The first teaser trailer for Disney’s “Pete’s Dragon” has been released and in it we get our fist glimpse of Elliot in flight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlUkOid3TYc&feature=youtu.be
“Pete’s Dragon” is a reimagining of Disney’s cherished family film starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Oakes Fegley and Robert Redford, which flies into U.S. theaters on August 12, 2016.
In the 10 years since John Lasseter and Ed Catmull took over the reins of what is now Walt Disney Animation Studios, Disney has enjoyed incredible creative and box office success with such films as Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, and, of course, Frozen. The spring 2016 issue of Disney twenty-three looks at the creative talents—from writers and directors to producers and animators—who have driven this wave of superior filmmaking that has resulted in two Academy Awards® for Best Animated Feature for the studio.
Disney twenty-three, available exclusively to D23 Gold Members, includes exclusive interviews with Lasseter and Catmull, as well as the teams behind Walt Disney Animation Studios’ run of hits, discussing the secrets behind their work and how a Disney animated film goes from concept to creation. Plus, Disney twenty-three unveils rarely seen visual development art created for the Studio’s most recent films. There are also advance looks at the upcoming animated films Zootopia—including a revealing one-on-one with star Ginnifer Goodwin—and Moana.
In addition to the animation celebration, the issue offers a sneak peek of Captain America: Civil War, featuring exclusive interviews with star Chris Evans and one of the film’s directors, Joe Russo. And director Jon Favreau details the incredible work behind crafting the stunning live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book, including how he snared Bill Murray to voice Baloo the bear.
Also included in the spring issue of Disney twenty-three:
Disney twenty-three, which is delivered directly to fans’ doorsteps, is offered exclusively to D23 Gold and Gold Family Members as a benefit of their membership. The latest issue will begin arriving in late February.
Leading up to the Academy awards, Disney fans get to vote about what they care about in the inaugural Oh My Disney Awards!
This awards season, fan voices will be heard on the moments they find funny, romantic, and memorable.
Voting opened Wednesday, February 17 and will end on Friday, February 26, culminating the announcement of the winners on Awards Day, Saturday, February 27.
Be sure to go cast your votes!
When Joe Rhode further elaborated on the new nighttime version of Kilimanjaro Safaris debuting this spring, we all kind of wondered what exactly this meant:
Starting in spring, guests will get to experience the African savanna at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in a whole new light: amid the orange glow of the setting sun. During the nighttime adventure, guests can extend their travels on the safaris into the evening.
How would Disney achieve a “eternal glow of sunset”, even into later evening hours? Well, last night we accidentally figured this out.
While at a media event for Zootopia, our private chartered bus drove through the backstage area at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Not only did we drive right past the astonishing construction site for Pandora: The World of AVATAR, but we then came upon a bright series of lights in the otherwise pitch-black backstage area. The glow was coming from a series of custom-shaped, very large LED screens that clearly had raised up over the back of the Savannah, providing the backdrop of a bright orange sunset. Now clearly, these screens will give guests the illusion that the sun is still setting, but it will also take additional lights throughout the experience to properly light areas for both guests and animals alike.
Of course, we were not allowed to take any pictures since we were backstage, but we did solve one of the greatest mysteries of this new project. While we still can only confirm that the African Wild Dogs will be out for the nighttime safaris, we still have no idea what other species of animals will be joining them. Hopefully we will hear more on this exciting addition soon.
In the realm of more concrete details revealed last night, we did get to see one of the new entertainment acts for the “Discovery Island Carnivale”, which will entertain guests nightly once the nighttime Kilimajaro Safaris and Rivers of Light debut this spring.
Stay tuned for more info on all of the nighttime offerings for Animal Kingdom as they become available.
In a rather sudden announcement, Disney has stated that they will have Toy Story Midway Mania closed on March 15th, 2016 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Disney is stating the closure has to do with work related to the addition of a third ride track which they now confirm will open Summer 2016. Any guests with FastPass booked for the attraction on March 15th will get a FastPass for a different attraction on that day.
It seems that the release of “Deadpool” shocked naysayers and even Fox itself. “Deadpool” pulled in $150 million during the first 4 days of release.
“Deadpool” was the movie that Fox did not want to touch. It was in development limbo for about 10 years. Due to the overall positive response from a leaked test footage trailer, Fox gave the greenlight to have “Deadpool” finally go into production. Fox still didn’t have faith in “Deadpool” and set the movies budget to just $58 million. The budget was even cut by $7 million prior to release and that is why Deadpool has this problem of always forgetting his ammo in the movie.
So why did this movie succeed?
