Sci-Fi Storm

The news last month that stars Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde along with director Joseph Kasinski were in for a third installment of Tron, gave hope even after several years had already passed since Tron: Legacy, but Disney said today that it never officially gave a green light for the project, and has in fact pulled it from the development slate.

No specific reasons were given, but given the relatively soft worldwide box office ($400 million against an approximately $180 million budget, not including marketing), and the subsequent failure of the animated Tron: Uprising, and with expected blockbusters from Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the next several years, Disney probably sees the slate pretty clogged with high budget features with likely better returns.

Update: There have been various reports that this was due to the poor opening of Tomorrowland, but there is no real reason they would be connected.

Last week Ben and Ray Lai, owners of Horizon Comics Productions, filed suit in the Federal Court of Massachusetts against Marvel and parent company Disney over claims that Marvel lifted the design of the Iron Man body armor designs from their own title, Radix.

The two allege that after they created Radix in 2001, they worked for a time for Marvel as artists, and that Radix materials had been distributed within Marvel. Then, in 2008 after the Lai brothers left Marvel, the first Iron Man movie came out, with a full mechanized body armor.

In the suit they say that “Marvel’s “Iron Man” comic book character first appeared in 1963. From that time until the first movie in the franchise was released, the comic typically depicted Iron Man wearing simple spandex-like attire and minimal armor.” But with the movie’s updated look and Marvel employees having access to the Radix designs, they believe their designs were lifted for the movies’ more modern high-tech armor.

However, it appears that their description of the “traditional” Iron Man armor isn’t quite accurate. Going all the way back to the first appearance of Iron Man in “Tales of Suspense #39”, we see him in full body armor…pretty clunky, and not unlike the armor Tony Stark built to escape his captors in the beginning of the 2008 movie. And through the years, although artistically you could probably mistake the depiction as being spandex, showing musculature, it was originally stylized full armor. And if you need other examples of full body armor with anatomical design, just do a Google image search for “George Clooney nipple suit” and witness the destruction of a franchise. 🙂

We’ll see what becomes of it. There is in fact a clear resemblance between a poster shot of Stark/Iron Man in a three point stance to a Radix promotional image…

This time we get to see glimpses of the plot – it seems that some group (Universal executives? 🙂 ) don’t want Britt Robertson and George Clooney to escape to Tomorrowland, which looks even more like the 50s/60s Disney-esque future city we thought we’d have by now…with a touch of steampunk to get between the worlds…

From Disney comes two-time Oscar® winner Brad Bird’s “Tomorrowland,” a riveting mystery adventure starring Academy Award® winner George Clooney. Bound by a shared destiny, former boy-genius Frank (Clooney), jaded by disillusionment, and Casey (Britt Robertson), a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity, embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space known only as “Tomorrowland.” What they must do there changes the world—and them—forever.

Featuring a screenplay by “Lost” writer and co-creator Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird, from a story by Lindelof & Bird & Jeff Jensen, “Tomorrowland” promises to take audiences on a thrill ride of nonstop adventures through new dimensions that have only been dreamed of.

The film also stars Hugh Laurie as brilliant scientist David Nix, Raffey Cassidy, Tim McGraw, Judy Greer, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key and Thomas Robinson.

“Tomorrowland” is produced by Damon Lindelof, Brad Bird and Jeffrey Chernov and directed by Brad Bird, with John Walker, Brigham Taylor, Jeff Jensen and Bernard Bellew serving as executive producers.

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Tron Legacy stars Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde, along with director Joseph Kasinski, will return for Tron 3.

It is unclear if the movie has been given a green light yet by Disney, but it does appear that they are aiming to start filming this Fall in Vancouver.

Tron Legacy showed an updated, higher resolution world of that introduced in Tron, the 1982 film that wasn’t a success financially but was cutting edge and became a iconic cult hit, often cited as an influence by other filmmakers. The second film picks up decades later, where Flynn (Jeff Bridges) has been missing for some time, and his son (Hedlund) heads into the system to find him…

Tron Legacy was more of a success, garnering $400 million worldwide, but development on a followup has been slow thus far.

That earthquake you felt wasn’t real…it was just a rumored-but-still-surprising deal being made in Hollywood.

Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, owned by Sony’s rival Disney, struck a deal on Monday for Spider-Man which will allow the character to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – basically all the Marvel movies not done by Sony or Fox thus far, which all exist within the same “universe”, allowing for the crossover of the characters. Kevin Feige, who has led the MCU juggernaut, will come on board as a producer for a new Spider-Man film alongside Amy Pascal, who helped shepherd the Spider-Man franchise for Sony.

Sony will likely want to re-launch the franchise for a third time with a new face. With the second round starring Andrew Garfield, the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 made a decent amount of money but was considered a disappointment given its very large budget.

In the meantime Marvel has wanted to include Spider-Man alongside the Avengers – Spidey is a member of the group in the comics after all. Word is that they’d like to include him at least in a cameo for Captain America: Civil War, and I can forsee a bigger role for the webslinger in the third Avengers team film.

