Upcoming Disney films...10 of em
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080408/film_nm/disney_dc_1

The Walt Disney Studios previewed 10 animated movies on Monday that it will release during the next four years, including further installments in the "Toy Story" and "Cars" series and two new fairy tales.

With the exception of "Wall.E," a robot love story opening on June 28, and "The Princess and the Frog," a hand-drawn animated fairy tale set in New Orleans and due to open Christmas 2009, the remaining eight movies will be made in digital 3-D.

"We're excited to be pushing the boundaries of 3-D and computer technology to tell our stories in the best possible way," said John Lasseter, chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.

Digital 3-D still requires moviegoers to wear geeky glasses, but the left- and right-eye images are calibrated so finely that most viewers experience no headache or eyestrain.

The first Disney digital 3-D movie for release is:

"Bolt," the story of a dog of the same name who thinks he has superhero powers. John Travolta gives voice to Bolt while hit teen singer/actress Miley Cyrus is voicing Bolt's owner Penny in the movie, due to open on November 26.

Raph's Girl note: So Bolt thinks he's Wonderdog???

"Up," the story of an unlikely 78-year-old adventurer and his 8-year-old sidekick, is due to be released on May 29, 2009.

Raph's Girl note: Found more info on this on Wikipedia: "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" are due to be re-released in digital 3-D on October 2, 2009 and February 12, 2010 respectively, while "Toy Story 3" is due to hit screens on June 18, 2010.

All the original cast from the previous "Toy Story" films, including Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Joan Cusack, are returning for the third film, which picks up with Andy grown up and about the head off to college.

Raph's Girl note: ALL the original cast?! That's impossible unless Jim Varney's ghost or zombie showed up to the casting sessions...or they cloned him.

The classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Rapunzel," about a girl trapped in a tower whose long golden hair is the only way for anyone to climb up to her, will be released at Christmas 2010.

Raph's Girl note: Yeah...like we need another Disney princess story with a happy ending. Cuz seriously the original tale was kinda depressing. What with the prince being blinded by thorns after the witch throws him out of the tower and the princess being sent off to fend for herself in the wilderness (while pregnant with twins! ). Yeah they eventually found each other (and the princess somehow restored the Prince's sight with her tears). But how the heck would they do this in a Disney film? Having kids out of wedlock isn't exactly Disney. :P

Next comes "Newt," a story of the last two blue-footed newts on the planet that aims to show that love is not a science, which is due to hit screens in summer 2011.

Raph's Girl note: And guess what... the last 2 newts are male (Newt) and female (Brooke) and they hate each other but realize they have to mate to save their species! This is a Disney film?

Another new original fairy tale, "The Bear and the Bow" -- an action-adventure about a royal family in rugged and mythic Scotland -- is slated to open Christmas 2011 starring the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Billy Connolly and Emma Thompson.

Raph's Girl note: The plot kinda reminds me of the Greek myth of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor...only Disney has put it in Scotland....mythic Scotland.

"Cars 2," in which Lightning McQueen and his best friend Mater bid to take on the world's fastest cars, is due for release in summer 2012.

Raph's Girl note: Loved Cars....definatly gonna see Cars 2

"King of Elves," based on a 1953 short story by Phillip K. Dick, will hit screens at Christmas 2012.

Raph's Girl note: Here's the plot: Soo.. are there alot of evil trolls in the Mississippi Delta?

:D Just excited for the return of Toy Story...Classic.
"Up" sounds like it could be fun though.

I am more interested in the princess and the Frog??? They have another hand drawn feature coming to theaters??

I am surprised Rapunzel is 2010. I got to sit in on a forum from the Pixar Animators and they showed us some concepts for it and that was a while ago. I'd say 2005 probably. They also talked about the Dog movie but it wasn't called "Bolt" at the time.

and of course the obligatory sequels...Toy story three and Cars two...Not surprised just hope they are good, especially Toy Story

They clearly have recast Slinky Dog by now. I don't know who they used. I could imagine if they still want to go the celebrity route, Larry the Cable Guy. After all, he was Mater in Cars. There was someone else I was thinking about. Remember Home Improvement, the guy Harry of Harry's Hardware? He has a very similar sounding voice to Slinky, and I wouldn't be surprised if they used him.