Hopefully Fox, Warner Brothers and even Disney will learn the most important lesson. Stay faithful to the character. Which also means origin stories and costumes. Although Deadpool’s origin wasn’t exactly the comic book origin. 🙂
Before the movie even came out, Fox greenlight the sequel. If you stay at the end for the after credits scene, Deadpool reveals he will be back and joining him will be another fan favorite, Cable. He mentions possible actors that may play Cable are Mel Gibson, Dolph Lundgren, and Keira Knightley. I wouldn’t hold my breath for any of those joining the cast though. After seeing this movie, I do have confidence they will cast the perfect actor for Cable.
OK, what about Wolverine? This week we learned that the next Wolverine movie may actually get an R Rating. Hugh Jackman has done an excellent job portraying Wolverine but we still haven’t seen Wolverine in all of his savage glory and that may be coming. The below image from the New York Toy Fair shows an anticipated Rated R rating for “Wolverine 3”.
Congratulations to everyone behind “Deadpool”. It’s success is much deserved.
The last few years in the Marvel Universe, Steve Rogers/Captain America didn’t exactly have the best of times. The Super Soldier Serum that gave Steve Rogers his strength and made him Captain America was removed from his body resulting in him aging rapidly and no longer able to be the iconic Cap that we all know and love. Steve’s partner, Sam Wilson/The Falcon, took over the mantle of Captain America and continued to fight for justice and the American way.
One thing is certain in comics. Most popular characters that either die or lose their powers always find a way to come back and Steve Rogers is no exception. Steve Rogers will make his return as Cap in the upcoming comic book series: “Steve Rogers: Captain America”.
Cap’s new costume, to me, looks like a hybrid of Cap’s original costume and the one that we will see in “Captain America: Civil War”. The shield is very similar to the very first shield that Cap used in the comics although this one comes apart and can be used as a weapon(see below).
Steve Rogers: Captain America will be available on Free Comic Book Day, May 7th. To make things even nicer, it will be available for free at participating comic book stores. Check your local comic book store to see if they are participating.
Source: Marvel
Check out this amazing looking promotional art for “Captain America: Civil War”. Prepare for an epic battle. My only question is “Where is Spider-Man?” Come on Marvel and Sony. Get your act together and lets get a look at the web crawler in full costume already!
The following pieces are going to be a bit Daredevil heavy. But, that’s OK because Daredevil is coming back and he is bringing fan favorites such as The Punisher and Elektra to the seires for what can only be some of the most epic battles we have eve seen on the series.
This trailer highlights The Punisher/ Frank Castle and you can just tell that they are heading to a show off because they dont agree with each others methods. The Punisher has always been a judge, jury an executioner kind of hero. Daredevil is a lawyer by day and still believes in the judicial system but when the system sometimes fails, that’s when Daredevil goes to work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5_A0Wx0jU4
Source: Netflix
I loved “Daredevil” on Netflix. One of the things that I loved is it stayed so true to the character and tone of the comic. What could have made it even better for me was if we saw Daredevil in his classic all red costume. Turns out that was originally one of the designs (above image) that could have been used nut they went with a more modern design (below).
The above design is also faithful to the comics but when most people think of Daredevil they think of him in his red suit. The image above makes me think that somewhere Batman and Ant-Man had a baby. Deadpool’s costume was spot on in his movie and fans and the audience loved it. Dont mess with classic costumes like Spider-Man, Superman, Batman or Daredevil. Stay faithful to the source and “they will come”.
Marvel has released no promo images Season Two of “Daredevil”. They all look great and just makes March 18th seem so far away. Check them out!
Source: Comic Book Movie
I could be wrong but it looks like there have been some changes from Cap’s costume in ‘Avengers: Age Of Ultron”. Looks like more red was used on the sides and the belt covers the distracting middle red stripe. Maybe. No matter what, this looks really cool!
Sideshow and Hot Toys are very excited to present the new sixth scale figure of the main character from the film – Captain America Steve Rogers!
The movie-accurate Captain America Collectible Figure is specially crafted based on the image of Chris Evans as Captain America/Steve Rogers in Captain America: Civil War. It features a helmeted head sculpt with two interchangeable lower faces, a newly painted un-helmeted head sculpt of Steve Rogers, a newly developed body that naturally portrays Captain America’s muscularly toned body, a completely new Captain America suit, a metal circular shield, a broken Crossbones helmet, and a specially designed Captain America: Civil War themed figure stand!
“Captain America” is available for preorder through Sideshow Collectibles for a price of $224.99 and will ship during the second quarter of 2016.
Source: Sideshow Collectibles
That’s it for this time!
As rumored, a new Star Wars fireworks show is on its way to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but so are some other new entertainment offerings.
