Pixar Rolling On With Plans For John Carter Trilogy

An Edgar Rice Burroughs news site has reported on a Pixar research trip to the archives at ERB Inc. in early November. Present were Andrew Stanton, the director, Mark Andrews, screenwriter and Jim Morris, producer of Wall-E and Pixar exec.

They are cited as confirming a full trilogy of John Carter films, determinedly loyal to Burroughs' work, and a release date pre-2012 for the first. I would guess that means 2011, after Up in 2009 and Toy Story 3 in 2010? Or will we finally be getting more than one Pixar film a year? After all, 1906 has to fit in somewhere.

It looks like there are now confirmed animation, live-action and animation/live-action combination projects on the Pixar slate.

Wall-E At Cooked Art

The Cooked Art blog have a great report from the Wall-E panel at Comic-Con. You really should read it.

Here's an excerpt:

Ben Burtt (the legendary sound designer) then went on to talk about how there is no dialogue in the film in a normal sense, showing a great featurette using pastels and digital paintings and sound to evoke the moods that would be felt while watching Wall-E.

Then, using a piano, went on to demonstrate the range of sounds that Wall-E and his wanted companion, Eve, could make. With these same range of sounds they displayed Wall E and Eve both in their own animation scene (unrendered, but very well animated).

To contrast Wall E, who is essentially a cube with binoculars and treads (which can fold up into his body so he's then essentially a cube), EVE is based on circles and ovals - EVE's head is a floating sphere and its body is an upside-down teardrop. Wall-E is rustic and worker class, EVE is sleek, white, and smooth. Stanton said that Wall-E's design was inspired by Luxo, but he didn't feel Luxo's design could hold an audience, so he wanted to play around with eyes, and during a baseball game, saw some binoculars and made it into Wall E.

They also break down a 10-minute sequence with a fair amount of detail.

Cars 2 Rumour Gaining Traction

JV Pixar News are getting behind the Cars 2 rumour with their full weight.

This story seemed to start when Paul Newman mentioned a sequel a few months back. The latest iteration has the film being in development now and scheduled for release in 2011.

I'm not sure I buy it. Cars has made a big heap of money for the Disney/Pixar clan, particularly through merchandise, but it seems peculiar that moves are being made on a sequel so rapidly. I think it is much more likely that a Cars TV series is on the cards and that's what Newman knew about.

Or maybe not. Maybe Pixar are being 100% straight when they talk about only making sequels when they have a gold idea and, simply, a gold idea for Cars 2 came along.

Whatever Pixar release in 2011, Cars 2 or not, it is destined to be another masterpiece. And I say that entirely sincerely despite a complete lack of belief in destiny, fate, spectral deities, guardian angels or any other such. That's how convinced I am by Pixar.

Pixar Shorts DVD Revealed

A French Disney site have been the first to unveil the cover of the Pixar Shorts DVD. It's coming on Blu-Ray and standard ol' DVD too.

Movie Minesweeper - The Card Shelf Edition

I'm currently watching Popworld in which they are playing Mark Ronson and Lily Allen's cover of Oh My God by The Kaiser Chiefs. The video is a flagrant rip off of Who Framed Roger Rabbit but, to be frank, nowhere nearly as good. It might be designed as an homage, it could be taken as an insult.

- Jeffrey Wells quoted J J Abrams directly on the whole Cloverfield issue, but then altered his post a little. Abrams became re-identified an anonymous person in Abrams' team, and a quick find-and-replace turned all of the first person "I"s in the piece to "he"s. Sometimes with comedic effect: "he've", for example. Tee hee.

- Incidentally, Abrams cannibalised Felicity for the idea of Cloverfield. The episode Docuventary was shot in a similar style, using all of the camcorder gimmickery.

- What's more, there's a new picture on the 1-18-08 site, time stamped five minutes before the first.

- A good chunk of the Comic-Con schedule has been unveiled. Max Brooks and George Romero having a chat? A programme of Pixar shorts - no doubt to unveil the DVD? The Golden Compass piggybacking on Shoot 'Em Up? Josss Whedon with 'a few surprises'? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

- A brilliant piece on Pixar designer Jason Deamer is up at the CG Society site.

- Yahoo have a slideshow of four new Fred Claus posters. I swear I can see little Jimmy Krankie in two of them.

