UltimateDisney.com • DVD and Blu-ray Reviews • DVD & Blu-ray Release Schedule • Upcoming Disney DVDs • Forum • Search This Site
 |
Coming to Theaters: New and Upcoming |
|
You Again | Secretariat | Tangled | Tron Legacy | I Am Number Four | Mars Needs Moms! | Prom
Winnie the Pooh | Cars 2 | Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides | War Horse | John Carter of Mars | More...
UltimateDisney.com/DVDizzy.com Top Stories:
Out of Theaters, But Not Yet on DVD
Tales from Earthsea - This animated film comes from Japan and a director named Miyazaki, but that's Gor? Miyazaki, the son of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki. Taking this Studio Ghibli project with no previous experience created a rift between Goro and Hayao. Although their estrangement was evidently patched up at the film's first completed screening, the movie did not live up to Ghibli's high reputation when released in 2006. Earthsea ended the year as Japan's fourth highest-grossing movie, Early synopses centered on a frustrated witch who brought two romantically-challenged teenagers from the real world into that of the story, casting them as Rapunzel and her prince. Updated ones claim this will lose that angle and remain truer to the original fairy tale. Rapunzel and her prince were to be voiced by Broadway veterans Kristin Chenoweth and Dan Fogler, but the parts have since been recast. Singer/actress Mandy Moore will now play Rapunzel, while Zachary Levi (star of NBC's "Chuck") will play her love interest. Although estimated releases have changed with the years, the film has now been firmly pegged to open on 2010's long, lucrative Thanksgiving weekend (November 24). Like Princess and the Frog, the nationwide debut will be preceded by two weeks of premium exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles. After The Princess and the Frog failed to meet the studio's high expectations, it was announced that Rapunzel would be called Tangled instead.
As Feature Animation's biggest hit since Chicken Little and the studio's third biggest hit of 2010, Tangled will vie with The Illusionist for the third Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination. The musical fairy tale will come to home video on March 29, 2011. Preorder from Amazon.com: DVD, Blu-ray + DVD, Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy.
Now comes this sequel, which takes place in the present day. The original film's programmer protagonist Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) now has a 27-year-old son named Sam (Garrett Hedlund). While investigating his father's disappearance, Sam gets pulled into the same world of program combat and challenges. There, father, son, and son's love interest (Olivia Wilde, "House") unite and together journey across the trying cyber universe.
A source of rumors since the original's fancy 20th Anniversary Edition DVD gave way to 2003's Tron 2.0, a first person shooter computer game, this sequel is finally becoming a reality, having started shooting in Vancouver in April 2009. Hoping for holiday business, Disney has scheduled the release for December 17, 2010, with many engagements to be in Disney Digital 3-D.
Tron 2.0 failed to meet sales expectations and it's no great leap to suspect this movie (whose working titles include TR2N) will too, especially positioned to do big Avatar-like holiday season business, despite
some clever viral marketing and the affection for the source that the early '80s children making this hold. Bruce Boxleitner returns from the original film and his new co-stars will include Beau Garrett (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer). The screenplay is currently attributed to "Lost" writers/producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, horror scribe Richard Jefferies (Cold Creek Manor, Disney's Man of the House), and Tron director Steven Lisberger. Lisberger, who will also produce, is working on film for the first time since 1989. Commercial director Joseph Kosinski makes his feature debut. Electronic music duo Daft Punk has composed 24 tracks for the film's score.
Adapted from Bloom County cartoonist Berkeley Breathed's 2007 picture book, Mars Needs Moms! tells the story of aliens who invade Earth in search of mothers, to a protagonist boy's confusion. Zemeckis is only producing this film; Balto's Simon Wells, who adapted the story with his wife Wendy, will direct. Seth Green will voice the boy, Milo, while Joan Cusack lends her vocals to Milo's Mom. Other cast actors include "Adventures in Wonderland" star Elisabeth Harnois as Ki, Dan Fogler as Gribble, and Mindy Sterling as "The Supervisor." Just days before the IMD closure was announced, Disney scheduled a March 11, 2011 theatrical release for this motion-capture animated film, with most exhibitions to be in (yawn) 3D.
The ostensible leads of the trilogy, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley have both moved on, meaning we won't see any more of Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann. Add director Gore Verbinski to the "that ship has sailed" category; he is directing Depp in the animated Nickelodeon film Rango but isn't returning for this fourth Pirates movie. Musical guy Rob Marshall (Nine, Chicago) has filled the vacancy. Joining Depp and Rush in the cast are Penélope Cruz as Angelica and Ian McShane as the famed pirate Blackbeard. After some jockeying for position with Bruckheimer and Depp's Lone Ranger, the film was announced for a May 20, 2011 debut. Shooting began June 2010 in 3D, of course.
