Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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D82
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Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

Post by D82 »

We knew he was developing a film for WDAS, but I don't think there was a thread about it yet. This was going to be his first film for the studio, but now of course, it'll be the second since he and Don Hall replaced the original directors of Raya and the Last Dragon.

Here are some details about the project he shares in this interview (in Spanish):

- It's a very personal film.
- He developed it from scratch (unlike Raya, where he was brought in mid-production).
- It'll be released in 2023.
- It's in full development right now and in a few months they'll start with storyboards, music, screenplay, etc.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

Post by unprincess »

so we got the delayed Raya and Encanto for 2021... and this film for 2023...
so what about 2022? Are they gonna just have another "off" year like they did a few years ago(I think it was 2017?) :?
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

Post by DisneyFan09 »

A personal project, huh? Sounds very Pixar-like to me, as they usually developed ideas out of personal stories.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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unprincess wrote:so we got the delayed Raya and Encanto for 2021... and this film for 2023...
so what about 2022? Are they gonna just have another "off" year like they did a few years ago(I think it was 2017?) :?
Apparently, there will be a WDAS film in 2022 as well. According to this release schedule (which I believe is the most recent one), there's an untitled movie from the studio scheduled for November 23, 2022. So, that year we'll get Turning Red from Pixar in March, Lightyear in June and a WDAS film in November. I guess Carlos' film is the next Disney animated movie after that one, currently scheduled for November 22, 2023.

By the way, could this film be a musical? The director mentioned they will start working on the music, as well as on the story, in a few months and I think non-musical films don't need to begin working on the music so early, or do they?
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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DisneyFan09 wrote:A personal project, huh? Sounds very Pixar-like to me, as they usually developed ideas out of personal stories.
Yes, it does sound more Pixar-like. There haven't been a lot of WDAS movies that were based on the directors' personal experiences. Only Lilo and Stitch and Meet the Robinsons come to mind.
D82 wrote:By the way, could this film be a musical? The director mentioned they will start working on the music, as well as on the story, in a few months and I think non-musical films don't need to begin working on the music so early, or do they?
You're right. Scoring is usually taken into consideration towards the end of production whereas musical sequences have to be thought out and crafted relatively early on during development. This being a very personal, original story makes me believe it will be based or inspired by Latin culture. Isn't it too soon for another Latin-flavored musical right after Encanto though?
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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I guess now we know what she was talking about:
Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote:I have to say, I agree. If you can, watch the movie first. Avoid all spoilers. Enjoy the movie exactly as it was meant to be enjoyed. Then come home and play the soundtrack until 2023. :)
https://twitter.com/Lyrikris10/status/1 ... 93760?s=19
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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I had completely forgotten about that. Yeah, it's probably the Lopezes considering only they and LMM are hired to work on musicals at WDAS anymore.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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D82 wrote:By the way, could this film be a musical? The director mentioned they will start working on the music, as well as on the story, in a few months and I think non-musical films don't need to begin working on the music so early, or do they?
Depends. As Sotiris said, composing the score usually comes near the end, but there are a few examples of filmmakers and composers working closer towards the beginning of production. For example, Andrew Stanton brought Thomas Newman in early to do the music for WALL-E and he started writing the score even before animation began.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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Sotiris wrote:I had completely forgotten about that. Yeah, it's probably the Lopezes considering only they and LMM are hired to work on musicals at WDAS anymore.
I hope so, I'm interested for the Lopezes to get a new property at Disney. I guess LMM should be grateful Moana wasn't as big as Frozen, otherwise he would be banished to Moana land to make a 2, a 3, a Broadway show, etc. and never do anything else for Disney for around a decade.

