(Welcome to Out of the Disney Vault, where we explore the unsung gems and forgotten disasters currently streaming on Disney+.)
Though not the first thing that comes to mind when you think Disney, there is a long history of horror and horror-adjacent productions in the Walt Disney Company. Many of them resulted in failed attempts at doing something new, due to parents complaining about Disney being a family-friendly company and the horror movies damaging that image.
That being said, many of these horror movies inspired millions of kids to become horror fans, due to the unique blending of the genre and Disney’s traditional family-friendly approach. While the promotional push leading to the launch of Disney+ focused heavily on the big franchises like Marvel and Star Wars, as well as their animated classics, there is a healthy offering of horror movies in the streaming service. This week, we’ll take a look at the last original horror-themed movie made by Disney: Don’t Look Under the Bed.
Read More »
Posted on Friday, January 17th, 2020 by Fred Topel
Giancarlo Esposito was on a Television Critics Association panel for season 5 of Better Call Saul. But after the panel, Esposito spoke with journalists further and /Film was able to ask him about his role on The Mandalorian, which is returning for a second season on Disney+.
Esposito plays Moff Gideon in the show set between the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy. Find out what Esposito had to say about his role and some anecdotes about season one.
Read More »
Owen Dennis’s animated anthology series Infinity Train stretches as infinite as its possibilities. A new world—or restored—order infuses the adventure aboard the Infinity Train after the events of season one. The rollie spherical droid One-One (Jeremy Crutchley as Glad-One, Dennis as the Sad-One) has reclaimed his rightful place as the Conductor.
As it went in Book One, humans who suffered a trauma like its first protagonist and are in need of life lessons are taken aboard a cryptic train of limitless cars, each housing surreal worlds and inhabitants. Humans are tattooed with a glowing number on their palm that can go up or down. Passengers must do good deeds or mature in emotional understandings to lower their score to zero and activate their exit door so they may return to the normal world as a healed or reformed person. Now that One-One has his Conductor mantle back, he has prepared his human charges instruction videos with more clear-cut guidelines, but his guide isn’t quite clear-cut for some individuals in the ecosystem. The natural order must be that the train denizens must help the human passengers, but one denizen is an individual disruptor of the idea.
Read More »
Rise of the Resistance opens today in Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Yesterday we were invited to a special sneak preview of the new e-ticket attraction before it opened to the public. After the jump, you can watch our vlog from the press preview, which also includes a sneak preview of some new snack and drink options coming to Batuu west.
Read More »
Say goodbye to 20th Century Fox (and Fox Searchlight, too). Disney, which purchased Fox last year, is killing off the Fox name and rebranding the respective companies as 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures. Insiders suspect the move is an attempt to distance the studios from Fox News, which was not part of Disney’s acquisition.
Read More »
(Infinity and Beyond is a bi-weekly series in which Josh Spiegel looks back at the history and making of every feature in Pixar’s filmography. In today’s column, he takes a look at the 1998 film A Bug’s Life.)
As the story goes, documented in the David Price book The Pixar Touch (and mentioned in an early teaser for the 2008 sci-fi film WALL-E), a year or so before the release of Toy Story, there was a lunch. A number of the creatives involved in the making of the first fully computer-animated feature — John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Joe Ranft, and Andrew Stanton, among others — got together to figure out what they would do if the best-case scenario occurred. What if Toy Story became a hit? What would they do next?
A number of important ideas — including that of WALL-E, but we have a long way to go before we get to that story — were pitched during that lunch. One that held a certain appeal was a story all about a colony of ants. The lead would be a nerdy type whose unorthodox manner put him at odds with the rest of his colony, even though he would manage to woo and romance the ant princess and eventually live happily ever after. The idea got the green-light and Pixar proceeded as planned.
But the studio, when they released A Bug’s Life in November of 1998, would seem as if they were a month late with this concept. Because to the untrained eye, it sure looked like another computer-animated film, and another animation studio, beat them to the punch.
Read More »
Production is underway on the second season of The Mandalorian, slated to arrive on Disney+ this Fall. Executive producer Jon Favreau is hard at work on the show he created for Lucasfilm, and he had a very special visitor recently that he couldn’t help but show fans.
Star Wars creator George Lucas stopped by the set of The Mandalorian, and Jon Favreau arranged for a very special introduction with the show’s most beloved character: Baby Yoda. So if you want to see George Lucas holding Baby Yoda, just keep reading. Read More »
Posted on Friday, January 17th, 2020 by Fred Topel
AMC presented a Better Call Saul season five panel for the Television Critics Association yesterday. During the panel, creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould revealed that AMC has renewed them for a sixth season, which will be their final season. Throughout the panel, they elaborated more on the end of the Breaking Bad spinoff.
Season five sees Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) fully embrace his Saul Goodman persona, who becomes Walter White’s money laundering lawyer. Better Call Saul returns February 23 on AMC.
Read More »
Posted on Friday, January 17th, 2020 by Fred Topel
AMC Networks announced the premiere date for The Walking Dead: World Beyond, along with premiere dates for its returning shows in their Television Critics Associations session. Better Call Saul season 5, Ride with Norman Reedus and the new series Dispatches from Elsewhere were part of those announcements.
Read More »
Cool Posts From Around the Web:
Posted on Friday, January 17th, 2020 by Fred Topel
/Film has been covering the issue of Apu on The Simpsons since Hank Azaria addressed Hari Kondabolu’s documentary The Problem with Apu two years ago. The issue gained more attention when The Simpsons produced an episode, “No Good Read Goes Unpunished”, that specifically addressed it.
Voice actor Hank Azaria told Stephen Colbert he would be willing to step aside as the voice, but subsequent to that, Al Jean and Matt Groening have preferred not to talk about Apu in interviews with /Film. After a panel for the final season of his IFC series Brockmire, Azaria himself answered /Film’s question about Apu.
Read More »
