Moviefone Editorial

Tag: brad-bird

  • New ‘The Incredibles 2’ Concept Art and Details Revealed

    Disney fans are more than ready for “The Incredibles 2,” especially after a clip wowed viewers at D23.

    Pixar boss John Lasseter told IGN the sequel directly follows Disney Pixar’s 2004 hit:

    “It starts right as the first one finishes, so it just carries on. It starts with the Underminer and a big old set piece. You know that at the end of the first movie when he comes up and you see the family dressed as superheroes, well that’s where start this movie.

    One of the unique things about ‘The Incredibles’ is it’s really a story of a family set in the world of superheroes. This one carries on that theme. It’s awesome, the idea we came up with — simple as that. … We love to really look at our own lives and look at what’s going on, and find themes that we know will resonate with the audience.”

    Disney shared concept art at D23:


    They also shared a clip that hasn’t been released to the public yet, but Moviefone was there in the appreciative audience:

    Here are more updates from the panel:

    ComicBook.com shared more details from director Brad Bird:

    “There’s an issue with the family’s house. So, the family has to get a new house. As you can see, it’s kind of a cross between a dram house and a super lair — a secret agents hosue or something. Water flows throughout the whole building and its made almost entirely of sharp corners which is not ideal for a baby. The whole world of ‘Incredibles 2’ is gonna be greatly expanded upon. We’ll be seeing a lot more of Elastagirl.”

    Fans will get to see it all play out on June 15, 2018. Follow @moviefone for more live tweets from D23.

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  • Why ‘Ratatouille’ Is the Greatest Pixar Movie Ever

    Pixar’s “Ratatouille,” which came out 10 years ago (June 29, 2007), is undeniably a classic. Even people who aren’t enamored with Pixar’s patented brand of heartfelt, high concept storytelling will begrudgingly admit that, yes, “Ratatouille” is pretty great. It’s the story of a country rat named Remy (Patton Oswalt) who absolutely loves food. After getting separated from his family, Remy winds up below Gusteau’s, his favorite Parisian restaurant. There, he befriends a dishwasher named Linguini (story artist Lou Romano) and restores the restaurant to its former glory. You know, that old story.

    And while Pixar’s output has been singularly wonderful (and wonderfully) varied, it is time to crown a clear victor in its demolition derby of excellence. That victor is “Ratatouille.”

    Now, part of understanding what makes “Ratatouille” such an accomplishment is knowing just how hard a film it was to produce. Development began in 2000, under the direction of Jan Pinkava, who had won an Oscar for his 1997 Pixar short film “Geri’s Game” (you probably saw it ahead of “A Bug’s Life”). But after characters and sets had been modeled, the story of the film reached and impasse and Pinkava was removed.

    In 2005, Brad Bird, who directed the deliriously entertaining “The Incredibles” for the company, came aboard to write and direct “Ratatouille.” There had been a brief schedule shift but the film was still due in the summer of 2007. That left him with 18 months to not only write and direct a new version of the film but have it wholly animated. Adding to the pressure was the fact that “Ratatouille” was supposed to be the first film released outside of its distribution deal with Disney (if you’ve ever wondered about the European setting and deliberately Miyazaki-style storytelling, well, here it is). It was an incredibly fraught time for the company, especially given its then-relationship with Disney (more on that in a minute); not exactly the ideal environment to make something creative.Most animated films take the better part of a decade to execute. When Bird took over, there had already been five years of development. Gone were luxurious dream sequences wherein Remy would give physical form to his experience of eating food (some of these ideas wound up in the video game version of the movie), characters were expanded or killed off. Everything was redone. Bird literally pulled the movie out of thin air. The fact that it made any coherent sense is incredible. The fact that it turned out to be the studio’s very best film is nothing short of miraculous.

    And the film really is a masterpiece.

