Got a link for the teaser or a release date ?

No teaser trailer yet, just the teaser poster you see at the top right. The first teaser is expected to drop with Prince Caspian though so we should have it soon.

As far as the release date, it's officially October 10th.

I just realized I should have qualified the question by saying "not including anime." After all, there are loads of great Japanese films targeted towards children that feature a post calamity landscape.

"Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind," anyone?

looks like Bill Murray, how strange.

Yep, that's Mr. Murray. It also stars Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, and The Office's Mackenzie Crook (the British Office that is). Not sure how I feel about that cast.

definitely not going to be Pitch Black

I've responded at length over at my blog, Brainiac:
http://tinyurl.com/4g2cqc

The short version of my answer is: "City of Ember" is probably the first post-apocalyptic movie openly aimed at the under-18 crowd. But there have been others.

1) "Teenage Cave Man" (1958), starring 25-year-old Robert Vaughn as a character known as The Symbol Maker's Teenage Son. In this Roger Corman-directed SF movie, a tribe of primitives struggle to survive in a barren wasteland; Vaughn's character defies tribal law and crosses a river into a lush land inhabited by a burned monster who turns out to be... a 500-year-old survivor of a nuclear holocaust. Vaughn later called it the worst movie ever made.


2) "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (1985). The first two "Mad Max" movies were intended for adults, sure... even though the second one is narrated by the Feral Boy. But the third installment in the series, in which Max is rescued from the usual Mel Gibson crucifixion scene by a band of nubile Australian teens and adorable children, wasn't. It's a kid-friendly post-apocalyptic scenario.


3) "Terminator 2" (1991). Again, although the first "Terminator" movie was intended for adults, this one was for the teens. Or tweens. Starring 14-year-old Edward Furlong, the movie recast Ahnold, formerly a terrifying cyborg, as a terrifying cyborg who turns out to be awesome with kids and even a father figure of sorts. Note that A.S. filmed "Kindergarten Cop," in which he plays pretty much the same role, around that time.

Very true about Thunderdome, but I would argue that Terminator 2 was rated "R" at a time when it was far less likely that underagers were getting into the theater to see it. I think it just seems tweeny in retrospect.

Well it seems Brainiac, The Boston Globe and io9 have responded and I have to agree with Brainiac (The Boston Globe doesn't agree). I think this or Wall-E will be the first PA FILM, now I say film because I can think of 2 children's PA TV shows right off the top of my head. And when we say PA kids flick, we mean aimed at kids, not that has kids in it or has a PG-13 rating.

Besides Tripods (which was a television show), I really can't think of a PA film that was targeted at kids with kids as the main protagonists. And that was what I was initially trying to get at.

All the popcorn films that people mention, like Waterworld, or Planet of the Apes, were targeted at very broad audiences and not just kids. City of Ember is based on a kids book that is studied by children in grade 4.

In terms of demos, this is not even in the same ballpark as T2 or Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.