I agree, the personal side of it sounds like a PIXAR project. Gone are the days when Disney made adaptations; now Disney is just PIXAR lite.
Sotiris wrote:You're right. Scoring is usually taken into consideration towards the end of production whereas musical sequences have to be thought out and crafted relatively early on during development. This being a very personal, original story makes me believe it will be based or inspired by Latin culture. Isn't it too soon for another Latin-flavored musical right after Encanto though?
Is it just me that finds it weird that we'll have Mulan, Big Hero 6, and Raya that have Asian American protagonists (although BH6 is a diverse cast), and then Latino Americans have Elena of Valor, Encanto, Coco (if you include PIXAR), potentially this new film. But meanwhile the largest minority in the U.S. only has TP&TF--which Disney has spent the last 10 years largely ignoring because it was hand-drawn until they wanted something to replace the Splash Mountain theme--and just recently Soul (from PIXAR). I get they made Ariel Black in the new re-make, but re-makes aren't the same as original films. I see the re-makes as having a very short shelf-life and are only designed to be short-lived cash grabs, whereas the animated films live on for a long time. Perhaps not as long as animated films from last century when there was only one dominant company and everyone was actually viewing the same things, but still pretty long. And unfortunately both are going to fall under the shadow of that criticism that the protagonists both turn into another form for most of the film. I wish one of these musicals would have a majority Black cast instead--preferably with a composer better than Randy Newman, for God's sake. At least LMM's soundtracks are satisfying even if I wouldn't call myself a fan.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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Sotiris wrote:Yes, it does sound more Pixar-like. There haven't been a lot of WDAS movies that were based on the directors' personal experiences. Only Lilo and Stitch and Meet the Robinsons come to mind.
True. And I thought WDAS was going to break off the Pixar-mold after the absence of Lasseter. (though I guess it was a naive thought of mine). There`s nothing wrong to make original stories based on personal ideas. But that pattern seems too Pixar-like and it makes me worry that this movie will be a Pixar movie in disguise.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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Disney's Divinity wrote: Is it just me that finds it weird that we'll have Mulan, Big Hero 6, and Raya that have Asian American protagonists (although BH6 is a diverse cast), and then Latino Americans have Elena of Valor, Encanto, Coco (if you include PIXAR), potentially this new film. But meanwhile the largest minority in the U.S. only has TP&TF--which Disney has spent the last 10 years largely ignoring because it was hand-drawn until they wanted something to replace the Splash Mountain theme--and just recently Soul (from PIXAR). I get they made Ariel Black in the new re-make, but re-makes aren't the same as original films. I see the re-makes as having a very short shelf-life and are only designed to be short-lived cash grabs, whereas the animated films live on for a long time. Perhaps not as long as animated films from last century when there was only one dominant company and everyone was actually viewing the same things, but still pretty long. And unfortunately both are going to fall under the shadow of that criticism that the protagonists both turn into another form for most of the film. I wish one of these musicals would have a majority Black cast instead--preferably with a composer better than Randy Newman, for God's sake. At least LMM's soundtracks are satisfying even if I wouldn't call myself a fan.
It's not for "theatrical" (whatever that even means these days), but this is a step in the right direction and we may get more projects with bigger Black casts:
Bruce W. Smith And Ralph Farquhar Enter Overall Deal With Disney Television
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/br ... 99981.html
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

Post by estefan »

I just remembered Lady and the Tramp was also a personal project, as it was born out of Joe Grant's love for his Spaniel and when he and his wife started paying more attention to their child. Although the love story with Tramp was added much later.

Although I'm confused. Is there an unofficial rule that Disney artists can't make animated features inspired by their personal experiences? I don't even see this as exclusively a Pixar thing. "Rio" was a personal film for Carlos Saldanha, as was "Connected" for Michael Rianda and "Frankenweenie" for Tim Burton.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

Post by D82 »

I forgot to say that the director also mentioned in the video I posted on the Raya thread that the students who appear in his latest film, Summertime, which is about a group of young spoken word poets in LA, visited Disney to speak with the team that is developing this new movie and share a bit of their poetry. I wonder if that means both films have something in common.
farerb wrote:I guess now we know what she was talking about:
Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote:I have to say, I agree. If you can, watch the movie first. Avoid all spoilers. Enjoy the movie exactly as it was meant to be enjoyed. Then come home and play the soundtrack until 2023. :)
https://twitter.com/Lyrikris10/status/1 ... 93760?s=19
Good catch, farerb! I bet they are indeed the composers of this movie and that tweet was a hidden hint at it.
Sotiris wrote:This being a very personal, original story makes me believe it will be based or inspired by Latin culture. Isn't it too soon for another Latin-flavored musical right after Encanto though?
Maybe this one is about Latin people in the US. After all, the director has lived in North America since he was twelve, as he says in the interview. That would differentiate it a bit from Encanto.
estefan wrote:Depends. As Sotiris said, composing the score usually comes near the end, but there are a few examples of filmmakers and composers working closer towards the beginning of production. For example, Andrew Stanton brought Thomas Newman in early to do the music for WALL-E and he started writing the score even before animation began.
That's really interesting. I didn't know composers sometimes started working on the film from the beginning in non-musical films too.

Regarding the film being inspired by the director's personal experiences, personally I don't have any problem with that. I wish Disney made more adapted stories, but I don't mind them making original ones either. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is that maybe the style from these directors from outside Jennifer Lee has brought to Disney, like Carlos López Estrada, could be a bit too different from what we expect from the studio. A fresh point of view could be something positive, but I wish the films still feel Disney enough.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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Here is what López Estrada had to say while speaking with the LA Times En Español:

“It was an unexpected opportunity for me. I grew up watching Disney movies and if you asked me two years ago if I could see myself directing a Disney movie I would say ‘No’. It was unexpected, one of those people from Disney’s development department watched “Blindspotting” on Sundance and invited me, they were looking for new directors, young directors with diverse voices, with different backgrounds. And when we were talking I saw they were really interested on telling stories from a very different point of view and that’s what I was doing at the time. It was a very interesting contrast because, I wrapped filming “Summertime” one day and two days later I was at Disney planning my new movie and as you can imagine, both are completely different worlds. Disney has showed a lot of support to the stories I want to tell in my movies, and to be honest it’s really special to me to have these opportunities.