    It’s very much a Brad Bird film, in that it’s preoccupied with the notion of being torn between commitment to work and responsibilities to family. (Think about it; that’s even a theme of “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.”) Bird is obsessed with the kind of Rube Goldberg action and suspense set pieces favored by filmmakers like Robert Zemeckis, and there are plenty here, but in the context of a highly physical comedy. (Many of these sequences were brought to whirling life in the Disneyland Paris attraction, which will soon be coming stateside to Epcot.)It’s easily the most beautiful Pixar movie ever, Paris rendered all twinkly and glowing (Michael Giacchino’s score adds additional sparkle), and the most sophisticated, from a story point of view. For a movie assembled in 18 months, there are so many narrative subplots and divergences that it could fill several other, lesser films. (There’s a paternity test subplot for crying out loud.)

    On a subtext level, the fact that it’s about the joys of creation and the occasionally equally joyous act of criticism, leaves a profound impact and clearly resonated with reviewers. A.O. Scott of the New York Times said that it was, “a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film. It provides the kind of deep, transporting pleasure, at once simple and sophisticated, that movies at their best have always promised.”

    What few people have picked up on, too, is how autobiographical the film is. “Ratatouille” was made during one of the most contentious times in Disney’s history, with Walt’s nephew, Roy E. Disney, trying to wrestle control of the company away from embattled head Michael Eisner and return the studio to its prime. Pixar was caught in the middle, trying their best to make great art but also wanting a permanent home that was just as creatively fulfilling as their Emeryville campus

    Throughout “Ratatouille” there are analogues to key players and situations in what author James B. Stewart called the “Disney War.” I won’t bore you with details, but trust me, the connections in “Ratatouille” to real life are there. In fact, when I ran into Bird around the time that his “Mission: Impossible” was coming out and asked him about my theory, he said, with a crooked smile, “I would never tell anyone how to read one of my films.” Confirmation achieved.

    This is a movie that was coming at a time when it benefited the studio to make something safe and easily digestible. Instead, they churned out one of their most luminous, most challenging, most nuanced film yet. That says something about the filmmakers involved, under Bird’s leadership, and the studio’s willingness to go out on a limb for something that they believed in. Rats in a kitchen was an idea that, before “Ratatouille,” was one of the most disgusting concepts imaginable. Now, if you see a rodent scurrying through your kitchen you kind of want to hand it a spatula and see what it’ll come up with. That’s the kind of thing “Ratatouille” inspires — the idea that creative brilliance can come from anywhere (and from anyone).In the 10 years since the film came out, there hasn’t really been any new merchandise, besides a couple of Funko Pop figures released earlier this year. The characters don’t appear in the Disney Parks (except for highly specific instances, like the Epcot Food & Wine Festival) and it’ll be another few years before we get the ride at a park in America. There haven’t been any sequels or spinoffs, despite being extremely profitable (a 3D re-released, announced by Bob Iger in 2014, never materialized) and critically adored (it ultimately won the Best Animated Feature Oscar).

    That’s another thing that makes it the best Pixar film. It just sits there, untouched. It’s this perfect, unique object, that will never be corrupted by a sequel. There will never be a “Ratatouille: Chef School” prequel. And, who knows, maybe a new story set in that world would be as unexpected and brilliant as “Ratatouille.” But I kind of doubt it. Born out of creative frustration and corporate turmoil, “Ratatouille” sprang to gorgeous life while everything pointed to it being a nonstarter. It is, very literally, transcendent … and that’s positively delicious.

  • ​11 Best Animated Movies Not Made by Disney

    %Slideshow-322407%When we were kids, Disney movies took up a generous portion of our VHS shelf — and for good reason. “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” are just a few of the formative classics that shaped our childhood.

    But the Mouse House isn’t the only studio we have care space for when it comes to animated films. In honor of “Rango’s” fifth anniversary, here are a few non-Disney animated movies that you gotta add to your collection.

  • ‘The Incredibles 2’ Director Brad Bird Shares Sequel Updates

    It’s time to check in on the real fantastic four of “The Incredibles.” Disney/Pixar and director Brad Bird are working on the sequel and Bird recently shared some updates with Collider.