BTW, they already have the plot line out. basically all of Andy's toys:


Actually, another Princess is what they were looking for. Remember after Pochauntus, how critics were starting to denounce Disney's Princess movies? Then the critics started harping on them about their non- Fairy Tale films, and only Lilo and Stitch was a real success. That was a no win situation for Disney. no wonder why they stopped doing 2-D after a while.

While Cars was not my favorite Pixar film (my least favorite, really), I still loved it. I really wonder what they can do with a second one. I was kinda hoping something about Lightning retiring from racing under pleasant circumstances (unlike Doc Hudson's tragic accident that ended his career), and having to train a bunch of new up and coming racers. Bet we're gonna see "new Mater" in this film. You know, new paint job and everything.

10 movies and only ONE is cel-animated. Weak.

I hadn't been paying that much attention, but I was hoping that Rapunzel would be hand drawn. Guess not.

Aside from maybe the Pixar stuff, color me unexcited. The only Disney flick ont he horizon I'm interested in is The Frog Princess, if only for the return of traditional animation that Disney foolishly gave up on.

I'm with you there, they definitely should be doing more traditional animation. And not crappy straight-to-DVD sequels, either. QUALITY traditional animation. I hope the Frog Princess turns out spectacularly, to make up for lost time.

It's like Coke - New Coke - Coke Classic.

People were getting bored with Disney (2D), so they created New Disney (3D). Everyone HATED New Disney, so a few years later they reintroduced Original Disney as Disney Classic (2D again) and everybody's happy!

Ya, I too was sad to see only one hand drawn one....:ohwell:

Yeah... and she's the first African American Princess too. It's set in 1920's New Orleans.

The current cast is:
Anika Noni Rose as Princess Tiana (originally her name was Maddy)
Keith David (Woohoo!) as Dr. Facilier, the villian (he's a Voodoo magician/fortune teller)
Jennifer Cody as Charlotte La Bouff - An 18-year-old spoiled, southern debutante and diva
Jenifer Lewis as Mama Odie - A 200-year-old Voodoo priestess/fairy Godmother
Ritchie Montgomery as Lawrence - Prince Naveen's pompous valet
Russell Grant Wood as Big Daddy La Bouff - Wealthy, Southern plantation landowner and father of Charlotte La Bouff.
Angela Bassett as Eudora - Tiana's mother. In her fifties. Used to be Charlotte's nurse maid.

No actors known for:
Ray - A lovesick Cajun firefly.
Louis - A 20-40 year old Jazz singer alligator. Comic, manic, high-strung.
Prince Naveen - A gregarious, fun-loving Prince of the fictional nation of Maldakesh, in his early twenties. A young Cary Grant type.
George - The La Bouff family's cook.
Little Arila - Tiana's little sister. She's little, but very smart. (altho she may be cut out of the film)

John Goodman is also cast but his character is unknown. Im thinking he's George or Louis.

Randy Newman's doing the music

I for one have a lot of faith in "Rapunzel." I trust Glen Keane's instincts. I have a feeling we're all going to be blown away by the film. Visually, I'm sure it will be groundbreaking as far as the animated experience goes. I got to see 10 seconds of animated footage. More beautiful than anything Pixar's put out. THe animation will be a joint effort between (most of) Disney's 9 New Men and the guy who is for the most part responsible for giving Gollum that feel of blood coursing through veins under the skin. It's going to be awesome. It already looks awesome. Stop freaking out.

Wall-E -- it's Pixar. It's going to be good. The premise looks really interesting (Robot isolated on a planet discovers his purpose -- better than Tonka trucks and hotweels leading the way.

Now, Princess and the Frog... I'm concerned about it. I haven't seen any interesting promotional artwork -- mostly looks pretty generic if you ask me. Like, if I tried hard enough I could outdo those character designs. And I'm not even in art school. I don't have a lot of faith in Clements and Musker -- the directors. In my opinion, the only reason why their films were successful in the Disney Renaissance was because of Alan Menken AND Howard Ashman -- a writer for Broadway musicals who, aside from writing amazing lyrics, also helped shape the feel and attitude (influenced writing/directing somewhat) of those "Disney Renaissance" movies.

