Category — Walt Disney Pictures

Depending on how you define animation, The Walt Disney Company actually has two major animated films coming out this holiday season. “The Princess and The Frog”, Walt Disney Animation Studios return to hand drawn animation is opening December 11th, but before that Disney will enter a new era of animation with its first 3D Motion Picture capture movie “A Christmas Carol”, which will hit theaters on November 8th.

A few minutes of footage were screened at Cannes this week and we got our first look as Jim Carrey as Scrooge (click above for larger image). You’ll also be able to experience an early look at the film as the ‘Christmas Carol Train Tour’ makes 40 stops around the country beginning this weekend. Click below the cut for the full schedule.

Actor Jim Carrey, actress Robin Wright Penn and actor Colin Firth attend Walt Disney’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ Photo Call and Press Conference at the Carlton Hotel during the 62nd Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2009 in Cannes, France. (Photo Courtesy Disney, Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com ©Imagemovers Digital, LLC. )

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Race to Witch Mountain found its target at the box office this weekend bringing in the number one spot for Walt Disney Pictures with $25 million. This was also the second largest opening for a film with Dwayne Johnson at the lead (Scorpion King did $36 million). There’s little new competition next weekend, so Disney might strike gold a second time.

Race to Witch Mountain opens today and sadly, it’s getting mixed reviews. Good enough to kill a few hours before summer gets started, but otherwise boring and pointless.

A.O. Scott from the NY Times, whose reviews I seem to find a lot to agree with, says the movie “is modest and diverting, rough and bland, with some good (if not quite Bette Davis caliber) actors and so-so special effects.”

Eric Snider at Cinematical is not so kind. “Are you getting the impression that the film consists entirely of random, pointless details?” I am now. “The whole thing’s loud and flat, like a radio tuned to static and turned up all the way.”

RottenTomatoes.com has it pegged at 45 out of 100. So your mileage may vary.

If you do see Dwayne Johnson and Race To Witch Mountain please do return and leave your thoughts below.

I’d like everyone to welcome Mike to The Disney Blog as guest author. Mike comes to us from The Pixar Blog, where this review may seem a little out of place.

Walt Disney’s second animated feature production Pinocchio arrives tomorrow on 2-Disc Platinum Edition DVD and Blu-ray Disc, in celebration of its 70th anniversary. I got an advance copy of the Blu-ray this morning and, well, I’m thrilled. Pinocchio is one of Disney’s most enduring classics, and a personal favorite for me, so it’s good to see it receive such a high-quality home video release. (The only thing better would have been a special theatrical re-release.)

Everything about the Pinocchio: 70th Anniversary Platinum Edition, from the (very shiny!) packaging to the included extras, demonstrates the work Disney put into preparing it. As for the film itself —hate to use a cliché— it’s never looked and sounded better.

Overview (Region 1)

DVD

The DVD version presents the newly digitally restored film in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (that’s full screen) with a new sound mix in Dolby Digital 5.1, specially enhanced for home theaters. Included are 5.1 French and Spanish language tracks.

Disc One includes trivia and sing-along bonus features, as well as audio commentary by film historian Leonard Maltin and others. Contained on Disc Two is a documentary entitled No Strings Attached: The Making of Pinocchio that follows the production of the movie, two never-before-seen deleted scenes and an alternate ending from the Disney Archives, a featurette about Walt Disney’s ‘sweatbox’ artistic review process, live action reference footage, art galleries, a collection of deleted songs, and games. (Whoa! Have to take a breath!)

Blu-ray Disc

The Blu-ray version offers everything found on the DVD (like all the bonus features mentioned above) plus more, spread across two discs. Pinocchio is presented in stunning 1080p high definition video (1.33:1 aspect ratio) with up to 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio (48 kHz/24-bit). French and Spanish tracks are in 7.1 DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and 5.1 Dolby Digital respectively. This marks the first time that Pinocchio can be enjoyed in hi-def.

Bonus features are in 1080p, 1080i, and 480i resolutions, with audio in Dolby Digital 2.0. Included are several Blu-ray exclusive functions such as Cine-Explore and the Disney BD-Live Network.

Additionally, bundled in the Blu-ray package is a supplementary third disc, a DVD of the movie, for playing in regular, old-fashioned DVD players. Specs are the same as for the 2-disc DVD version. The inclusion of a standard DVD with Blu-ray titles is set to become the norm for Disney, as it encourages consumers to buy the Blu-ray version even if they don’t currently own a Blu-ray player. Quite smart if you plan on upgrading, but beware that there’s no extras on the DVD —they’re all on the two Blu-ray discs.

(Note: Blu-ray.com, among others, has an excellent review geared toward enthusiasts of the format.)

And now, for your enjoyment, three short previews of some of the bonus material after the cut:

Mike is the “very nerdy” writer of The Pixar Blog, a blog dedicated to news about Pixar. He resides near Toronto.

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The New York Times profiles former wrestler “The Rock” turned movie star Dwayne Johnson. With “Race to Witch Mountain” hitting theaters this Friday, the box office results may be the final test for Johnson’s ability to draw large enough audiences to catapult him into the A-List.

Mr. Johnson said he hopes that “Race to Witch Mountain,” a project Mr. Aviv said was written entirely around him, will bridge his family and action fan bases. His character is a world-weary Las Vegas cab driver who reluctantly agrees to help the two towheads find their spaceship, which has been hidden in a top-secret mountain facility by the United States government.

The role called for hard-core car chases, a close brush with a freight train and lots of hand-to-hand combat with machine-gun-packing bad guys — with Mr. Johnson doing many of his own stunts because it is so difficult to find stuntmen of his size.

What do you think? Will you going to see RtWM because of Dwayne Johnson? Because it’s a relaunch of a series from your childhood? Other reasons? Or is this one you plan to skip?

Hollywood’s El Capitan Theatre will play host the world premiere of Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain on March 11th. The movie, which Disney hope will relaunch the old franchise, opens nationwide on the 13th. If you’re in the LA area you should definitely catch it at the El Capitan, one of the last movie palaces. Plus you’ll get a chance to see props and costumes and the spaceship from the movie in a special exhibit.

Full details below the cut on a special poster made just the event:

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Ain’t It Cool News has some new details outlining the plot of the Tron sequel. It goes without saying there are spoilers aplenty, so don’t click through unless you want to be spoiled.

It sounds like they are still trying to decide on the title for the movie. It’s not likely to be TR2N or Tron 2.0. Whatever they call it, at least in online circles TR2N is shaping up to be Disney’s most anticipated future release and it doesn’t even open until 2011.

Previously: TR2N.

020909 Update: The deal is now official.

Nikki Finke reported it first, then the NY Times confirmed the news… Dreamworks SKG  (the film and tv, but not the animation, division) has ended negotiations to partner with Universal Studios and instead is heading just a bit further down the concrete banks of the LA river to Walt Disney Studios.

Plenty of rumors are swirling. One claims Disney would sell its Miramax division (I see that as unlikely, since it is Disney’s best bet at Oscar Gold each year). Another is that David Geffen has always wanted to move to Disney, but that Spielberg felt more comfortable at Universal since that’s where his Amblin Production offices are. That seems more likely.

If anything this bodes well for the rumored sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Disney would have to team with Amblin again to make the sequel. Having Steven Spielberg on your team should make that a snap.

If this comes to fruition, one has to wonder how it will affect Bob Iger’s decision to keep the number of films it releases each year down to about a dozen. Would that number go up or would Dreamworks canablize other projects within the Disney studio?