    “I have the story arc,” he told the site. “I’m probably three-quarters through the script, first pass through the script, but we’re already boarding parts of it. I’ve got a lot of people that worked on the first one working on it, so we’re all having a good time with it.” When is the movie coming out? Disney first gave the official word that “The Incredibles 2” and “Cars 3” were in development in March 2014, and it sounds like we’re still far away from an official release date. Bird told Collider release dates are “a little fluid when you’re making films so far in advance.” He said he’s just working as fast as he can with a relatively small team, because he prefers to work with smaller groups until everything is figured out.

    Bird didn’t share any specific “The Incredibles 2” plot details, but he did note that there are many more superhero movies on the scene now than there were back in 2004 when the first movie came out. “What you don’t want to do is trot over the same turf in the same way everyone else is,” he said. “So we’re trying to keep it focused in the area that our film was, which was a little bit more about characters and relationships and stuff like that, and see where that takes us. But we’re having a good time.”

    Sounds good so far. And if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it with what everyone else is already doing. Here’s more from Bird’s talk with Collider. Are you excited to see how this one turns out?

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  • ‘Inside Out’: Meet Pixar’s Secret Weapon, Ralph Eggleston

    Amongst animation fans, Ralph Eggleston is something of a legend.

    Pixar hired Eggleston in 1992, when the studio was in full swing on the first “Toy Story” and he has served as a production designer, storyboard artist, writer and director. (In 2000, his short film, “For the Birds,” won an Academy Award.) He has contributed substantially to every Pixar film and this week’s “Inside Out” is no different.

    For the brilliant new film that takes place inside the head of an 11-year-old girl, Eggleston served as Production Designer. And it’s a pretty unbelievable task, conjuring forth worlds as vast as the human mind (including the subconscious, Dreamland Studios, where dreams are made, the Train of Thought, and, of course, Headquarters).

    We sat down with Eggleston and talked about the film’s lengthy development and production process, being part of the fabric of Pixar, and what he’s got coming up next.

    Moviefone: You talked about working on “Inside Out” for a long time and just realizing that it wasn’t working. What was the breaking point where you said, “We have to do something else?”

    Ralph Eggleston: Well, that was every day almost. The idea was always there. It was always about Riley and her emotions. Variations on that were what took place. The real world component of the film, for example, … Riley’s grandmother died and they moved to New York City and Riley’s grandmother was a hoofer in the follies in the 1920’s and Riley wanted to be like her grandmother. The idea was a big fish in a small pond moves to a big pond and she’s a small fish. And the whole mind world was based on the catwalks, all the way to the sublevels of a theater. That was a take. And that lasted for a couple of weeks, I’m sure. But the idea was always Riley and her emotions. Pete [Docter] didn’t want to spend too much time with Riley initially. And of course, the film has come back around to that, which is totally cool. The problem, for a little while, was that you didn’t care about the emotions or the journey they went on unless you cared about Riley and understood enough about her.
    What was the hardest thing to lose?

    Oooh, that’s a hard one. This didn’t go very far, but there was an idea for a concept of what the mind was that was much more based on a fractal. It was the idea that the further you zoomed in, the further you zoom in. It was never ending. There is this thing called a Mandelbrot cube fractal, which is a three-dimensional fractal. And they always look weird and hippy dippy … But it looks like a cube and you zoom in and it looks like an H.R. Giger painting, except in 3D.

    But the idea was interesting – the further you zoomed in, it was infinity. But also that if you were on one set, say you were outside headquarters, which is in the middle of everything, and you got on the Train of Thought, it could go like this [he starts contorting himself] and then you’re looking like this, and these little dots are there and up is there. It was so intriguing. I remember having lunch with Brad Bird somewhere in this process and I pitched him that and he stared at me and said, “That would be awesome.” If the story had been much more advanced in terms of the push and pull of the elements, maybe we could have done it.

    Where did the design of Headquarters come from?

    To be honest, a lot of it had to do with the brain, finding elements of the physicality of a brain or a body – cellular structures, elements of hypothalamus, DNA. We would sit there and draw. We got macro-photography books of cells and body parts and we would just sit and doodle and abstract. And it was also a bonding experience for us.
    And you’ve been here for a long time.

    Well, Pixar started in 1985. I got here at the tail end of 1992.

    You’ve worked on all of these things. Do you have any ambition to do a project of your own?