War Horse will be the second DreamWorks-produced film that Disney will release to theaters when it opens on August 10, 2011. This drama is adapted from the children's novel of the same name by British author Michael Morpurgo. It was published in 1982 (the same year that Spielberg's E.T. was released to unprecedented popularity). In 2007, the book was adapted into a play on London's South Bank and eventually coming to the city's famed West End, where it continues to run while plans formulate for a Broadway run. DreamWorks purchased the film rights in 2009, before partnering up with Disney. Late last year, Spielberg wrapped shooting on his 3D motion capture Paramount/Sony film The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, his first movie since 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It is presently in post-production and isn't scheduled to open in theaters until two days before Christmas 2011. That means this smaller Disney release will open first.
War Horse tells the story of an English boy named Albert who is separated from his horse near the beginning of World War I. The horse, named Joey, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. In response, a determined Albert embarks on a mission to find his foal friend and bring him home. The first World War has not been a popular subject or period for Hollywood filmmakers, who have chosen far more often to revisit World War II. Spielberg himself has dealt with WWII on two HBO miniseries and films including Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, and 1941. The mid-August release date doesn't smack of confidence; nearly every one of Spielberg's previous directorial efforts has opened either right before Christmas or at the May-June height of the summer season. In recent years, Disney has steered clear of the month altogether, save for the reduced runs of Valiant and Ponyo. Disney has planned to release DreamWorks' films under the Touchstone Pictures banner; it is unknown if the studio could or even would give this Disney branding should it meet one's expectations for PG-rated family entertainment. The film is being written by Love Actually's Richard Curtis and Billy Elliott's Lee Hall.
Attempted adaptation of the series dates back to Burroughs' lifetime, when in the 1930s Looney Tunes director Bob Clampett experimented with rotoscope on what would have become America's first animated feature film. It never came to be, nor did other planned productions with John McTieran and Tom Cruise in the 1980s, and Robert Rodriguez and Jon Favreau in the 2000s.
Stanton's script, which he penned with Pixar story man Mark Andrews, aims for a PG-13 rating. Walt Disney Pictures will distribute, with Pixar not handling the special effects. Stanton has said he is opting for a straight, realistic rendering of the story. Despite him professing no desire to shoot in 3-D, he rightfully suspected that the studio would push him to reconsider. Filming ran from January to July 2010 and theatrical release has been set for June 8, 2012 with expectations of a summer blockbuster.
but won "Worst Movie" and "Worst Director" honors at Japan's Raspberry Awards. Delayed by an issue with SyFy Channel's adaptation of the same Ursula Kroeber Le Guin books, PG-13-rated Tales from Earthsea finally opened in just five American theaters on August 13, 2010, with Disney heavily scaling back distribution from Ponyo's $15 million-grossing, 927-theater run a year earlier. Forgoing Blu-ray for the time being, it will come to DVD on March 8, 2011. Preorder from Amazon.com.
You Again - Does Andy Fickman hold some incriminating photographs of Disney's top executives? That would certainly explain why the director is getting another job at the studio after directing the atrocious Game Plan and the disappointing Race to Witch Mountain. This one, which began shooting August 2009, centers on Marni (Kristen Bell), a young woman who hopes to expose the true colors of her brother's fiancée (Cloverfield's Odette Yustman), her old high school tormenter. A host of famous names hold supporting roles here, including Sigourney Weaver, Jamie Lee Curtis, Victor Garber, Kristin Chenoweth, Betty White, and Patrick Duffy. As something of a "Step by Step" reunion, Duffy's television daughter Christine Lakin (the director's girlfriend) also holds a role. Fickman's Disney-based Oops Doughnuts company is producing the comedy, which marks the feature writing debut of former production assistant Moe Jelline. Though the Disney name was reportedly attached and a PG rating earned, this carried the seemingly more apt Touchstone Pictures banner (like Bell's first and previous star vehicle, When in Rome) when released to theaters September 24, 2010. It comes to home video on February 8, 2011. Preorder from Amazon.com: DVD, Blu-ray + DVD.
