Hypable was in attendance at Disney’s D23 Expo Friday evening, where the studio presented their upcoming animated film slate.
The beginning of the 3-hour event (scheduled for 2 in the program guide) offered a great collage of upcoming movies, including Beauty and the Beast (we saw Emma Watson in Belle’s dress!), Pirates of the Caribbean, BFG, Alice in Wonderland 2, Jungle Book, and more.
Though we saw lots of live-action scenes in the sizzle reel, Friday evening’s presentation was dedicated to Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar. Disney chairman Alan Horn kicked off the event by saying they’re “hard at work” on Frozen 2, and that they know fans are looking forward to seeing the next part of the insanely popular film.
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ sizzle reel showed everyone the best of Disney’s past films, which had us all dripping in nostalgia as we saw some of the studio’s incredible work.
Zootopia was the first film presented. Ginny Goodwin, the voice of Bunny Hopps, took the stage and spoke about her character.
We saw a few clips from the film, including a scene where Goodwin’s bunny meets actor Jason Bateman’s sly fox named Nick Wilde. It looked like an adorable film and will play deeply into the individual characteristics of each animal.
Disney also announced a new character Gazelle in Zootopia who will be played by Shakira. The singer is singing an original song titled “Try Everything” in the movie. We’ve included a picture of what her character will look like below (via Disney):
Up next, Disney announced a new film they’re calling a definitive version of Jack and the Beanstalk, which will be titled Gigantic. The film will take place in Spain, during the age of discovery.
Gigantic will be unlike any Jack and the Beanstalk tale we’ve seen before. The story will include many giants who are a part of different cultures up in the clouds. One that he meets is a young girl (but still a giant) named Eema, who thinks Jack is a toy.
Frozen’s songwriters Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez will be providing the songs for Gigantic. To prove their excitement for the project the song-writing duo performed one of the songs from the movie. In it, Eema sing about things she can do with her “little man.”
With the Lopez’s on board, Disney is obviously hoping to get some of the Frozen magic into Gigantic, and we imagine they’ll do a great job creating another (sadly) unforgettable song.
Moana was up next, which is a new Disney film that takes place in the South Pacific over 2000 years ago. The locals were known as some of the best navigators of the sea in the world, but for some reason history says they stopped navigating. Why? No one knows, but Moana seeks to explore that idea. The character of Moana wants to go on a long voyage, but her father tries to keep her from going past the island’s reef. See the official logo below:
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will voice the mythical god Maui, who has many powers and Moana’s grandmother tells her great tales of Maui’s power. Dwayne, who appeared at the presentation, said it’s always been a dream of his to be in the Disney family, and he also said, “[This movie is] my heritage. I’m proudly half-Samoan, half-black. To tell a story inspired by the South Pacific is a great honor.”
Moana won’t be alone in her adventures, as she’ll have an adorable pet pig named Pua. She’ll also have an annoying rooster named Hei Hei. She ends up having to get some help from Dwayne Johnson’s character to battle monsters on her magical voyage.
The Rock seemingly got emotional when a clip screened for the audience where it shows that the Pacific Ocean is essentially a character in itself, and can convey emotion similar to other inanimate objects in previous Disney films. The Rock had good reason to cry — it was a very moving scene and Disney did a great job of making the ocean a character.
Moana will be hitting theaters on November 23, 2016.
Pixar’s upcoming movies
Inside Out’s Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera took the stage first to introduce Josh Cooley, who spoke about Inside Out’s upcoming short film, “Riley’s First Date,” which will be released on DVD/Blu-ray this October. They showed it to everyone at D23 and we loved what we saw. The short was pretty short by short film standards, but it had just as much humor as the feature-length film did.
Up next was Pixar’s upcoming movie The Good Dinosaur. Lasseter said, “it’s gone through an amazing transformation, it’s so beautiful and so emotional.” That beauty drew gasps from the crowd as they showed near photo-realistic CGI shots from the movie. As nature is its own character in the film, they wanted it to look as realistic as possible, and they certainly succeeded.
The story, in its essence, is about a boy and his dog — only the boy is the dinosaur, named Arlo, and the dog is a human child (named Spot, no less). Footage was played of Arlo and Spot bonding over their missing family.
The big name voices in this film include Sam Elliott as Butch, Anna Paquin as Ramsey, and AJ Buckley as Nash. These characters are a family of T-Rexes who team up with Arlo and Spot.
Pixar’s next film might be their most anticipated one: Finding Dory. John Lasseter spoke about how much Ellen DeGeneres had been campaigning for the sequel to Finding Nemo to be made on her talk show, and they revealed that the main plot will be finding Dory’s family. The decision to search for her family stems from her sudden realization that she does have a family out there.
Diane Keaton will play Dory’s mom, whose name is Jenny, and actor Eugene Levy will play her dad, Charlie. Marlin and Nemo will still be a big part of the sequel.
We were then presented a great clip in which Dory is sleep-swimming while Nemo and his father try to keep her under control. She decides she needs to find her family, and Nemo and Marlin join in for the trip. They’ll be headed to the marine research center in Monterey, California, where Dory believes her family is.
Ellen DeGeneres herself took to the stage to a standing ovation, as did actors Ed O’Neill and Ty Burrell, who will voice new characters (a seven-legged Octopus and a Beluga whale, respectively). Ed O’Neill’s new character is pictured above with Dory in the marine center.
Next up: The film Pixar is making based on the Day of the Dead. It’s called Coco, and the team behind Toy Story 3 are working on the interesting looking movie. The movie follows Miguel, who is a young boy in Mexico and Pixar’s first hispanic lead character. While director Lee Unkrich didn’t go too much into the plot, he did hint that the story would be about learning from the dead.
The first footage of Coco showed skeletons dancing in vibrant colored costumes, and then their masks humorously fell off at the end. This looks like a very unique film, and we’re excited to hear that the team behind the incredibly popular Toy Story 3 is helming this project as well.
Speaking of Toy Story, Lasseter revealed to the audience that Pixar only make sequels when they “find a story as good or better than the original.” They believe they’ve found that in Toy Story 4. In part due to the incredibly well-received Toy Story 3, we have faith in their ability to release amazing animated stories.
Lasseter seemed very aware that people are hesitant about another Toy Story because of how well the trilogy ended. He revealed that he and Andrew Stanton dreamed up Toy Story 4 privately — they didn’t go to the Disney execs until they were sure they had a good idea. Eventually they came up with one they were confident lived up to the original trilogy. As we reported Friday morning, the story will be a romance between Woody and Bo Peep. Lasseter revealed at the animation presentation that Woody and Buzz will “head out” to find Bo.
Army toys fell from the ceiling to do a dance for us on stage, and then other Toy Story characters joined them as confetti fell from above. The little celebration, which also included a live performance of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman on piano, wrapped up Disney’s three-hour event.