    Well I have, it’s called “For the Birds.”

    What about a feature?

    I’ve pitched several things here. I’ll go wherever they want me to go. That’s always been the truth. So many people here go home and do their own thing. That’s not me. I am somebody who likes to do the work with groups. I don’t care where I fit in. It’s such a collaborative effort. That’s the most fun part of this job. So directing, I don’t know that I would want that pressure. I would rather fit in with a particular director and I’ve been lucky enough to fit with each one of the directors I’ve worked with… My job is to make their job easier.

    Do you look in on other productions?

    We always do. We share a lot here. The only stuff they keep away, not from people in the company but anybody else, in the most general sense, is the stuff in the early stages of development. If there’s something in production, and we have several things in varying states of production, any technical person or staff person from any phase in production can go in and do whatever they want.

    And you said “Inside Out” was the most difficult thing you’ve ever worked on?

    It was. Mainly because of the enormity of the possibilities — It was incredibly daunting.

    Can you talk about what you’re working on next?

    Yes — Driving home!

    “Inside Out” is in theaters now.

  • What Happened to Disney’s ‘Tomorrowland’ at the Box Office?

    george clooney in tomorrowlandWe’re at a weird place in Hollywood history, one where an original idea, executed by some of the industry’s most successful writers and directors, and starring an A-list leading man, is considered an almost foolish risk — especially in a summer season marked by blockbuster sequels that are considered safe by comparison. So it is with “Tomorrowland,” Disney’s big question mark of a Memorial Day weekend movie.

    It was actually easier to predict how the reboot of a 33-year-old horror franchise (“Poltergeist“) would open this weekend, or the sequel to a franchise whose last installment came out 30 years ago (“Mad Max: Fury Road“) would open last weekend, than to guess how “Tomorrowland” would do. Indeed, predictions for “Fury Road” and “Poltergeist” (which opened this weekend with an estimated $23.0 million) were almost exactly on target. “Tomorrowland,” however, opened on the low end of expectations, with an estimated $32.2 million through Sunday and a likely $40.7 million for the four-day holiday.

    But maybe, instead of being surprised that pundits overestimated “Tomorrowland’s” prospects, we should be surprised that the film did as well as it did. With its mysterious, futuristic sci-fi premise, “Tomorrowland” faced a number of marketing challenges, and it’s not clear that Disney handled them all successfully. Indeed, the studio may have dropped the ball a couple of times. In hindsight, though, the film’s rollout offers several lessons. Among them:

    Secrecy is not always a good idea. You could think of this as a lemons-into-lemonade marketing approach. The premise of “Tomorrowland” is hard to explain in a sentence or a 30-second ad because of the story’s complex mythology, so hiding it behind intrigue could have been a smart move. More likely, it’s because secrecy has been standard operating procedure for co-screenwriter Damon Lindelof, from his days running TV’s “Lost” to “Prometheus” and “Star Trek Into Darkness” (even though those films were extensions of well-known movie franchises). Either way, viewers may have been drawn in to see what all the mystery was about. But it also may have put off viewers who weren’t sufficiently intrigued and would rather spend their hard-earned ticket dollars on a known premise, or those who saw the title and dismissed the film as yet another Disney movie based on a Disneyland attraction.

    George Clooney is not a box office draw. Yes, he’s the king of Hollywood, but he doesn’t sell tickets in proportion to people’s fascination with him as a celebrity gossip figure. His biggest hits were 14 and 15 years ago (“Ocean’s Eleven” and “The Perfect Storm”). If you don’t count his supporting role in Sandra Bullock’s “Gravity,” he hasn’t had a movie open above $30 million since “Ocean’s Thirteen” eight years ago. (That’s also his last movie, other than “Gravity,” to gross more than $100 million in North America.) Then again, that makes the $32.2 million premiere of “Tomorrowland” all the more impressive — especially since Clooney is all but absent from the film for the first hour. Plus, as a charismatic actor, he seems to appeal equally to men and women, which is borne out by Disney exit-polling that shows an almost even split between male and female ticketbuyers for “Tomorrowland.”

