Bikini too skimpy in Brazil cartoon movie

The Brazilian director of the animated hit “Ice Age” is set to release another cartoon feature in April called “Rio,” this one set in his native Brazil. But director Carlos Saldanha told a Rio de Janeiro newspaper recently the film’s animated beachscapes had to undergo at least one change for American consumption: bigger bikini bottoms.

The film follows the adventures of a parrot named Blu, voiced by Jesse Eisenberg, searching for love in Brazil’s famous seaside city. The trailer below packs in just about every Brazilian visual cliché there is: sun-splashed beaches, soaring shots of Rio’s Christ statue—even a soccer ball bouncing off the butt of a bikini-wearing Brasileira. And there, apparently, was the rub. The producers thought the moment displayed a bit too much cartoon flesh.

“I had to slightly enlarge the bikini,” Saldanha said. “They wanted it to be bigger. I wanted it smaller. We settled on a size in the middle.”