Can You Tell "MegaMind" Apart From "Despicable Me"?

My viewing of "Toy Story 3" this weekend was preceded by a blur of trailers for every CGI animated film and CGI-heavy kids' film coming out in the next few months, including "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore," and the movie formerly known as "The Guardians of Ga'Hoole" from Warner Brothers, the bottom-of-the-barrel "Alpha and Omega," which marks old Don Bluth collaborator Richard Rich's first shot at a CGI film for Lionsgate, Disney's "Tangled," and Sony's "The Smurfs." (Really, Sony? Really?) Alas, there was no preview for "Voyage of the Dawn Treader," the next installment of the Narnia series reported to be attached to some prints of "Toy Story 3." However, I did get trailers for Dreamworks' "MegaMind" and Universal's "Despicable Me."

Every once in a while you get very similar film projects that spontaneously pop up at different studios at the same time, and end up competing against each other at the box office. In the animation world, the most famous head-to-head was back in the fall of 1998 when PIXAR and Dreamworks/PDI both released insect-themed movies within a few weeks of each other. "Antz" hit theater screens in early October while "A Bug's Life" followed during the Thanksgiving weekend. This was due to a pretty nasty feud going on between Disney and Dreamworks at the time, which resulted in Dreamworks purposely pushing up the release of "Antz" to beat "Bug's Life" to the finish line. In the end, both films got good reviews and made money. More importantly, they established that there was room for two major animation studios in Hollywood, where once Disney had dominated the landscape. Since then, of course, a couple more have joined the party.

Universal Pictures is hoping to become the next major player, partnering up with Chris Meledandri's new studio, Illumination Entertainment for "Despicable Me," which tells the tale of a supervillain who tries to steal the moon and becomes surrogate father to a trio of orphan girls. Steve Carrell will voice the despicable protagonist, Gru, and the cast includes such notables as Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Will Arnett, and Kristen Wiig. The ad campaign has been in full swing since last July, when the first teaser trailer was attached to the sixth "Harry Potter" film. Despicable Me" will finally be released on July 9th.

But then there's "MegaMind," the third Dreamworks Animation release for this year, following the adventures of an alien supervillain voiced by Will Ferrell. It started up its ad campaign back in March with a teaser attached to "How to Train Your Dragon," which of course also had a trailer for "Despicable Me." Since then, "Shrek Forever After" and "Toy Story 3" have also featured trailers for both films, sometimes one right after the other. "MegaMind" won't be released until November, but it's still hard not to expect that there might be some confusion with "Despicable Me," since the two films have an awful lot in common.

Both have supervillain main characters with a love of elaborate schemes and over-the-top technological gadgets. Both will no doubt discover that villainy isn't all it's cracked up to be, and learn to open their bitter hearts to new relationships – in Gru's case with small children, and in MegaMind's case with a lovely female reporter – and maybe take on new roles as a result. Both movies will lovingly spoof the superhero and superspy genres and do their best to avoid inevitable comparisons to PIXAR's "The Incredibles" and Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog." Maybe they should have been more worried about trying to distinguish themselves from each other.

As a lover of cartoon films, I've seen both trailers multiple times now, but I had to go online to sort out which film came from which studio, which big-shot comedic actor voiced which role, and which movie had the cute little yellow pill-shaped minions. It didn’t help that the early trailers for "Despicable Me" revealed little of the film's plot details and several didn't even feature the main character. I think it looks more promising than "MegaMind," though, which has a wackier, derivative vibe similar to last year's unfortunate "Monsters vs Aliens." "MegaMind" will be in the riskier position, opening four months after "Despicable Me" and poised to either benefit from "Despicable's" success or perhaps suffer from association or unfavorable comparisons.

Or both films might pull through like "Antz" and "A Bug's Life" did back in '98. "Despicable Me" and "MegaMind" could be might end up being very different from each other, but they're being sold on the same few qualities: snarky humor, zany characters, and an army of celebrity voices. Animated films might be enjoying an unprecedented Renaissance, but it's clear to me that the marketing for them is in a serious rut.