- There's more one-set video from Indiana Jones IV doing the rounds, plus a few spoilers and spoiler clarifications.

- According to Coca-Cola (yep), European cinemas are suffering from very high staff turnovers. Anybody want me to manage their cinema for them? Or work in their programming department? I could be persuaded.

- The Haiti film industry is booming.

And now Fergie is singing on a commerical. Eurgh.

Par Bleu! More Ratatouille Goodness

Disney-Pixar Productions has alerted us to some Ratatouille goodness for you all, via YouTube. Enjoy!

Two are rough animation workouts, both starring Emile the rat: Emile's Workout and Emile's Magic Trick

Very cute. I can't say I'm too keen to see this movie (I'm much more excited for a certain little robot) but I do love chubby rats.

[EDIT: I, on the other hand, simply cannot wait - Brendon]

There's also 9 minutes of the film that you can watch here to whet your appetite.

Depending how hungry you are, YouTube has plenty more tasty videos to keep you satisfied until the main course is released on June 29th.

And if that isn't enough, Disney has also put up an enormous collection of movie stills for you to feast your eyes upon.

(I really didn't mean to make so many dining references, but it just happened. But given that culinary title that I still can't spell, it seems appropriate.)

Second Wall-E Teaser Online!

JVPixar has uploaded a brilliant Wall-E teaser to YouTube.

This one comes from the Ratatouille videogame, but it actually reveals plenty of details not in the original, 'official' Wall-E trailer.

Is there anybody out there capable of making a better version? Something in higher resolution and not uploaded to a video sharing site?

The Ratatouille That Never Was

Most know something about the controversial development of Ratatouille. The film was conceived, originally developed by and, for years, being directed by Jan Pinkava. Then, after a screening of story reels and meetings about the direction Pinkava was heading with the film, he was replaced as director by Brad Bird. This had never happened before at Pixar, this removal of a project's instigator from the director's chair and many found it something of a shock. According to internet opinion, either they'd sold one of their artists down the river and squashed his personal vision or they'd rescued a failing film from indulgence and lack of focus because it was going nowhere, and expensively so. Or both.



Jim Hill Media have a look at the Art of Ratatouille book and have taken the time to single out material that relates to the aborted version of the film. Below you can see an early Remy, looking rather scrawny, and some original title designs - when the film had a different title, of course - but there's a good handful more, including a look at Remy's now non-existent mother.

Pixar Shorts DVD Edging Closer

The Disney Enquirer has discovered the recently registered domain names PixarShorts and DisneyPixarShorts (both dot com). These are about the only film ick relevant entries in an unusally quiet Disney Domains update.

A DVD of Pixar shorts has been a long time coming, Will it make the shelves in time for Christmas? I certainly hope so, and I hope there's some new material on there too. At the very least it will be good to see some of the more rarely screened bits and pieces (Red's Dream, The Adventures of Andre and Wally B) all over again. And again. And again.

Direct Download Links For Two Ratatouille Podcasts

You can directly download Getting Into Character and The Comedians of Ratatouille now.

Direct Download Links For The New Ratatouille TV Spot

Choose from low, medium or high resolution versions of this Quicktime standard-def TV spot for Ratatouille.

Direct Download Links For The Wall-E Trailer

You need to see this now. This is the trailer for Pixar's Wall-E.

Choose from low, medium and high res standard definition and 480p, 720p and 1080p high definition.

Oh - and it has some of Michael Kamen's score from Brazil in it. Always nice.

Direct Download Link For Ratatouille Animation Progress Reel

This is great. A clip from Ratatouille, progressing from storyboard to full, finished render.

Download it now.

Movie Minesweeper - The Looping Chocoholic Edition

I'm deep into writing the next installment of Under the Hood but I think I need a break, so here's a Movie Minesweeper for you. According to survey results received so far (keep 'em coming!) most of you like Movie Minesweeper... and those of you that don't have given me ideas on how to improve it. So, I will certainly try.

Now though, here's a rush edition to get us up to date.

- Supergirl is headed to Smallville. How long until a Supergirl movie is greenlit, do you think? I suspect she might even beat Wonder Woman into cinemas.

- The IESB have ten clips from Joshua.

- Salma Hayek and Steve Buscemi are starring in Keep Coming Back, directed by William H. Macy.