In the meantime, Sony had already penciled in a July 28th, 2017 release date – which had already been planned by Marvel/Disney for Thor: Ragnarok. So Marvel/Disney has agreed to shift all of the Marvel films back, with Thor moving to November, taking Black Panther‘s slot, who moves back to Captain Marvel‘s slot, etc. All the relevant dates have been updated in our calendar.

Two cool casting announcements today…

First, Emma Watson has been set to star as Belle in Disney’s upcoming live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, about a self-educated girl that tries to escape the stereotypical female role in her village and the clawing local hunk only to be captured by a horrible beast who needs to learn about love. Emma seems perfect for the role, although she may need to grow out her hair after she cut it short post-Harry Potter…Beauty is just the latest in Disney’s live action re-imaginings of its most popular animated features, most recently with Maleficent and with Cinderella up next and The Jungle Book also in the pipeline. Production will likely begin later this year.

Across the Disney studio in the Marvel section, the Netflix 13-episode original series A.K.A. Jessica Jones has picked up their villain, Kilgrave, in the form of Doctor Who and Broadchurch star David Tennant. Kysten Ritter stars as the title character, a former superhero turned private eye, dealing with cases involving people with remarkable abilities in New York City. Kilgrave, a foe of Daredevil (which will also be a Netflix series, shown before A.K.A. Jessica Jones, but unclear if there will be a relation) who used Jones against him, returns to upend Jones’ world.

Having just returned from the Kingdom of the Mouse (and thus the reason for lack of updates), they finally announced today the guest lineup for the upcoming Star Wars Weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World. Aside from the previously announced returning host of all five weekends, James Arnold Taylor (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Mark Hamill, our friend Ashley Eckstein will return for all weekends to host “Behind The Force” show which provides a behind the scenes look, this year focusing on the upcoming Star Wars Rebels, and will feature a member of the voice cast each week. (Alas, we won’t be able to make it this year…)

The guest stars include (subject to change):

Weekend I: May 16-18

Ahmed Best: Jar Jar Binks (Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace; Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones; Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith; Star Wars: The Clone Wars)

Peter Mayhew: Chewbacca (Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith; Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope; Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back; Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi; Star Wars: The Clone Wars)

Vanessa Marshall: Hera Syndulla (Star Wars Rebels)

Weekend II: May 23-25

Warwick Davis: Wicket W. Warrick (Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi); Wald (Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace)

Jeremy Bulloch: Boba Fett (Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back; Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi); Capt. Jeremoch Colton (Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith)

Tiya Sircar: Sabine Wren (Star Wars Rebels)

Weekend III: May 30-June 1

Ray Park: Darth Maul (Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace)

John Ratzenberger: Major Bren Derlin (Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back)

Taylor Gray: Ezra Bridger (Star Wars Rebels)

Weekend IV: June 6-8

Mark Hamill: Luke Skywalker (Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope; Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back; Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi); Darth Bane (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) (Note: Mark will apparently not be signing autographs)

Ray Park: Darth Maul (Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace)

Billy Dee Williams: Lando Calrissian (Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back; Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi)

Taylor Gray: Ezra Bridger (Star Wars Rebels)

Weekend V: June 13-15

Dee Bradley Baker: Captain Rex/the Clones, Bossk and several additional characters (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)

Cat Taber: Padmé Amidala and several additional characters (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)

Tom Kane: Yoda, the series’ narrator and several additional characters (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)

Matt Lanter: Anakin Skywalker and several additional characters (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)

Steve Blum: Zeb Orrelios (Star Wars Rebels)

Just announced today, and I believe the first celebrity announcement aside from James Arnold Taylor returning as host, is a big one…for the first time ever, Star Wars‘ own Luke Skywalker will appear at Disney’s Hollywood Studios during Star Wars Weekends.

He will be there for one particular weekend – Weekend IV, which is June 6-8. He will take part in the daily “Legends of the Force” motorcade and “talk show”, and presumably (but not confirmed) he will be signing autographs at a few points during the day. If you’re hoping to snag an autograph, though, beware – Disney uses it’s FASTPASS system for celebrity autographs, giving them out just before the park opens for the day – and the lines can form very, very early in the morning for top guests…people reportedly lined up close to midnight for the next day for Billy Dee Williams last year.

Typically a shareholder meeting isn’t generally where you get exciting news, but Disney isn’t your typical company. At this afternoon’s meeting, they gave hints of many upcoming things. Top on the list on the movie front was a peek at the timeline for Star Wars Episode VII, which will take place 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, which is no accident – it’s just over 30 years since the release of Return of the Jedi, which means the actors from the original trilogy will be – wait for it – 30 years older. And given that Chairman Bob Iger said that there will be “very familiar faces returning,” I think we know what that means. He also said that there would be three new young leads, lending credence to past rumors. Principal photography is expected to start this May.

Also mentioned is that Disney/Pixar is working on two new sequels – Cars 3 and Incredibles 2, but gave no further details. In addition, a fifth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean is in development, but has not been given a green light on production.