Lots of cool things that came out of D23 this weekend.
- Walt Disney Animation Studios announced their 57th animated feature,
Gigantic, which is their take on Jack and the Beanstalk story. This isn't their firs time adapting this classic tale. In
Fun and Fancy Free, one of the package films was the classic
MIckey and the Beanstalk. Nathan Greno who directed
Tangled is helming this, and Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez who wrote the music for
Frozen will be on music duties....maybe their songs won't take you out the story this time?
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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales revealed new cast and characters, including Javier Bardem as the villain Captain Salazar and our old friend Will Turner played by Orlando Bloom will be returning. Johnny Depp, who the day before was officially named a Disney Legend by their Hall of Fame program along with George Lucas and Danny Elfman, appeared on stage dressed as Jack Sparrow, and as you can probably imagine, everyone lost their shit. You can watch that here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OijlB9zMnz8- Robert Redford, Bryce Dallas Howard and Karl Urban will be starring in the
Pete's Dragon remake. Bryce Dallas Howard made an appearance to talk about the movie and her affinity for the original.
- Out of all the remakes Disney is doing, I am most looking forward to Joh Favreau's
The Jungle Book, which will have Bill Murray as Baloo, Idris Elba as Shere Khan, Ben Kingsly as Bageera, Lupita Nyong'o as Raksha and muthafawkin Christopher Walken as King Louie. Favreau, Kingsly, Nyong'o, along with new face Neel Sethi as Mowgli went on stage. Favreau says he found a balance shows the majesty of Kipling and the iconic images of the Disney classic. He showed footage of the movie, which got a standing ovation.
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Moana brings back the directing team of John Musker and Ron Clements, who both directed The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. The Rock made an appearance at the panel to talk about his demigod character, Maui.
- The cast of
A Goofy Movie had their own panel to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the movie. It's certainly the most underrated Disney animated movie of all time, and to me, a top ten animated film from Disney. Tevin Campbell, who was Powerline in the movie, sang "Eye To Eye"