WALL-E: The Look and Sound of Space; Brazilian Vignettes and UK Posters
I can’t yet begin to tell you what II thought of Pixar’s WALL-E. Unfortunately I am embargoed against telling you exactly how much I loved the film. Disney is ramping up their marketing, and has released a bunch of videos that are worth checking out. First up is a featurette called “Pixar Goes Space Age” which takes a look at the design, tone and cinematography of space in the film. One thing revealed is that Oscar nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins actually worked on the film as a visual consultant. Deakins was responsible for the great cinematography in Assassination of Jesse James, No Country for Old Men, and In the Valley of Elah last year, for which he was nominated for two Academy Awards.
IGN has a featurette called “A Space Journey In Sound” which focuses on the incredible sound design of Academy Award winner Ben Burtt, best known for as the father of R2-D2 (as he did the sound design for the Star Wars films).
Three new WALL-E vinettes are being aired in Brazil: one focusing on baseball, another on dancing, and a third where WALL-E gets to close to the video camera. Check them out below (via: Pixar Blog).
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Meanwhile, Empire recently premiered four new British movie posters. I never thought I’d see an animated character playing with a Bra on a poster for a Disney animated release:
Transformers Release Date Moved Up to July 3rd
pleaded to his fans to send a message to Paramount/Dreamworks to release Transformers one day earlier.
“The studio kind of sort of is thinking about which might mean “no”. If you spread the word on the Net - everywhere - they might listen,” wrote Bay. “The 3rd everyone is off from work, I say ‘what the f**k’ play the movie - ‘give’em giant f**king robots early’!!!”
Well the fans spoke up, and the studio listened. Transformers will now open on July 3rd, one day before the original July 4th release date. This move comes in the summer of threequels where every studio seems to be trigger happy on release date changes. Fox Searchlight moved up Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, Balls of Fury suddenly became a late Summer film, Disney moved Pirates up a few hours for an 8:00pm Thursday night release, Dreamworks followed suit and moved to a 10:00pm Thursday night release, 1408 ran from Harry Potter, which also moved up two days. Remember the good ol’ days when you could see an accurate release date on the poster? Those days are gone.
Anyway, this move is more bad news for Live Free or Die Hard, which was set to open on June 27th, just one week before Transformers is to be unleashed. Now the Die Hard sequel will have one less day of lead time. And this also can’t be good news for Pixar’s Ratatouille (which, from what I hear - is already the worst tracking Pixar movie yet) and Michael Moore’s Sicko which opens up just days before on June 29th.
The Game Plan Movie Trailer
I must admit, I’m a fan of The Rock. I think he could be the next big action star, if he got the right roles. And the fact that his new film, Disney’s The Game Plan was shot in my hometown (and at the New England Patriots’ Gillette Stadium), with a few of my close friends on screen, it should be hard for me to not like this film. I mean, for months I’ve actually been excited to see it. Disney has made a couple good sports films, and a bunch of bad ones. Unfortunately, The Game Plan looks like it could be one of the aforementioned clunkers. The Rock has a huge sense of comic timing, and that if not anything else, is very evident in this trailer. Check out the new trailer after the jump and decide for yourself. Could this be to The Rock what Mr. Nanny was to Hulk Hogan?
The movie follows an NFL quarterback living the bachelor lifestyle who discovers that he has a 7-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. The film also stars Kyra Sedgwick. Yes, this is the movie where The Rock sustained a ruptured Achilles tendon injury which forced the studio to postpone production for a few months. Although no official release date has been announced, we expect this one to hit theaters sometime during the 2007 football season.
Dreamgirls star Anika Noni Rose is Disney’s The Frog Princess
Dreamgirls star Anika Noni Rose has signed on to voice Maddy in Disney’s The Frog Princess. Rose will become Disney’s first black princess in the first hand-drawn film Disney has committed to since the Pixar purchase. The film promises to return to the Broadway-style musical in the likes of the successful Disney animated films such as Walt’s classics.
Written/directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, the animated musical scored by Randy Newman, is set in New Orleans. The movie follows Maddy, a young African-American girl who lives in the infamous French Quarter. The new movie will feature a soulful singing crocodile and voodoo spells.
“This movie is gonna be a classic as you’ve never seen before.” - John Lasseter
Earlier this year it was reported that Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys were also being considered for the role. I’m wondering why Hudson passed? I’m sure she was probably the studios first choice. The Frog Princess will hit theaters in 2009.