Tag: Avengers

D23 Expo 2013: Live Action (Part I, LucasFilm & Marvel)
The second day of the D23 Expo was again led off by a presentation of upcoming studio releases.   While Friday’s day one presentation was focused on animation, the Saturday presentation was about live action films.   Again, the presentation was segmented by the studio: LucasFilm, Marvel, Disney Nature, and Disney features.   Part I of this post covers Marvel (and the tiny bit that was shared about LucasFilm).

Bob Iger again kicked things off, but then quickly handed off to Alan Horn, Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, to talk about the upcoming films.

Alan shared that Disney has grown its portfolio of studios quite a bit over the past years; with the acquisitions of Pixar in 2006, Marvel in 2009, and LucasFilm in 2011.

LucasFilm

Alan welcomed LucasFilm to the Disney family but disappointed the audience by saying there would be nothing new to share regarding LucasFilm projects.    He repeated some of what we already know — Episode VII will be released in Summer 2015; JJ Abrams will direct and is currently working on the screenplay with Michael Arndt; and John Williams will once again score.

Marvel

Marvel has been a very successful acquisition for Disney; they have two of the top 5 grossing films of all time with The Avengers and Iron Man 3.    Alan introduced Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige to cover the upcoming Marvel films.

The Avengers was the culmination of Phase I of the Marvel cinematic universe.   We are now seeing Phase II (which will conclude with Avengers 2).   Iron Man 3 was the first of the Phase 2 films.    There are 3 more Phase 2 films before we cap it off with Avengers 2.

Thor: The Dark World will be the next release.    Director Alan Taylor took the stage and we got an extended first look at the feature.   (I believe this same footage was shown at Comic Con).   Cast members then came out on stage … Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Natalie Portman (Jane), and Anthony Hopkins (Odin).    Hopkins received a standing ovation; I think most of the audience was surprised he was in attendance.    Hiddleston did not sing for us this time.    We saw a new clip, of Jane’s first day on Asgard where she is suffering some sort of infection.   Odin insists that she be sent back to Midgard (Earth) where doctors there can take care of her.    She is fascinated by the technology being used (and appears to understand it far better than the Asgardians expect of someone from such a primitive place).   There is a good bit of humor in the scene while at the same time setting up a conflict between Thor and Odin regarding Jane that might be a significant plot point.

Captain American: The Winter Soldier was up next. We were shown two clips, both action-oriented fight scenes. The first, taking place in an elevator, was shown previously at Comic-Con.    I believe the second scene, taking place (mostly) on a boat, was being shown for the first time; much of it was in pre-viz stage with very rough blocked-in CGI.   Cast members Chris Evans (Captain America), Anthony Mackie (The Falcon) and Sebastian Stan (Bucky / The Winter Soldier) were on hand to talk about the film.    Filming has been completed and the film is now being edited for an April 2014 release.

And now for something completely different.   Guardians of the Galaxy is just underway (4 weeks into shooting).   We were shown some footage assembled from the first few weeks of shooting, but surprisingly some of the CGI characters looked very good for such early footage — so clearly they wanted to have something flashy to show for Comic Con and D23, and it worked.   The characters of Groot (an Ent-like character) and Rocket Racoon (I think that one is self explanatory :-) ) look amazing.    This looks like it will be very humorous.   Release scheduled for August 2014.

We were then shown a brief teaser trailer of Avengers 2: Age of Ultron.   There was nothing shown other than the face plate of the Ultron robot character.   The feature is scheduled for 2015.

Related articles
- Does ‘Star Wars Episode VII’s’ Absence At The D23 Expo Raise Bigger Questions? (slashfilm.com)
- ‘Captain America,’ ‘Thor’ strike at Disney expo (sacbee.com)
- Fans Disappointed As Disney Keeps Quiet About Episode VII At D23 (contactmusic.com)
- Disney’s D23 Expo Rundown: Pixar, Marvel and Angelina Jolie (newsy.com)
August 12, 2013
Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives

As chronicled in the last couple of blog posts, I made a recent visit to Southern California to see Disneyland during the Christmas holidays and to visit the Reagan Presidential Library.    The Reagan Library is current hosting (through April 2013) an exhibition entitled Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives.