    Tougher-than-expected competition. Not only did “Tomorrowland” have to compete against “Poltergeist,” but it also had some very strong recent releases to contend with. Both”Pitch Perfect 2″ and “Mad Max: Fury Road” opened very well last weekend, with “PP2″ far outstripping expectations. Both held up strongly this weekend, too, with”PP2” close on “Tomorrowland”‘s heels (it earned an estimated $30.3 million) and “Fury Road” taking in an estimated $23.9 million. Along with “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” which crossed the $400 million threshold in domestic sales in just its fourth weekend of release, that’s a lot of well-known and well-liked properties for an enigma like “Tomorrowland” to go up against.

    Memorial Day openings are not a license to print money. Sure, last year, “X-Men: Days of Future Past” enjoyed a $110.6 million opening, but that was a well-reviewed sequel to a well-established franchise, not to mention a film whose casting brought together fan favorites from the older and newer installments. On the other hand, last Memorial Day also saw the dismal debut of “Blended,” the third romantic-comedy collaboration from Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. It premiered with just $17.7 million, about a third of what their “50 First Dates” had opened with a decade earlier. Then again, reviews for that movie were terrible, and even critic-ignoring Sandler fans smelled a stinker. The moral of the story: Not even a four-day summer-kickoff holiday weekend can save a poorly made movie.

    The “select” Thursday preview. Thursday-night openings have become a standard way for Hollywood to boost the weekend premiere tallies, offer an early gauge of viewer interest, and generate additional word-of-mouth from those moviegoers enthusiastic enough to want to be the first to see the film. The “Tomorrowland” Thursday screenings, however, were unusual in that, instead of taking place in all or most of the movie’s 3,972 venues, Disney held them in just 701 theaters. The studio referred to this as a “special limited engagement,” with the theaters supposedly limited to those palatial movie screens on which director Brad Bird’s spectacle could enjoy the best possible screening conditions. (This sort of selectivity reminded me of the scene in “This Is Spinal Tap,” where the band’s manager is asked whether the fact that the group is playing smaller venues on its current tour means the musicians are less popular, and he spins, “No, it just means their appeal is becoming more selective.”)

    Yes, there could be some fanboy-servicing involved in just screening the movie in theaters where its visuals will look best (again, to get the movie’s biggest potential fans a chance to generate the best possible word-of-mouth). And there could also be some obfuscation on Disney’s part; the theater count was so small that box-office observers couldn’t fairly compare it’s Thursday-night take of $725,000 to the Thursday debuts of blockbusters that opened on four or five times as many screens. Then again, “Tomorrowland” could have earned an extra $2 or $3 million if it had played on all screens available to it on Thursday night. Did the studio not want to spend the money to launch a full Thursday premiere, or was it just worried that the numbers wouldn’t be that impressive? It didn’t help word-of-mouth much. The movie earned a B grade at Cinemascore, which indicates a less-than-enthusiastic set of recommendations from early viewers.

    “Tomorrowland” has been in the making for at least five years. That would seem to be plenty of time for a studio that’s as good at marketing as Disney is to come up with a foolproof strategy. But these days, nothing is foolproof there unless it has the names Marvel or Pixar or “Star Wars” attached. Anything beyond that comfort zone, apparently, is a steep challenge.
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  • ‘Tomorrowland’ Family Review: 5 Things Every Parent Needs to Know

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    “Tomorrowland” is Disney‘s new sci-fi adventure starring George Clooney and Britt Robertson. Like the land it’s named after in the Disney theme parks, the movie is a tribute to the future and how special individuals who are engineers, makers, inventors (or “imagineers” as Disney dubs them) make a difference not just in the present but in the future as well. Although director Brad Bird has been praised for his ability to shoot action sequences and handle the spectacular future landscapes, the movie is generating mixed reviews, so it’s not a universally praised release. The movie does feature some frightening deaths and scenes of violence, but it also espouses so many positive messages, it’s hard to find fault with taking a curious kid to see it.

    Here are five questions to consider before heading out with your kids to see “Tomorrowland.”