The Force will officially awaken at the park April 4, with the debut of the brand new Star Wars stage show, “Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away.” The new show will play out iconic moments from the film saga on Center Stage (in front of the Chinese Theater), and will feature appearances from Star Wars characters like Kylo Ren, Chewbacca, Darth Vader and Darth Maul.
Also starting April 4, Captain Phasma will begin leading a platoon of First Order stormtroopers on a march from Star Wars Launch Bay to Center Stage multiple times each day.
And starting this summer, there will be a new Star Wars fireworks show, “Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular.” This new nightly show is the next generation of the current Star Wars-inspired fireworks show. The show will combine fireworks, pyrotechnics, special effects and video projections that will turn the nearby Chinese Theater and other buildings into the twin suns of Tatooine, a field of battle droids, the trench of the Death Star, Starkiller Base and other Star Wars destinations. The show will be punctuated with a tower of fire and spotlight beams, creating massive lightsabers in the sky. This new show will reportedly be the most elaborate fireworks display to take place in the history of Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
BY CONNER PURZYCKI
It was a rainy evening at the Disneyland Resort, so only the indoor seating area was being used. The space formerly held the ordering and pick-up area and some seating for the River Belle Terrace counter service restaurant that is now a thing of the past (but should come back in a few years).
I was able to get a reservation about an hour before and we were seated fairly quickly. The restaurant’s interior was barely even touched for the conversion to table service. All the stanchions were still in place forming the lines to the counters and display cases for bottled drinks and sides were still in place. The condiment stations just had covers over them.
None of the appetizers seemed appealing to us, so we just ordered our entrees. I got the ‘Fried Chicken Sandwich’ which was very good. It had a lot of different flavors mixed nicely, and gave a good kick thanks to the jalapenos. The sandwich was of a good size, so much so that I couldn’t finish it.
For a side you automatically get a small portion of baked beans (which were good), and you get to choose your second side. I went with the “seasoned” tater bites, which weren’t really seasoned and honestly were just ordinary baked tater tots. It seemed really odd to be served tater tots at a table service restaurant (or at Disney in general). We also tried the ‘Pulled Pork Sandwich’ which was very good. The meat was very tender and had a nice smoky flavor to it.
For desert we ordered the ‘Fried Cheesecake’, which I’m still deciding if I liked or not. It tasted like warm cheesecake, interesting nonetheless and should get points for being something you can’t order otherwise at the resort. We also had the ‘Butterscotch Pudding’ which was our personal favorite. For fans of Butterbeer in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, this pudding edges really close to the ‘Butterbeer Clotted Cream’ which is served at the Three Broomsticks, so obviously, it is highly recommended.
The service was good. There were an abundance of wait staff for the small seating area, and we were checked on constantly. The restaurant still was very clearly set-up to be a counter service location and will likely return to that someday, but for now it’s a pretty good little BBQ joint.
I visited Disney’s Hollywood Studios over the weekend to see what was new and exciting, so let’s take a look at some photos from my trip, shall we?
Welcome to Hollywood!
New 5 pin booster set
For Valentine’s Day, there’s a special Lady and the Tramp cupcake at the park
It was cute and delicious…
I hadn’t eaten at Studio Catering Co. in years, but this sandwich was really, really good
Pulled beef brisket with horseradish sauce, surprisingly good
I got carried away with the cupcake
It was good…
Finding Dory billboard up in the Backlot
A green army man was hiding in a FastPass machine…
Stormtroopers on patrol
The wait times for Kylo Ren at Launch Bay haven’t been awful
Pretty much the same as Chewbacca all of the time
A Rey costume and BB-8 now on display in Launch Bay
Work continues on the new awnings and covered seating areas at Sunset Ranch Market
Signage remains up for Sunset Showcase, even though it’s closed right now (except for the hard-ticket Villains event)
New open edition Studios pins
The Moonliner ceramic figure is now in stock at most locations that carry such pieces
This display is in Celebrity 5 & 10
Dinosaur Gertie was actually open and had quite the line…
Work continues on the new meet and greet locations for Olaf, Mickey, and Minnie which were announced this week
PAvement work by Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple continues
No visible progress on the former meet and greets in the Backlot
As we await Disney’s announcement of an opening date for the Rivers of Light show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the following photo is making the rounds on twitter today:
They’re doing lighting tests for #RiversofLight tonight. pic.twitter.com/cCT4kv0Z2L
— Braedon Godin (@braedon_godin) February 18, 2016
In the photo you can see some of the vessels that will be in the show out on the water, as well as a lighting test taking place. We can’t be too far from the debut of this show now.
