Backing up what we'd already heard about Up director Pete Docter taking a Pixar film "inside the human mind," Disney•Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter appeared on Charlie Rose Friday with some new details on the project. It isn't just any mind wer'e going to go inside: IT'S A GIRL'S MIND. Also, in a Herman's Headsian twist, apparently this girl's emotions are individual characters. Said Lasseter:
"Pete Docter, from 'Monsters, Inc.' and 'Up,' is doing a new film that takes place inside of a girl's mind and it is about her emotions as characters, and that is unlike anything you've ever seen."
Sounds like I'll finally have some faces to attach to those female emotions I've for so long only heard about in diamond commercials and Sarah McLachlan's voice.
Hey, do you like girls doing archery? Do you not want to give in to watching The Hunger Games trailer? At last, a solution: Brave, a Pixar film about a Scottish princess that, like so many a princess heroine, is not content with sitting around being princessly. Surrounded by weak, sniveling young male population, Princess Merinda hopes to rise up to show her comparative mettle, but you know how the Scottish Highlands were; even Mel Gibson had a hard time getting people to back him, and he was Mel Gibson. Anyway, you get the idea. Gender politics! Adventure! Here's the trailer. From the visuals alone, already this film is way better than Vehicles with Eyes 2.
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As noted Friday, Pixar's new Toy Story short, titled Small Fry, involves the hidden tragedy of our forgotten Happy Meal ephemera. In this first clip from the film--set to debut before showings of The Muppets--we meet a couple of these lost toys, including a Jane Lynch-voiced mermaid and a transforming T-bone clearly based on The Best Toys McDonald's Ever Produced: 1987's Changeables. Those guys at Pixar always know just the way to our hearts, and in this case, that way is by misplaced nostalgia for toys meant to breed enduring fondness for terrible food.
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A new Toy Story short will premiere before the November 23 release of The Muppets, and USA Today has the first look at the franchise's newest addition to the cast: a Happy Meal version of Buzz Lightyear. Writer/director Angus MacLane revealed that the short's story deals with a support group for the ephemeral fast food toys, adding, "These toys' existence is about being really popular before the meal and then being totally forgotten about. And sometimes they don't even get played with." So, yeah, despite this Toy Story only lasting a few minutes, you're still probably going to cry. That's just the way it is.
- Days of Thunder co-stars Tom Cruise and Robert Duvall will once again share the screen thanks to Christopher McQuarrie's One Shot and our sponsors at Mello Yello.
- Amidst all the recent news of online streaming deals, a television studio deals is also kicking in over at Telemundo, where they've begun licensing Disney-Pixar films. I can't wait to watch three minutes of Up before shouting, "Fuck, it's in Spanish!"
- Mira Sorvino will play alcoholic mother to Abigail Breslin and Georgie Henley in The Class Project, a based-on-a-true-story drama about the daughters plotting to murder their delinquent mother and collect the insurance money--a plot that should do well to prepare Sorvino for her inevitable decline into Lifetime movies.
- John Goodman has joined the cast of Flight, Robert Zemeckis's upcoming film about pilot Denzel Washington making a miraculous plane landing while under the influence of several substances. Goodman will play a friend tasked with convincing Washington that doing so was dangerous, not incredibly awesome.
- Here's another look at how Johnny Depp is going to look in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. Like he's an undead Liza Minnelli?
- Susan Sarandon is in talks to join Dwayne Johnson on Snitch, in which she would play an ambitious U.S. attorney hoping to make a big case off of The Rock's undercover work. And while they're all in the room talking, might as well get both actors signed on to a Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Remake, too, right?
- Animal Kingdom's Jacki Weaver is likely to join Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in David O. Russell's adaptation of The Silver Linings Playbook. Weaver would play Cooper's mother, who's caring for him since his release from a depression clinic. Probably by giving him ginger ale. Moms are always treating things with ginger ale.
- Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich is chronicling his next Pixar project a photo a day. I'm taking this first image of a keyboard to mean it's probably Cars, but with computers. So, Computers. (via)
- Finally, don't worry: someone's writing Wanted 2. Phew!
This weekend in Anaheim, Disney held the D23 Expo, an event that shows off and celebrates all the new films and things Disney would like you to purchase as entertainment and, later, as denim varsity jackets. While it was mostly Finding Nemo tattoos being shown on the floor, on stage, Disney showed clips from The Avengers, Frankenweenie, and more, and the studio made some big reveals, too. Among those:
- The announcement of two new Disney•Pixar films, both still untitled. The first, from Up writer/co-director Bob Peterson, is set for a November 27, 2013 release, and presents a world in which the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs missed, thereby allowing the massive beasts to continue existing, presumably evolving into a full society. Finally, someone recognizes the conceptual genius of Super Mario Bros.: The Movie.