    1. Do you love Disney?
    In case the title doesn’t make it obvious, “Tomorrowland” is definitely a Disney love-fest with references to many of the Studio’s properties, whether it’s literally one of the lands at Disneyland / Disney World to rides, like “It’s a Small World” to movies with Disney associations like the “Indiana Jones” and “Star Wars” franchises. The Carousel of Progress ride and its accompanying song, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” is also featured, since it was genuinely part of the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. There’s more too, but the point is that the movie is a big exercise in synergy for Disney, and that’s great for Disney fans but won’t work for parents who don’t care for consumerism or the legendary Studio’s theme parks.

    2. How easily does your kid get scared?
    There isn’t a lot of violence at the beginning of the movie, but once the creepy robot soldiers get involved, there are several shooting sprees that are particularly scary, because the futuristic guns dematerialize people, leaving only a pile of dust (similar to the deaths in the far more terrifying “War of the Worlds”). Kids need to be old enough to be prepared for the kind of violence that leaves various passersby and a few prominent characters dead.

    3. How much questionable content is there?
    Besides the violence, the movie is fairly devoid of language (just a “piss” here and a “What the ___” or “Son of a …” that trails away there), and it’s definitely free of sex. However, as some critics have pointed out, the love Frank feels for Athena is completely appropriate — in the flashbacks — but Frank is no longer an 11 or 12 year old but is in fact George Clooney (Athena is an AI), their relationship may skirt the edge of creepy for some viewers. But most kids may not pick up on that, and really Athena isn’t even human. Still, we had to mention it.

    4. Who will enjoy the movie most?
    The ideal audience is older elementary-aged kids, tweens, and young teens who love Disney, sci-fi adventures, and the themes of innovation and futurism. Budding engineers and makers will particularly dig the “Dreamers need to stick together” message. Although little kids will be dazzled by the spectacle of the visuals, they may be frightened by the unexpected intensity of the violence.

    5. What are critics saying about “Tomorrowland”?
    The Disney adventure gets mixed reviews, with a (rotten) 54 percent at Rotten Tomatoes and a mixed score of 60 at Metacritic. Amy Nicholson of The Village Voice raves: “Bird layers on plenty of dazzle… But his heart is what keeps the story motoring and the ending is perfectly engineered, including a coda that encourages all of us to try harder. ” Ty Burr of The Boston Globe summed up his mixed feelings as “The thing barely makes a lick of sense. Rapturous on a scene-by-scene basis and nearly incoherent when taken as a whole, the movie is idealistic and deranged, inspirational and very, very conflicted.” Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wasn’t impressed: “Disney’s gimmick of naming movies for its theme-park attractions crashes and burns in ‘Tomorrowland,’ a here-and-now caper that will confuse children, bore adults and offend anyone who’s ever taken a science class.”

    “Tomorrowland” is in theaters now.tomorrowland review

  • Box Office: 14 Huge Memorial Day Weekend Flops (and Hits)

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    Memorial Day Weekend tends to be one of Hollywood’s most lucrative runs at the box office. But sometimes, the frame delivers a dud or three. (We’re looking at you, “Super Mario Bros.“)

    As George Clooney’s “Tomorrowland” and the remake of “Poltergeist” hit theaters this weekend, here’s a look at those films that either opened big or flopped over the long holiday.box office memorial day flops

  • Damon Lindelof Reveals How ‘Tomorrowland’ Is a Lot Like Hogwarts

    Damon Lindelof at New York Comic-ConLOST” and the “Star Trek” reboot, Lindelof’s latest venture teams him with director Brad Bird (who can’t write Pixar’s “The Incredibles 2″ fast enough) in their long awaited sci-fi adventure “Tomorrowland.”

    “Tomorrowland” functions as one of those movies that doesn’t quite fit into any one genre. There is of course sci-fi, but mixed in are adventure, action, drama, comedy, fantasy — it’s as if Lindelof and Bird threw a little bit of everything into a bowl, mixed it together, poured out the contents, baked it for two years and are now ready to serve it to audiences this weekend.

