Disney and Pixar Announce New Plans

Plus a new project for the director of Anchorman, a new scary movie, and more

The top story this week is that Disney and Pixar have announced their next three projects after this summer's Brave and next summer's prequel Monsters University. The first project is now titled The Good Dinosaur and will be directed by Up co-director Bob Peterson. It takes place in an alternate reality where no asteroid ever hit Earth and dinosaurs never went extinct. It is unspecified as to whether or not human beings exist in this alternate reality or if it will only be populated by prehistoric creatures. The current release date is May 30, 2014. Pete Docter (Up, Monsters, Inc.) is the director of the still untitled film that is described as:
"Pixar takes audiences on incredible journeys into extraordinary worlds: from the darkest depths of the ocean to the top of the tepui mountains in South America; from the fictional metropolis of Monstropolis to a futuristic fantasy of outer space. From director Pete Docter (Up, Monsters, Inc.) and producer Jonas Rivera (Up), the inventive new film will take you to a place that everyone knows, but no one has ever seen: the world inside the human mind."
The release date for this film has been moved back from May 30, 2014 (now the release date for The Good Dinosaur) to June 19, 2015. Finally, the directing/producing team behind Toy Story 3 are heading up a project that delves into the holiday of Dia de los Muertos. No release date has been set for that film but it is safe to assume that since this is the first anybody has heard of this project that the film won't be released until at least 2015 or 2016. Since Pixar has yet to come out with two films in a year and they are on a current pace of one a year every year since 2006, I'd expect a final release date to be placed sometime in the summer of 2016.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek, the first two Transformer films, Mission Impossible III, Cowboys & Aliens) have been hired to write the sequel to the unreleased The Amazing Spider-Man. All that is known about the premise is that the origin story of Peter Parker as Spider-Man is continued, suggesting that it will not be finished in this summer's film. On top of this, Alex Kurtzman's directorial debut (from a script by Kurtzman and Orci and Jody Lambert) is set to be released this June called People Like Us starring Elizabeth Banks and Chris Pine. Also, the duo is involved in production on Ender's Game and Now You See Me, both set to be released by Summit Entertainment in 2013. They are also producing and scripting the sequel to the 2009 reboot of Star Trek and All You Need Is Kill starring Tom Cruise and directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity). All this is in addition to their TV pilots set up at FOX, CBS, and ABC and their ongoing TV projects "Fringe" and "Hawaii Five-O."

Director/producer Adam McKay (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Step Brothers) is in negotiations to take control of a planned remake of the 1974 comedy Uptown Saturday Night which starred Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier (who also directed). The studio (Warner Bros.) hopes that Denzel Washington and Will Smith will accept the starring roles of a guy and his buddy who go on a desperate search to find the first guy's stolen wallet which contains a winning lottery ticket. Filming will most likely commence in 2013 sometime because of McKay's commitment to the recently announced Anchorman sequel.

Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone, The Hunger Games, X-Men: First Class) is really on the verge of being typecast in a role that she is rapidly outgrowing. She has just accepted a role to star in The Glass Castle, an adaptation of the memoir by Jeannette Walls about growing up in a West Virginia mining town as the daughter of idealistic, nomadic parents. Another role as a poor girl growing up in an impoverished community. She needs to take different roles every once and a while. Besides, the script will be adapted by Marni Nixon who is best known for Fright Night and being the co-writer of I Am Number Four. Since neither of those were praised for writing, this one looks like it will be a dud too. It seems like the production will wait for Lawrence's schedule to open up since she is committed to the X-Men: First Class sequel as well as the three planned sequels for The Hunger Games franchise.

Taylor Swift now fancies herself an actress (Valentine's Day, The Lorax). I'm not sure she's much of an actress, but then again, I'm not sure she's much of a singer either. Or a looker for that matter. Regardless of my negative opinions on Swift, she is in negotiations to take one of the three lead roles in Girls Like Us. In novel form, the subtitle is "Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation." It is safe to assume that Girls Like Us will be a three-way biopic about the three female musicians and the effects that their music had on the generation that they lived in. It doesn't sound particularly good to me. Especially now that Swift is being considered for the role of Joni Mitchell. Not that I have a particular fondness for Joni Mitchell's music, I just don't have a fondness for Swift as an actress, singer, or piece of eye candy. No news on what other actresses (or maybe just singers) are up for the roles of Carole King and Carly Simon but I, for one, am hoping that the producers look for talent on Broadway rather than on the music scene.

Scary Movie 5 is actually going to happen. Those of us that follow movie news closely know that this has been around since 2009, but now it has been announced that Dimension Films is moving ahead with the plans. The director will be Malcolm Lee (Undercover Brother, Soul Men, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins). No word yet on what movies will be spoofed, but David Zucker - the director of the last two Scary Movies - has expressed interest in parodying the franchises of Paranormal Activity and Final Destination as well as Child's Play (the Chucky movie). Series regulars Anna Faris, Anthony Anderson, and Regina Hall have all expressed interest in returning for another sequel but no official casting decisions have been made yet. A tentative release date of January 11, 2013 has been set.

Sony Pictures and Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment have acquired the film rights to an upcoming 2013 young adult book called Boy Nobody. It will probably end up being a starring vehicle for Smith's son Jaden. The author of the book has compared it to a teenage Jason Bourne, it's the story of a "brainwashed teenage assassin who starts to regain his emotions." So it is Jason Bourne, for teens. Isn't this plagiarism? Besides, I'm not really interested in seeing Jaden Smith in many more starring roles for a while. And if you have to, why continue to show off his athleticism rather than his acting?

Production has officially started on The Smurfs 2, already set to be released on July 31, 2013. Almost everyone of the live action and animated cast are signed to return for the sequel, which probably means it was pretty fun to make. I only wish it was as much fun to watch. New cast members will be Brendan Gleeson (as NPH's uncle), JB Smoothe, and Christina Ricci, who will voice Vexy, "a new, evil version of Smurfette." Katy Perry will still be returning to voice the non-evil Smurfette though.