Secretariat - Oscar-nominated for Braveheart and Razzie-nominated for Pearl Harbor, screenwriter Randall Wallace directs this historical drama about Secretariat, the racehorse that famously won the Triple Crown in 1973. Mike Rich (Finding Forrester, The Rookie, Radio, The Navity Story) wrote the screenplay that focuses on the life of the thoroughbred; its owner, "first lady of racing" Penny Tweedy Chenery (played by Diane Lane), and its eccentric trainer Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich). Housewife/mother Chenery inherited her ailing father's Virginia farm knowing little and facing significant inheritance taxes. The film is produced by Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray, veterans of the inspirational underdog sports drama who have previously produced Miracle, Invincible, and The Rookie for Disney. Shooting began September 2009. Rated PG for "brief mild language", the film opened in theaters on October 8, 2010 and comes to DVD and Blu-ray at the end of January 2011. Buy from Amazon.com: DVD, Blu-ray + DVD.
Tangled (formerly Rapunzel) - Certain films attract buzz from an early stage. Often these projects hold a best-selling book as a source or carry a world famous superhero in the title. This computer-animated project doesn't quite fit either of those requirements, but Disney fans have been excited by it for years, while it has been repeatedly bumped and always off in the distance. Longtime A-list Disney animator Glen Keane (supervising animator of such protagonists as Ariel, Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and Tarzan) was to simulatenously make his directorial and CGI debuts in this new take on the classic fairy tale of a long-haired princess and her valiant prince. Instead, in 2008, Keane and his assigned co-director stepped down, turning the reins over to Bolt co-director Byron Howard and writer/story artist Nathan Greno.
Tron: Legacy - Amidst the experimental, often edgy, and usually quite good live-action fare Disney produced in the years leading up to the creation of Touchstone Pictures,
one movie has stood out as more than a little-known gem. Saturn Award winner and two-time Oscar nominee, 1982's Tron boasted computer animation and themes that were ahead of its time. While the passing of years have rendered the sci-fi flick a bit dull and less than stunning visually, Disney and fans have decided it's worth celebrating. And really, it wouldn't be right to overlook the movie that inspired John Lasseter to pursue CGI.
I Am Number Four - Disney's distribution deal with DreamWorks begins with this teen-friendly alien film, produced by Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg. Based on an unpublished young adult sci-fi novel by James Frey (yes, the same James Frey whose A Million Little Pieces embellishments raised the wrath of Oprah Winfrey in 2006) and Jobie Hughes, I Am Number Four is brought to the screen by veteran writing team of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (whose past collaborations include Shanghai Noon, "Smallville", and Herbie Fully Loaded). D.J. Caruso (Disturbia, Eagle Eye) will direct the film, which centers on one of nine aliens hiding out as high school students. A rival species, the one that annihilated the aliens' home planet, comes to Earth looking for him. Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens' co-star in Beastly, the upcoming teen-oriented modern "Beauty and the Beast" retelling, will star as the titular alien. Joining him in the cast are "Glee" actress Dianna Agron as Four's human confidant and love interest, The Sorcerer's Apprentice's Teresa Palmer as Number Six, and District 9's Sharlto Copley as Number Four's mentor fellow alien. Expect a PG-13 rating on this film, which was filmed May through August 2010, and is being fast-tracked for release on February 18, 2011.
Mars Need Moms! - In February 2007, having recently acquired Pixar Animation Studios (and only having Chicken Little to represent the studio's own feature CGI animation), Disney formed ImageMovers Digital with Robert Zemeckis and his ImageMovers partners/producers Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey. Disney described the company as "a new state of the art studio devoted exclusively to the production of performance capture projects." That field has become a passion for Zemeckis, once an Oscar-winning director of live-action films like Forrest Gump, Cast Away, and the Back to the Future trilogy. The first Disney-IMD collaboration, A Christmas Carol, was designed to do even bigger business than Zemeckis' previous 3-D holiday mo-cap fantasy, The Polar Express did. Starring Jim Carrey in four leading roles, Carol did decent business by most standards, earning $137 million domestically (about $25 M less than Polar's initial run) and $323 M worldwide (about $40 M more than Polar's first run). But the numbers weren't all that impressive after the film's $200 M budget and heavy promotional campaign (including a nationwide train tour) were considered. On March 12, 2010, Disney announced that while they hoped to continue to work with Zemeckis on future projects (including the Yellow Submarine remake he's now developing), ImageMovers Digital would be closed and its staff of 450 employees out of work. The official studio comment "IMD no longer fits into our business model" seems to refer to Disney's new franchise-driven filmmaking philosophies. The closing won't officially happen until January 2011, at which point work will be complete on this final IMD-branded picture.