The exhibition is presented by the Disney Archives, and includes many unique items from throughout the history of the Disney organization.    Because of the venue, some of the items selected for the display highlight Disney’s connection to Reagan (his work for Disney included emceeing Disneyland’s opening day broadcast) or to the presidency in general (Hall of Presidents sculptures, for example).   But the exhibition is far broader than just a few tie-ins.   Some of the items have been displayed before (such as at similar exhibitions at the D23 Expo in 2009 and 2011), but some are being displayed to the public for the first time.

In the earlier galleries, we see items such as a movie poster from one of the Alice comedies. (These early films combined live action and animation and were loosely based on Alice in Wonderland).   We also see a pencil sketch of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit — the animated character that Walt developed prior to Mickey Mouse.   And of course we see the early Mickey Mouse, including some of the early merchandising efforts for the character.

Poster from an Alice comedy

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit pencil sketch

Early Mickey Mouse merchandise

There are cels here from some of the most notable early Disney animation shorts, including Academy Award winning Silly Symphonies Flowers and Trees (the first color cartoon) and The Three Little Pigs (famous for the song “Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf”).

Cel from Silly Symphony “Flowers and Trees”

Cel from Silly Symphony “The Three Little Pigs”

While animation buffs (such as myself) are likely to be familiar with a lot of the short features highlighted here, it was the move into feature length animation that really set Disney apart from what every other studio was doing.   One of the interesting artifacts on display was a partial Snow White costume, worn by Marge Champion when doing live action reference for the animators.

Several of the feature length animated features started in the same fashion — with a shot of a story book.   As the camera zoomed in, the story book would open, and we would dissolve into the animated scene.   Several of these storybooks (from Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella) were on display, including some of the interior pages.

Also on display was Herb Ryman’s original Disneyland sketch.   The story of this sketch is that Walt needed something to show to investors, and Herb produced this very detailed sketch over the course of a weekend as Walt described what should be in the various areas of the park.

Another fascinating exhibit was a full-scale re-creation of Walt’s formal office — every detail just as he left it, right down to the ordering of books in the bookcases (including one that is shelved upside down, because that’s the way Walt had left it).

After leaving this area of the exhibit, we start seeing props and costumes from some of Disney’s most well-known live action films from the early days.   This includes 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Nautilus submarine model), The Absent-Minded Professor (Model T), and Mary Poppins (Julie Andrew’s costume).

Still more costumes … we get costumes and an office set for Cruella de Vil (from the live-action 101 Dalmatians movie), Belle’s ball gown from the Broadway Production of Beauty and the Beast, several costumes from Annie Leibovitz’ Disney Dreams photo series (Tiny Fey’s Tinkerbell, Scarlett Johansson’s Cinderella, and Rachel Weisz’ Snow White), and Whitney Houston’s fairly godmother costume from a TV production of Cinderella.

Yes, we do have more costumes — here are 3 from Enhanted: Giselle’s wedding dress (Amy Adams), and costumes worn by James Marsden (Edward) and Susan Sarandon (evil stepmother / wicked queen)

We also have some props and costumes from Alice in Wonderland . . .

. . . and also from Tron (both the original and the recent sequel)

We have quite a bit from the Pirates of the Caribbean series:

Last of the movie stuff: props from Marvel movies (Iron Man 2, Captain America, and the Avengers)

We also get to see some interesting items from the theme parks: Malificient in dragon form (from Fantasmic!), hitch hiking ghosts from the Haunted Mansion, a ride vehicle from Mr. Toad, and busts of all the presidents from the Hall of Presidents:

This is far from everything that is on display at the exhibit, but I hope serves to give a good flavor of the kind of items that are on display.    The Reagan Library and the Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives exhibit are both worthwhile, and I really enjoyed the day I spent there.

January 7, 2013