- Daniel Simpson is to direct Born, a genuinely creepy, offbeat-sounding horror yarn in which Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany will be terrorised by little bits of clay. Bettany's character is an animator and his creations come to life and 'act out a nightmare', which presumably puts the human leads in danger. Guillermo del Toro, Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin are producing while Clive Barker is listed as an executive producer. Barker and Simpson co-wrote the script with... Paul Kaye? What? That Paul Kaye? I do hope so.


- Thomas Wheeler's The Arcanum is to be a feature film. That means actors will have to be found to play Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, H. P Lovecraft and Marie Laveau, the story's line-up of demon battling occult investigators. The plan is to kick off a franchise. It would be a crying shame if this slips into LXG territory. Those who know the book probably have some idea of the similarities to A Killing on Carnival Row which has Neil Jordan as a director - which is a shame for The Arcanum's producers because he'd be perfect for their film too.

- Variety nabbed a very small image of production art from Pixar's Munchausen-alike, Up. I thought I'd reproduce it here for you, so enjoy.


- On the Hook has Frank Langella, Laura Harring and Elliott Gould on the cast list. Two and a half out of three 'aint bad.

- Alexander Nevsky (sounds familiar...) has formed Hollywood Storm, hist first US based production outfit. Nothing in the Variety piece about their first projects, The Black Rose and Magic Man.

And... now I've run out of time. If the phone would stop ringing...

More later after, after I've taught my student and been to see that new Fantastic Four film. Fingers crossed for both of those...

Rat Sneaking

No, this is not another post about Nikki Finke.

According to Box Office Mojo, there are to be 800 sneak preview screenings of Ratatouille, all over the US, this very weekend. I have to wait months to see this film here in the UK. I promise, if money was no object I'd be on a plane in the next couple of days and in line on Saturday night.

Paper Beats Pixels For Pixar Info - So Much New News

I recently linked to an article on the Time website called Why Pixar is Better. Now, the industrious uberfans at JV Pixar News have found out from the similarly keen and sharp Upcoming Pixar that the print version of the piece contains a lot more information. Superb.

There is information on Wall-E, Toy Story 3 and Up. Here's a snippet of each.

On Wall-E: Those who remember the 1931 Charlie Chaplin film [City Lights], about a blind girl wooed by a tramp she mistakenly believes is a rich man, can transpose the story to a lonely planet and guess from there.

On Toy Story 3: "We got an idea we thought would be really great." Lee Unkrich will be THE director....he co-directed Toy Story 2 and Finding Nemo. He says, "We're just starting to write the story"....and confides, "I wake up evey morning hoping for a eureka moment.

On Up: Pete Docter and co-director Bob Peterson are preparing this 'coming-of-old-age story' about a seventysomething guy who lives in a house that "looks like your grand-parents' house smelled." He befriends a clueless young Wilderness Ranger and gets into lots of alter kocker altercations. Says Pixar: "Our hero travels the globe, fights beasts and villains and eats dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon."

What's Up?

Disney have announced the name and release date of Pixar's tenth film. Called Up - short, sweet, intriguing - the film will roll out on June 12th 2009.

Up is being directed by Peter Docter. Ronnie Del Carmen is working in the story department. The lead character is an adult male. The rest... is secret... as far as I know. If you know more, then please get in touch.

And, no, I don't think it will be a remake of a Russ Meyer film.

More Ratatouille Images

Last night, I ran 20 images from Ratatouille and, of course, the same twenty images started popping up online on other sites with no reference to this site or link back. There had actually been more than 20 released, and I held some back simply to see if this would happen... and it did.

Those who lifted the images: you know who you are. I happen to know for sure that the people behind some of these light-fingered sites come here regularly, too. Naughty. Not actually evil, or immoral or even unlawful - but naughty.

Anyway, here's the rest of the set. Enjoy. And thank Mike Nezhdanny again.

Almost Unfathomably Huge Ratatouille Image Update

These pictures are so big it's a little bit frightening. Click on any of them to be swamped in their gorgeousness. I left the tags on them so you can see, well, who owns the copyright for one thing - but also the names of characters, and so on.

Thank Mike Nezhdanny for the scoop. I just pressed a few buttons.

[EDIT: And now there's more]

Direct Download Link For Awesome New Ratatouille Trailer

This new Ratatouille trailer from Japan has oodles more footage - new locations, scenes, characters. It's a must see - so download it now. A handful of low-res screencaps follow.