This past weekend, Disney’s biggest fans gathered in Anaheim, Calif. for what the company dubs “The Ultimate Disney Fan Event” called the D23 Expo. In two different panels on two different days that totaled more than five hours of presentations, Disney gave the attendees a special look at upcoming films both animated and live action.
On Saturday, “Let the Adventures Begin: Live Action at the Walt Disney Studios” kicked off the morning in D23 Arena, which for you Comic-Con aficionados is Disney’s equivalent of Hall H.
Disney officially announced what’s been unofficially public about “Into the Woods” in that Mark Platt (producer of “Wicked”) is producing, Rob Marshall ( director of “Chicago”) is directing and the film will star Meryl Streep as the Witch, Johnny Depp as the Wolf, Anna Kendrick as Cinderella, Chris Pine as Cinderella’s Prince and Emily Blunt as the Baker’s Wife. Filming will commence in about a week and a half. Sean Bailey, president of the Walt Disney Studios described the movie, coming to theaters in the 2014 holiday season as a “hilarious family event.” That is never the way I would describe “Into the Woods” so I hope that doesn’t mean a major change to the script to Disney-fy this sometimes funny, but often dark and thought provoking musical.
Another “Cinderella” is prepping for her appearance on the big screen. Kenneth Branagh (director of “Thor”) is in preproduction for an all-new live action telling of the “Cinderella,” coming to theaters in March 2015. This new film will be faithful to the original fairytale, but gives a stronger Cinderella who stays true to herself – she’s a heroine according to Disney.
In a video produced for D23 Expo, Kenneth Branagh talked about his vision for the story and showed us storyboards and other pre-production images that looked beautiful. He mentioned that it took a while to make a glass slipper that was wearable and walkable. The film stars Lily Jones of “Downton Abbey” as Cinderella, Richard Madden of “The Game of Thrones” as a “funny, smart and sexy prince,” Cate Blanchette as Cinderella’s Stepmother, and Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother. Branagh noted in the end that “With a Cinderella story anything is possible. Your dreams can come true.”
In July 2014, another legendary Disney animated story is transferring to live action when, “Maleficent” swoops into theaters. Angelina Jolie is starring as the title character and appeared in person to a standing ovation to talk about the film. With a screenplay written by “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” writer, Linda Woolverton, this film stars with Maleficent as a young fairy and reveals the events that darkened her heart and led to her cursing Aurora. The scene they showed was the familiar moment from the animated “Sleeping Beauty” when Aurora is being christened and Maleficent shows up to find out why she didn’t receive an invite and cures the infant princess. I had goose bumps and tears watching this familiar scene from one of my favorite Disney films come to life.
Angelina Jolie told the audience that she was terrified by Maleficent as a child, but was also drawn to her grace and her elegance. Her brother was the one who called her to tell her about the film and the she needed to go after the part. She said she loved the idea of playing a beloved Disney character, and while she initially thought it would be fun to play with children who came to visit the set she found instead that they were frightened of her. The only child on set who wasn’t frightened of her is her daughter Vivienne, who plays a very young Aurora in the film. Elle Fanning plays the older Princess Aurora.
The final film presented on Saturday was one that all Disney fans are thrilled about, “Saving Mr. Banks.” This movie tells the little known story about Walt Disney’s challenge to gain the rights to “Mary Poppins” from the books’ author, P.L. Travers. Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney and Emma Thompson takes on P.L. Travers. Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak tackle the role of Disney legends and the composers of the music from “Mary Poppins” Richard and Robert Sherman, while Bradley Whitford plays screenwriter Don DaGradi. Other two casting notes were Colin Farrell as P.L. Travers’ father seen in flashbacks and Paul Giamatti as the limo driver who chauffeured Travers around during her stay in the Los Angeles area.
They screened three extended segments from the film. The first showed Travers arriving on the Walt Disney Studios lot for the first time. She is met by the Sherman Brothers and DaGradi outside the closed set for “Babes in Toyland.” She immediately corrects DaGradi when he calls her Pamela that she is “Mrs. Travers” and when he refers to Mary, she makes it clear that it is always “Mary Poppins,” “Never just Mary.” Travers is very impatient about wanting to meet Walt Disney immediately, but DaGradi tells her that Walt wanted them to give her a tour of the studios first and show the place off to which she responds that “No one likes a show off.” The four of them are next seen on a golf cart driving through the studios on the way to Walt’s office. When they arrive and are waiting to be shown into Walt’s office, DiGradi warns Travers that “He (Walt) can’t stand being called Mr. Disney. We’re all on a first name basis.” Naturally Travers ignores that advice and when shown into Walt’s office calls him Mr. Disney. Walt tells her a story about his daughters giggling over her novels when they were young and that he promised them he would make a film of Mary Poppins and he has never gone back on a promise to his daughters. They begin debating why the story can or can’t be made into a movie with Travers arguing that “I won’t have her turned into one of your silly cartoons.” The scene ended with Walt saying to Travers that “You have got to share her with me.”