Winnie the Pooh - After a couple of years of computer animation edutainment in the vein of "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse", Disney returns Winnie the Pooh and his neighbors in the Hundred Acre Wood to their best-known medium: 2-D animation. The profitably-merchandised franchise has enjoyed three big screen outings starting with 2000's The Tigger Movie. No news regarding a plot has been released, but a July 15, 2011 opening has been scheduled, pitting Pooh and friends against the Hogwarts gang as counter-programming to series-closer Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Like nearly every set of major motion pictures shot back-to-back, third Pirates installment At World's End left a sour taste in the mouths of many excited fans. But that 2007 film still grossed almost $1 billion worldwide, which is more than all but just five films (including 2006's better-attended Dead Man's Chest). Although the third movie carried an air of finality (even reflected in its title), the saga continues. The storyline being bandied around involves Johnny Depp's offbeat Captain Jack Sparrow meeting up with once-nemesis Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) in newly-founded New Orleans to plan and execute a journey to the Fountain of Youth.
This is scheduled to reach theaters on June 24, 2011. Leading up to then, Pixar has been producing a series of animated shorts starring Mater and friends, for Disney Channel airings and pre-feature theatrical screenings. Upon the passing of Paul Newman, it was revealed that the screen legend hadn't recorded dialogue for this sequel, leaving the presence of Doc Hudson in question. Though the original Cars got comparably lukewarm reviews and became only the second eligible Pixar film to lose the Best Animated Feature Oscar, the $244 million-grossing film has yielded tie-in merchandise sales of over $5 billion, a Pixar record that has kept the universe a retail fixture in the years since.
War Horse - You can't really find a current film director more famous than Steven Spielberg. In the nearly forty years that he has been directing films, Spielberg has seemingly done it all: Oscar-winning epic dramas, widely embraced blockbusters, exciting adventures set in the past, present, and future. One thing the filmmaker has never done before is direct a Disney film; the closest he's come is producing Who Framed Roger Rabbit and spin-off shorts. But that is about to change now that DreamWorks Pictures, which Spielberg founded in the 1990s with David Geffen and former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, has agreed to let the Walt Disney Company distribute its upcoming films.
John Carter of Mars - Andrew Stanton, the writer and director of Pixar's Finding Nemo and WALL•E journeys to a new world -- live-action -- for this feature film adapted from the novelized Barsoom serials written from 1912 to 1943 by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. Based on Burroughs' first work in the series, 1912's A Princess of Mars, the film will center on John Carter, an American Civil War veteran who has moved to Barsoom (Mars), where oceans are evaporating and the inhabitants are growing more barbaric. After rescuing humanoid Martian princess Dejah Thoris, Carter enlists her impressed captors (four-armed green Martians) to win a civil war and save the dying planet. Already cast in this long haul production are Taylor Kitsch (TV's "Friday Night Lights", Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine) in the title role, Lynn Collins (Kayla Silverfox in Wolverine) as the princess, Willem Dafoe as fierce green Martian warrior and ally Tars Tarkas, Samantha Morton as his daughter Sola, Oscar-nominated actor Thomas Haden Church as Thark warrior Hajus, Mark Strong as Thern ruler Matai Shang, Bryan Cranston as a Civil War colonel, Ciarán Hinds as someone called Tardos Mors, and Daryl Sabara as the author, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Monsters, Inc. 2 - Has Pixar, Hollywood's longtime leader in originality and innovation, gone sequel-crazy? The question arises as this long-rumored project was recently confirmed to become the studio's third sequel in a stretch of just two years. Although outgrossed by Shrek, which also took the first Best Animated Feature Oscar from it, Monsters, Inc. was a blockbuster by any standard. And its popularity has clearly endured, as evidenced by the Disney park attractions that cropped up years after its release. Between the film's extremely satisfying ending and the fact its story felt like a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence in its industrial world, a creative, fulfilling sequel seems like a bit of a stretch. Along with the official confirmation in spring 2010 came a release date: November 16, 2012. It has since changed to November 2, 2012 to avoid a Twilight movie, putting this exactly eleven years to the day after the original's debut. Pete Docter, who made his feature directing debut on the original 2001 film, has stated he won't be directing this follow-up, but Disney and Pixar haven't yet announced who will be. They have declared 3D showings will be offered (assuming audiences haven't completely tired with the pricey gimmick by then). It seemed a given, but both John Goodman and Billy Crystal have been confirmed to reprise the roles as best buds James P. "Sulley" Sullivan and Mike Wazowski.
