This afternoon at the Disney Expo in Anaheim, California, the Walt Disney Studios unloaded as much information on new projects as they could, and seemingly in the face of the Toronto International Film Festival, which generally promotes real films.
We already mentioned plans for ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean 4,’ now officially titled, “Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” yes, starring Johnny Depp (they should have subtitled it “College Fund For The Kids, Plus Padding”) and Guilllermo del Toro’s new production label created to make new animated films called, Double Dare You.
But there’s more. Remember Jason Segel’s Muppet Movie that was announced in March, 2008, but seemed to have lost traction? Well, it’s actually happening, still written by Segel and now called, “The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made!” Evidently there will be song and dance numbers — Segel is a pretty accomplished musician and wrote songs for “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” as well as penning songs for Russell Brand’s “Get Him To The Greek” — as Muppets came onstage and did a whole spiel. However, Segel wasn’t actually there and MTV says the Disney folks did not specify whether this version and Segel’s were one and the same.
Let’s just say for argument’s sake they are, because we don’t want to remake this graphic. Other Disney announcements that we [read: me] don’t care about — though some Playlist writers surely do for some reason — Andrew Stanton’s “John Carter of Mars” will be the first in a trilogy (franchise alert!), the Robert Zemeckis “Yellow Submarine” 3D film was, errr, re-confirmed (how is that a story? it was already in the trades) and fans of John Travolta can sleep easy now that plans for “Wild Hogs 2: Bachelor Ride” have been officially announced (we wish we were just making that up, but sadly, we’re not).
Lastly, Tim Burton announced that his next project will be a stop-motion adaptation of “Frankenweenie,” the short film he made prior to his finest hour ever in, “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (he still hasn’t topped that thing). And by announcing that as his next project he probably means he’ll be overseeing it and taking credit for it ala, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” which was really a Henry Selick film, because doesn’t Burton have “Dark Shadows” or a Halloween party to attend to next?