    During our conversation with Lindelof, we talk about how this movie came to fruition, where the pins came from, dealing with time travel (again), how they got George Clooney to do a summer movie (his last true summer movie was eight years ago in “Ocean’s Thirteen”), and which scene absolutely needs to be seen in IMAX theaters.

    Moviefone: Since there are so many genres this movie can fit in, how did you pitch this to Disney?

    Damon Lindelof: Interestingly enough, as opposed to me saying, “I want a meeting with you guys, I have a pitch for you,” it developed much more organically. I was having lunch with Sean Bailey who is the president of production at Disney and he asked me, “What do you think a Disney movie is? Because obviously we have Marvel,” and this was before they bought Lucasfilm. I said, “Listen, I’ll be honest with you, when I first heard there was going to be a “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, I thought it was the dumbest idea I’d ever heard and then I saw the trailer and it works because the ride feels familiar and you can do whatever story you want. There are no characters on that ride, just as long as there’s a dog with keys in its teeth at some point, I feel like you’ve kind of earned the title.

    So, that’s when you started looking inside the park for ideas?

    Right, so I would be looking inside the parks for great ideas and I said, “If there was a movie called ‘Tomorrowland,’ I don’t know what it’s about, but I’d go and see that.” He said, “What would it be?” and I said, “For me, the jumping off point would be a ‘Close Encounters’ approach, which is, somebody sees something they weren’t supposed to see and they come to feel this means something and need to know more about it and go in pursuit of it.” Obviously, “Close Encounters” is a one-of-a-kind, iconic film, but there’s no bad guy. The U.S. government is sort of a pseudo-bad guy, but with our movie, you probably need there to be a bad guy. I said to him “‘Tomorrowland’ is Hogwarts, and the magicians don’t want you to find it, but in this case, instead of magicians, you’ve got geniuses.”

    Interesting. So what happened after that? When did the now ubiquitous pins come in to play?

    The next time I met with them, I think I had the idea of the pins, and I was pitching a much more international approach, like there would be five main characters who lived all over the world and each one of them came in contact with one of the pins and it was about them coming together.

    You mentioned “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and that’s obviously a huge franchise now that is driven by action and comedy. When you started putting the pieces together for “Tomorrowland,” did it automatically become a sci-fi movie, given your background?

    I think the title “Tomorrowland” seems to conjure a sci-fi premise, but I kind of went out of my way to make this an adventure movie that used science fiction language. I said, “If this movie is going to work, probably fifteen percent of it is going to take place in Tomorrowland. I think again, following that “Close Encounters” approach, we’re going to show you a lot less aliens. I wanted the majority of the movie to take place in the world that we know with evidence and hints of Tomorrowland and then ultimately end up there. You’re always looking for ways to make the sci-fi accessible.

    Did you ever consider going 3D with this movie, or was it always 2D?

    We always wanted the movie to be in 2D. Brad kind of felt that if we were going to do it in 3D, we would need to shoot it in 3D because he didn’t want to do the conversion, and if we’re shooting it in 3D, we’re probably going to be distracted from making it the best it can be, so we made the decision early on to keep it 2D.

    Let’s switch to the actors. Britt Robertson really nails the role of Casey, and I know that a few other actresses were considered for that role before her. What was it about Britt that made her the perfect actress for the part?

    I think there are many aspects to it when you’re casting for a part like this, where you have to essentially have to carry the movie for an hour by yourself before George Clooney even steps onto the screen and then it becomes about chemistry. I think for Britt, she had to be able to sell wonder and optimism in the face of pessimism. Once we had Raffey [Cassidy], who we cast before Britt, it was about flying Raffey over from the UK and putting them in a room together. We had narrowed it down to a couple of actresses for Casey, and Britt just crushed it with her. They just had great chemistry together. Then it just became undeniable.

    Considering George doesn’t do summer movies, why do you think he was interested in the role of Frank?