The Lone Ranger - There is no end in sight for Disney's long, fruitful partnership with Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Besides extending established franchises and inventing potential new ones, the two companies are also tapping this long-respected universe familiar from radio, film serials, and most of all, TV. Pirates of the Caribbean scribes Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio are working on a script fitting the Silver-riding masked Old West lawman. Johnny Depp has already signed on to play Native American sidekick Tonto. On his way to becoming another fixture in the Disney/Bruckheimer universe, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time director Mike Newell is reportedly in negotiations to helm this as well. Expected to reach theaters in 2012, this movie should help guarantee Disney one Johnny Depp film per year until 2013 at the earliest.
Disney Films in Apparent Limbo
newt - Pixar's fourteenth feature film was to have centered on pampered Newt and streetwise Brooke, the last two blue-footed newts on Earth. They're supposed to save the species for science, but they can't stand each other. The romantic comedy's premise does sound one-note, which was true but forgivable of writer-director Gary Rydstrom's debut, the 2006 short Lifted. Voice actors weren't ever announced for the pampered Newt and streetwise Brooke, but the film was to in the summer of 2012, having swapped years with Cars 2. Reports arose in 2010 declaring this film dead and it disappeared from Disney's schedule soon after.
King of the Elves - Based on a fantastical short story by late sci-fi icon Phillip K. Dick, this CG Disney Feature Animation film was to center on an average man in the Mississippi Delta whose reluctant help leads a desperate band of elves to name him king. The man and his elf compadres attempt to elude an evil, menacing troll. Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker, the co-directors of Brother Bear, were in the helm for this movie, which was scheduled for a holiday 2012 release. Shortly before Christmas 2009, news broke that this production was halted. Perhaps having another African American protagonist and southern US setting made this too close, too soon to the modestly-performing Princess and the Frog?
Swiss Family Robinson (remake) - Mandeville Films had hoped to start shooting this new adaptation of Johann Wyss's classic book early in 2006 after wrapping production on The Shaggy Dog remake. Then, hired director Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3, U-571) pushed things back for Hancock, a superhero mid-life crisis movie starring Will Smith. Mostow has since left that Sony project, giving Swiss the go-ahead to proceed. While attempts were made to modernize the story (perhaps like the Wonderful World of Disney's 1998 telemovie Beverly Hills Family Robinson?), the script by Greg Poirier ultimately kept the 19th century period setting as it was employed for Disney's popular 1960 filming of the same text. Mostow is also to rework Poirier's script with writing partner Sam Montgomery. No casting has been announced, but news in July 2005 stated that Lindsay Lohan was reportedly in talks to unite with Disney for a sixth time presumably to play "Bertie", the cute castaway who catches the eyes of two Robinson brothers. That seems pretty certain not to happen at the present. A release date has yet to be set and filming schedules have been repeatedly pushed back, leaving this in production limbo.
Jungle Cruise - On the heels of big screen adventures Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion comes this latest film inspired by a Disneyland attraction. Described as a family version of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, this comedy/adventure will follow a group which travels upriver to find a cure. Originally said to have a screenplay written by Josh Goldstein and John Norville (Tin Cup), this Disney/Mandeville production is now reportedly going forth with a script commissioned of Al Gough and Miles Millar, the executive producers of TV's "Smallville". The only plot specific released is that the film will be set sometime in the 20th century. Originally slated to start shooting early in 2006, this has since been delayed again and again.
Kiki's Delivery Service - A live action English language adaptation of Eiko Kadani's book series, which was previously brought to the screen in Hayao Miyazaki's popular late-'80s anime film of the same name. Jeff Stockwell (Bridge to Terabithia, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys) is said to be developing a screenplay, but news has been sparse.
The Banshee and Fin Magee (Originally titled The Banshee) - Dean DeBlois, co-writer and co-director of Lilo & Stitch, tries his hand at live action with this period ghost story set in Ireland. In writer-director-producer DeBlois's own words, "It's the story of a little boy who is ignored by the world and pretends to be a ghost, who (then) comes into contact with a real ghost." DeBlois claims this "story of friendship, love and loss" is aimed at the Harry Potter audience; he hopes older kids will enjoy this supernatural mystery. Production was supposed to begin spring 2005, but as of now, nothing has been shot and there is no firm release date yet set. In February 2006, it was reported that Robert Nelson Jacobs had been hired to rewrite DeBlois' script. Jacobs was Oscar-nominated for his Chocolat screenplay, but got fewer raves for his work on Dinosaur, Out to Sea, and The Shipping News.
You Again | Secretariat | Tangled | Tron Legacy | I Am Number Four | Mars Needs Moms! | Prom
Winnie the Pooh | Cars 2 | Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides | War Horse | John Carter of Mars | More...
Disney Movies Coming to DVD
All Movies Coming to DVD and Blu-ray
Search This Site
