THE FUTURE OF PIXAR

"Quint" from Ain't it Cool News attended a recent big publicity event hosted by Pixar and Disney Animation, and so they've posted a very nice summary of what Pixar has planned for the next four years or so. The piece starts with their next two, Wall-E and Up, but the movie fandom at large has been fairly aware of those two, so I'll concentrate on what was "newer" news in the piece. For 2011, Pixar is working on Newt (Summer, 2011) and The Bear and the Bow (December, 2011). Newt is a romantic comedy about two newts (the moist four legged amphibians often confused with salamanders) that are the last of their species, one male and one female. The male has spent his life in captivity awaiting company, while the female is a fierce adventurer from the wild, and when put together, they don't quite hit it off (partly because the male's view of a diagram explaining newt mating patterns is blocked by a coffee machine). At first glance, it sounds a little bit like a more land-based Finding Nemo with a romantic angle, but Pixar does animated animal comedy like on one else, so it'll probably be all awesome and stuff. The Bear and the Bow is a fairy tale in the style of the Brothers Grimm, from one of the writer/directors of The Prince of Egypt, and it tells the story of a Scottish royal family and their involvement with a witch. The project already has its core cast, which includes Julie Walters as the witch, Billy Connolly (an awesome voice actor) as the king, Emma Thompson as the queen and Reese Witherspoon as their heroic archer princess of a daughter. Whereas Newt is sort of old hat territory for Pixar, this one is sort of exciting because Pixar has never really gone into fantasy territory like this before.

Finally, there is news of plans for a Cars 2 (aiming for the summer of 2012), which will take the automobile antics overseas, and plans for the first Toy Story movies to be re-released in digital 3-D, leading up to the release of Toy Story 3 (on 10/2/09, 2/12/10 and 6/18/10 respectively). The press conference also included Disney Animation projects, most of which were already known about, but the new title, revealed as a Christmas, 2012 release is King of the Elves. King of the Elves is based on a Phillip K. Dick (Blade Runner) short story about a man in Mississippi whose assistance to a group of elves living there leads them to proclaim him their king, which leads him to fighting off an evil troll that threatens the elves.


THE LAWS OF ROBOT MOVIES

Production has started in New Orleans on Robosapien: Rebooted, a movie adaptation of the little white robot toy you've probably seen in toy stores, directed by Sean McNamara, "hot" off another toy adaptation, Bratz: The Movie. Hollywood movies have long been a very expensive way of promoting toys (thank George Lucas and Star Wars for that), and now the concept is apparently just being accepted (by financiers) as not needing any contrivance. The movie can be a direct adaptation of the toy (like, say G.I. Joe and Transformers) and people are apparently okay with that. So, I guess, I should be. And yet, it still feels crass to me. Ah well, I'm also not one of the kids who these movies are marked towards. I also can't help but notice that this project is being revealed just a week after Dimension announced their remake plans for Short Circuit, and both of *these* movies seem a lot like Pixar's Wall-E (especially Short Circuit, but this one as well). It feels like Hollywood types are seeing that Wall-E will be a huge hit, and they are getting their Wall-E-ish projects in quick order to ride the robotic wave. So, by that logic, expect Marvel Comics to announce a H.E.R.B.I.E. movie next?


DUBYA'S INNER CIRCLE EXPANDS

Casting continued this week on Oliver Stone's W, about the rise and political success of George W. Bush, with Rob Corddry (The Daily Show) landing the role of press secretary Ari Fleischer, Fantastic Four star Ioan Gruffudd to play Tony Blair and Thandie Newton signing on to play (the much older) Condoleeza Rice. Yet to be cast are some of the biggest names, including Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney (despite early word that Robert DuVall had been approached). These casting announcements are sort of overshadowed, however, by the publication online of actual pages from the script, which paint a very specific picture of the approach that Stone is taking with this project. Read them yourself, a review of the entire script at Slate.com or see what some experts think.


HOW TO BE CYNICAL ABOUT LOVE BY 30

This week saw two different studios pick up movie rights to articles about love and relationships, which I always find kind of odd. But, I guess it worked for Sex and the City (which was also a book, I know), so maybe that's where they're coming from. How to Get Divorced by 30, picked up by Universal from an article in L.A. Weekly, suggests that it's best to get your first marriage out of the way early so you can find love the second time around. How modern. Tobey Maguire and Warner Independent have likewise picked up the rights to Marry Him! Finding Mr. Real, an article which is becoming a book (changing the subtitle to Mr. Good Enough), which encourages women to drop their standards low. So, basically, it's going to be a feature-length version of that old MAD TV sketch, Lowered Expectations? Changing the subject a bit, but still related to Maguire, Endgame Entertainment this week picked up rights to a thriller script called Hungry Rabbit Jumps, for Maguire to star in, which they are saying is similar to David Fincher's The Game, starring Michael Douglas.


MORE LIKE THE PRINCE OF PEORIA

Disney's live-action adaptation of the Prince of Persia video game series was the focus of a good deal of casting buzz this week, starting with the (quickly debunked) rumor that the Prince might be played by Orlando Bloom, followed by Latino Review's story that the role might instead now be offered instead to Jake Gyllenhaal. Never mind, I guess, that he isn't you know... Persian, or even Middle Eastern. He's got dark hair though, which I guess Disney figures is close enough.


On the next page: the rest of the "Ketchup"...