Before they showed the next scene, Sean Bailey talked about how they filmed this movie in their workplace and that they even thought about having Tom Hanks crash meetings at the Studios as Walt. How incredible would that have been? This led into the next scene where they filmed at another place where many current Disney cast members work, Disneyland. We see Travers in the car questioning her limo driver, Frank, as to where they are going that day. You then see her realize where they are as the pull up to Disneyland. The gates open up and they literally drive right up in front of train station where Walt is waiting to meet her. Frank fanboys over Walt as he helps Travers out of the car. She is still skeptical as Walt begins to take her into the park, but stops to hand out autographs along the way and encourages the guests to get Travers’ autograph, which she declines. Walt describes elements of the park as they walk including pointing out the gold plating that he had put on the castle against his brother’s wishes while he was out of town. He takes her to the Carousel and encourages her to ride Mrs. Disney’s favorite horse Jingles. She refuses at first but he final orders her up on it and she obeys. She questions why he brought her down there to see this and he tells her that he had a wager that he couldn’t get her on a ride and that he had just won 20 bucks.
B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman came out next and B.J. talked about how remarkable it was work with Richard Sherman who was the musical advisor on the film. He said Sherman walked them through the process of making “Mary Poppins” and how the Sherman brothers made music. Jason, who plays Richard Sherman, said he spent a lot of time with Richard and he taught him how he wrote and played from a physicality standpoint. He also said that Richard throws a lot of winks. Jason called Richard “beyond a Disney legend. He’s a human legend.”
The final scene shown has Travers, the Sherman brothers, and DaGradi looking at a first draft. Travers is immediately picky about the scene description noting that it should be “Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane,” not just “17 Cherry Tree Lane.” She snickers at the rumor of Dick Van Dyke being cast in the film. DiGradi is acting out the beginning of the scene, which leads into an early draft of “Chim Chim Cher-ee” sung by the Sherman brothers. She stops them for using the word “responsitible” arguing that it’s not a real word. Richard proudly notes that they made it up and she tells them to “unmake it up,” which causes them to hide the music for “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
The presentation ended with Richard Sherman, B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman leading a sing along of “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” with costumed performers flying their kites throughout the arena.
The day before, “Art and Imagination: Animation at The Walt Disney Studios” brought Pixar Animation Studios, DisneyToon Studios, and Walt Disney Animation Studios to the D23 Arena.
Pixar, keeping with its original stories, has no book to movie adaptations in the works, but DisneyToon Studios has two new Tinkerbell series direct-to-video movies coming out. “The Legend of the NeverBeast” doesn’t arrive until spring 2015. “The Pirate Fairy” featuring Christina Hendricks (“Mad Men”) as the Pirate Fairy, Zarina and Tom Hiddleston (Loki in “Thor”) as James, an educated, polite, caring and attentive cabin boy, who turns out to really be a young Captain Hook before the hook, sets sail in spring 2014.
The full synopsis for “The Pirate Fairy” is: When a misunderstood dust-keeper fairy named Zarina steals Pixie Hollow’s all-important Blue Pixie Dust, and flies away to join forces with the pirates of Skull Rock, Tinker Bell and her fairy friends must embark on the adventure of a lifetime to return it to its rightful place. However, in the midst of their pursuit of Zarina, Tink’s world is turned upside down. She and her friends find that their respective talents have been switched and they have to race against time to retrieve the Blue Pixie Dust and return home to save Pixie Hollow.
“Frozen” based on the fairytale “The Snow Queen” is Walt Disney Animation Studios next theatrical release, arriving in theaters November 27. Apparently Walt wanted to make this story into a film, but it never happened in his lifetime. Kristen Bell (“Veronica Mars”) appeared to talk about her character Anna. Anna is funny and quirky and the movie is really her story. Kristen was asked how she relates to her character and she said when talking to the people at Disney she said she didn’t want to play a character that had birds landing on her hand, she wanted her to walk outside and a bird poops on her.
They showed a clip from the film including a song by the snowman, Olaf (Josh Gad), who was apparently made by Anna’s sister Elsa, when they were children. The song is about how he wants to experience summer because he has never felt warmth. Kristoff, a not-to-be-trusted ice harvester who teams up with Anna, wants to tell Olaf what happens to snow in heat, but Anna won’t let him. Olaf will be hosting the holiday version of World of Color at Disney’s California Adventure.
The music for the film is by Kristen Lopez and Tony Award winner Robert Lopez. Tony Award winner and the voice of Elsa, the creator of ice and snow, Idina Menzel closed the presentation with a performance of “Let it Go,” which Elsa sings on a mountain as she realizes what she can do and who she is. In Disney magic fashion, it snowed during the number and I teared up. The song was spectacular and I can’t wait to see it in the final context of the film.
So of all the movies (and we’ll get to the Marvel stuff in a separate report), I am most excited about “Saving Mr. Banks.” It looks like, as to be expected, that they took incredible care bringing Walt and this story to life and I can’t wait to see the full final film. What upcoming Disney book to film story are you most excited about?