The second film, scheduled for May 20, 2014, is from other Up director Pete Docter, and will take audiences "inside the human mind," bringing to screens all the sick, deviant shit you think of all day. Or maybe something more heartwarming. We'll see.
- Isn't it about time Disney cashes in on how people like old-school video games? It sure is! So, November 2, 2012, the studio will release Wreck-It Ralph, a film about an 8-bit video game villain, analogous to Donkey Kong, voiced by John C. Reilly. Four-and-a-half minutes of the film was screened, and those in attendance were shown a scene in which the titular character spends some time at a meeting of "Bad-Anon"--a video game villain support group filled with parodies of famous arcade bad guys, all trying to prove that they're actually good guys, misunderstood and unduly persecuted. Thus, retro video games, one of the few untarnished joys of childhood, will soon be introduced to a newfound moral guilt. Thanks, Disney.
- Finally: Jon Cryer will voice Dusty in Pixar's straight-to-video Cars spin-off, Planes. I didn't say all of the big reveals were interesting.
So there you go. In short, Disney•Pixar will soon be bringing to screens 8-bit video game characters, dinosaurs, and references to Two and a Half Men. Someone over there has been reading the internet.
With Cars 2's release and the premiere of the Brave trailer all happening this past weekend, Disney•Pixar would probably really like it if blogs were covering either of those things instead of some wild, likely-unfounded rumors about what might be happening with the Toy Story series. Unfortunately for them, this weekend was also when Tom Hanks decided to start some wild, likely-unfounded rumors about what might be happening with the Toy Story franchise. When an interviewer from the BBC asked Hanks if there would be a Toy Story 4, Hanks replied:
"I think there will be, yeah. Yeah, I think they're working on it now."
So: reality, or Hanks prank? Considering how beautifully the third film wrapped up the trilogy, it would be a real shame if he's right. But at the same time: Toys in Space?
(via)
If Cars 2 was Pixar's foray into twice-as-wacky-as-the-first cash-grab sequel territory, it wasn't a long trip. Next summer, the studio is back to non-sequels--and, if this first preview is any indication, decidedly less whimsical, far less lurid tones--with Brave, the story of a defiant princess in the Scottish Highlands. This teaser trailer doesn't give us a whole lot in terms of story or characters, or really anything at all besides the killing a bear--but, man, if you want to see an animated princess kill the shit out of a bear, you are in for a treat.
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Brave doesn't come out until a full year from today, but seeing that the animated feature doesn't have the name recognition of a Toy Story nor the talking cars of Cars, Disney•Pixar is getting a good jump on promoting this goddammer with this teaser poster. Basically all it shows us is a red-headed lady with a bow, but still, considering it's a Pixar, we should probably be operating under the assumption this will be the best movie about a red-headed lady and a bow. Or at least I hope so, because something desperately needs to replace this as the disturbing standard for movies involving redheads and bows.
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2013 is going to be so, so rich with Pixar-quality CGI. Disney has just revealed that, in addition to the June 21, 2013 Monsters University release, there is apparently going to be ANOTHER Pixar film released that year on November 27. Thus far, all that's being reported is that the film is still untitled and it will not be a sequel, so you can forget about it being The Incredibles 2 right now. Count on crying very real tears at some point, though.
WALL-E and Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton's live-action debut now has a briefer, less interesting title, Walt Disney has announced. The Taylor Kitsch-starring film, about a Civil War veteran's misadventures on the Red Planet, had previously been in production under the title John Carter of Mars, but now Disney would prefer it if we all just call it John Carter from here on out. OK? Also, just to prep you, at your ten-year high school reunion, Mikey Long Balls is planning to tell everyone that it's "just Michael" now.
The American-vs-European racing rivalry of Talladega Nights, the candy-lacquered driving of Speed Racer, and the intolerable Larry the Cable Guy-as-a-hero scenario put forth by Witless Protection, all put in a blender and served in three dimensions, with an exceptionally bitter digestif of Weezer covering The Cars (because, yes, that band's name is the same as the movie)? Look, Pixar, I figure you'll probably figure some way of making all of this so charming, and so Best Animated Feature-winning, but this sure looks hard to swallow:
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