I agree heartily with your thoughts on Rapunzel and Wall-E. The trailer already has me sold on the latter, and I too trust Glen Keane on the former. I haven't seen any footage, though I keep hearing it's beautiful. Can't wait.

(Nine New Men, eh? I've heard reference to them before, but I'm curious: what is the generally accepted lineup? Glen Keane, Andreas Deja, and James Baxter for sure, but who else? Ruben Aquino? Mark Henn? And, er... hmm...)

I'd like Princess and the Frog to be good (and when Ed Catmull gave a lecture at school he seemed enthusiastic about it) but I'm not sure yet.

I realised something as I woke up this morning. In response to Cars 2, what are they going to do about Doc Hudson? Paul Newman retired from film making, and Cars was his pentultimate, if not, last film. Will they recast him? If they plan to get him back, they're going to need some major lead pleading and woo-ing.

I could see a film where he "dies" and Lightnig races in his memory or something like that, but I doubt they'd kill him off.

Well, quite a few of these films were in pre-production since well before they bought Pixar. At least Rapunzel and Bolt anyway. And as we all know, Pixar was a-fixin' to leave Disney behind. The 2-D films weren't going anywhere for the reason I mentioned. They were getting flack from the Princess/Fairy Tale movies, and once they broke free and did they're own thing, they were getting flack for that too. And it got even worse, since Lilo and Stitch was the only success they had at that period. They pretty much pretended that Emperor's New groove didn't exist (releasing it just after 102 Dalmations). And Brother Bear and Home on the Range got some pretty nasty reviews. I will say this though, Brother Bear wasn't as bad as everyone says. It was a much better attempt at native American legend than a certain historically inaccurate, preachy snoozefest they did in 95.

To sum it up, without Pixar, Disney's last successes would have been Tarzan (which was hardly as successful as they wanted it to be) and Lilo and Stitch without Pixar. So clearly they put one and one together, and got the wrong answer- CGI was the solution. Now, Chicken Little was a moderate success, and so wasn't Meet the Robinsons (if it were only released 2 weeks later, TMNT would have been a little more successful). So, the solution was to make as many CGI's as possible. But then they bought Pixar. Bolt and Rapunzel were already in developement.

I'm just shocked they didn't announce any more 2-d's after that. I thought they were supposed to keep the original animation studio and traditions....

Since when is Disney afraid to kill a character off...lol. True though I am sure they will at least attempt to bring him back



Home on the Range and Brother Bear came out right after Finding Nemo which did incredibly well world wide. I think Nemo kinda marked where Disney said "hey we will finish what we have in production as far as 2D goes for features and then we are done."
It left an impression on audiences that 3D animation was THE way to go after that. Not to mention how much kids just ate that movie up, I mean Nemo was everywhere.
It's like they forgot about hand drawn after that. It's there, it's just wasn't getting the same recognition unfortunately.

Lilo and Stitch before Nemo was great and held it's own but then Treasure Planet flopped, I think that hit them really hard especially since they mixed 2D and 3D in it and it went to IMAX too I think.
Right after all of that the success of Nemo and a couple more 2D flops things went all to live action or 3D and the Disney/Pixar wars began


BTW
Thanks for the Info on the Frog Princess Raph's Girl

Good Point. But then of course, when they usually kill someone off, it's in the context of Bambi or Lion King, when it helps to further the dramatic tension of the plot. I could see them mention that Doc Hudson the car equivillant of passed away, and it's years later. And Lightning wants to continue to race in his honor, or something like that. But something about the film and demographic points to not wanting to kill the character off.





Exactly the point. By that time they got the wrong connections about everything and instead of fixing the quality of the films, they just figured out that people saw finding Nemo because it was a CGI feature, not because it was a quality story line. Of course, they had that clunker, "The Wild" which was developed before, but came out after Madagascar. So basically people assumed it was a ripoff. Me, however? I was just put off with how ugly it looked and the annoying trailers.

I thought the Wild was a blatant attempt just to show off, honestly I would watch Madagascar 50 times over before the Wild again