The Nutcracker" back in 1979 called "Nutcracker Fantasy", which starred Christopher Lee, and an animated version in 1990 called "The Nutcracker Prince", starring Kiefer Sutherland. Zemeckis therefore isn't the first filmmaker to tackle the material using one form of animation or another.

It's worth noting that while A Christmas Carol...