I directed “Raya” first, which is the movie that’s about to be released, and the next one is a very intimate movie for me and I started developing it from zero, it’ll be released in two years. I love it, I found a new creative home in an unexpected place but I’m really happy and let’s see what happens with these stories. It’s an original movie for Disney Animation, they haven’t announced it yet, so everything is confidential at this point but we know it will come out on 2023, it’s in development and we will start with storyboards, the music and the script in a few months”
Source: https://thedisinsider.com/2021/02/14/di ... obin-hood/
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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Carlos López Estrada revealed in a new interview that Don Hall and Raya screenwriter Qui Nguyen are working on a new WDAS film. He also said their project comes before his, so I guess the project they're developing is the untitled 2022 film currently salted for November 23 of that year.
Additionally, we inquired with Estrada about the rumor that he was developing Disney’s live-action remake of “Robin Hood,” and while he kept those cards close to his chest, he dropped a different set of hints as to not only his future with the animation juggernaut but also that of his “Raya” co-workers. “I don’t know if I’m even supposed to talk about [‘Robin Hood’], because that was a slightly leaked thing that is not officially confirmed,” said Estrada. “What I can say is that Don, Qui, and I, separately, are working on our next Disney animation project. We’re very excited because we’re part of the Story Trust at Disney. Don is really helping me out in the project that I’m developing, and hopefully, I’ll be a small tiny little voice that gives some thoughts in his. I think Qui and I entered the Disney family in a really exciting time, and the fact that we’re all working on new movies is also very exciting, and hopefully, we can talk to you about them soon.”
Source: https://theplaylist.net/raya-and-the-la ... -20210216/
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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D82 wrote:Carlos López Estrada revealed in a new interview that Don Hall and Raya screenwriter Qui Nguyen are working on a new WDAS film. He also said their project comes before his, so I guess the project they're developing is the untitled 2022 film currently salted for November 23 of that year.
Additionally, we inquired with Estrada about the rumor that he was developing Disney’s live-action remake of “Robin Hood,” and while he kept those cards close to his chest, he dropped a different set of hints as to not only his future with the animation juggernaut but also that of his “Raya” co-workers. “I don’t know if I’m even supposed to talk about [‘Robin Hood’], because that was a slightly leaked thing that is not officially confirmed,” said Estrada. “What I can say is that Don, Qui, and I, separately, are working on our next Disney animation project. We’re very excited because we’re part of the Story Trust at Disney. Don is really helping me out in the project that I’m developing, and hopefully, I’ll be a small tiny little voice that gives some thoughts in his. I think Qui and I entered the Disney family in a really exciting time, and the fact that we’re all working on new movies is also very exciting, and hopefully, we can talk to you about them soon.”
Source: https://theplaylist.net/raya-and-the-la ... -20210216/
So, does this mean that following Encanto, there will be the new Don Hall project mentioned here, and then Carlos López Estrada's personal project? If so, that means two original WDAS film this year, and potentially another two originals for 2021 and 2022/2023, right?

Re this movie, I am getting really good vibes here! It sounds like it could be something unusual and even down-to-earth for Disney animation.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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Jules wrote:So, does this mean that following Encanto, there will be the new Don Hall project mentioned here, and then Carlos López Estrada's personal project? If so, that means two original WDAS film this year, and potentially another two originals for 2021 and 2022/2023, right?
Yes, exactly. Two original WDAS films this year, one for 2022 and one for 2023. That's, of course, if none of them gets cancelled or postponed. We don't know for sure if Don Hall's next project will be an original story or not (i.e. not a sequel/prequel/spin off), but it sounds like it will. It's very exciting we'll be getting so many original films from the studio in the next few years.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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In here, Skyler Shuler says the name of the film is "Foster".
I don't think it's correct though. I think he mistakes it for an unmade movie from Blue Sky.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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It must be what you said. It would be too much of a coincidence for it to have the same title as that movie.
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Re: Untitled Carlos López Estrada Film

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Something bizarre happened, Carlos López Estrada announced that he leaves Walt Disney Animation Studios on his Instagram:

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https://www.instagram.com/p/CcyKan_PCIs ... MyMTA2M2Y=

I have no idea what it means for this film, whether it was shelved or another director was brought in as a replacement.
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