    I think George totally embodies everything that the movie is about, and he’s had great range in that he’s both directed and performed intense dramatic roles but also comedic roles, and you kind of need someone who can do both of those things. More importantly, George as a guy, both in the movies he chooses to make as an actor and George Clooney the individual, is very idealistic. He identifies wrongs in society and says, “I’m not going to look at Darfur and say, ‘Boy what a mess.’ I’m going to look at Darfur and I’m going to get satellites to beam images of the tragedy and then goes to meet with world leaders to try and work on a resolution.” So if we’re going to George and ask him to be in a summer movie, which he doesn’t do, there needs to be some kind of merit to it.

    So he jumped at the substance more than the sizzle?

    We’re trying to capture the idealism of the movie, which some might perceive as a little corny, like, “Oh, there’s a message to it,” he just totally jumped on it on that level. Look, we all love superhero movies and sequels and I’m going to go pay to see every single one of those movies this summer, but if you’re going to do something original, albeit based on an existing Disney property, it should have some value and I think that’s what he wanted to do.

    Movie fans in particular like to nit-pick time travel. I noticed you sort of side-stepped the whole Doc Brown, “Back to the Future” thing about not interacting with your future self and so on. How did that develop to keep the future and the past and the present all separate?

    After season five of “LOST” and the “Star Trek” reboot, I was like, “I’m never doing time travel again, ever, ever, ever.” Whether you do paradox or non-paradox, you just can’t win. So with “Tomorrowland,” it was like, what if it wasn’t time travel but it was a machine they built that showed them and told them this is your definite future, but then the whole movie becomes about, well… is it? I was always catalyzed by this Arabian fable called “Appointment in Samarra,” which is all about cheating death and, in many ways, is a time travel story. Basically, if you were told about the moment you were going to die and you knew about it in advance, could you avoid it? I always thought that would be a really cool story to tell in the context of a science fiction premise where you built a machine that did that.

    Finally, there are some really big scenes in this movie that stand out. Which scene do you think movie fans absolutely must see on the big screen, particularly in IMAX?

    I think Casey’s extended pin sequence. She rides her bike out and touches the pin and takes this four minute ride through Tomorrowland that Brad designed as one contiguous shot without any cuts. I feel like that, in itself, is sort of worth the price of admission because we’re putting this on an IMAX screen, we’re not using IMAX cameras to shoot it, so we should probably justify it. As a fanboy and a moviegoer, I’d probably say, “Ok, I’m glad I saw it.”

    “Tomorrowland” opens nationwide Friday, May 22nd.
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  • Behold, the Secrets of the Amazing New ‘Tomorrowland’ Site

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    Yesterday, Disney unleashed a new trailer for their mystery adventure “Tomorrowland,” one that seems to have (finally) gotten people excited, while also quietly launching an amazingly immersive new website that goes along with the film, TakeMeToTomorrowland.com. While it’s impressive in any format, it’s really special if you look at it on your phone, where you’re encouraged to tour the sprawling futuristic utopia using the smart phone’s motion sensors. (I was playing around with this on the train and really weirded out the woman behind me, since I had to physically turn around to get a glimpse of the gleaming city.) But giving the site a thorough exploration will yield unexplored treasures that we can exclusively reveal.

    The site is full of interactive games, narration explaining the landscape and the ability to snap a selfie with a sci-fi backdrop (apparently selfies are still big in the future), but there are also bits of video, like the ones below. The first is a tour of the 1964 World’s Fair, held in Queens, that has a particular connection to “Tomorrowland” — that’s where George Clooney‘s character, Frank Walker, is first transported to the otherworldly realm. (What’s really great this too is that it’s narrated by “Tomorrowland” director/co-writer Brad Bird!) The other two videos are even more intriguing, charting the history of the mysterious group known as Plus Ultra, a Randian supergroup formed by Jules Verne, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and other luminaries (it would later include people like Walt Disney), bent on the “cultivation of mankind’s greatest resource: imagination.” The second video shows the design and implementation of Tomorrowland, something they were going to unleash on the rest of the world… but of course that never happened.

    In the two Plus Ultra shorts, the animation is slick and evocative and I can’t help but wonder if Bird, who directed “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” didn’t call in a few favors from his friends at Pixar? Hmmm… Watch the videos below and be sure to check out the rest of TakeMeToTomorrowland.com. It’s a trip.
    britt robertson in disney's tomorrowland