Strike Up the Orchestra
At 9:10 on the morning of September 24, good old-fashioned showmanship was alive and well as the curtain went up on stage at the Kodak Theater at the Hollywood and Highland retail-tainment center, the same Kodak Theater that plays host each year to the Academy Awards.
As the curtain rose, the near-capacity crowd could see the entire stage filled with a symphony orchestra and chorus. “Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice rang out. “The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra under the direction of John Mauceri.”
For the next 20 minutes, former Hollywood Bowl Orchestra principal conductor, maestro Mauceri—flown in from the University of North Carolina—led the orchestra and chorus in a medley of themes from 70 years of live-action and animated films from the Walt Disney Studios as scenes from the films played on a screen above them.
Afterwards, a trim, ebullient Disney Studios chairman, Dick Cook, came on stage, thanked Mauceri and the orchestra, and led the audience, already vigorously cheering, in another round of applause. He then got down to business, and it soon became clear what the reason for this—even by Hollywood standards—full-on, all-stops-out production was.
Cook told the audience—comprising national and international members of the media, executives from nearly every facet of the entertainment industry, and buyers from the world’s largest retail chains, Wal•Mart among them—that for the past five years both theatrical ticket sales and sales of DVDs have remained relatively flat.
He got a big laugh when he told a story about sharing with Disney Studios president, Oren Aviv, a piece of advice he’d received from a woman while out shopping, “Why don’t you make more hit movies?”
All kidding aside, it was clear that Cook and his team realize there may not be a whole lot they can do to increase the size of the movie and home entertainment pie, but there is something they can do to ensure that Disney gets a larger slice of it.
More Stars Than the Heavens
In Hollywood, if you want people to sit up and take notice of what you’ve got to say, you trot out the celebrities. Nothing impresses more than the chance to get up close, and occasionally personal, with the stars, and Mickey and studio boss Cook did not disappoint.
Beginning with the lead voice actor (George Lopez) of Disney’s soon to be released Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Cook began a day-long series of informal conversations with an impressive array of Hollywood talent. Everyone, from actors Adam Sandler, Sandra Bullock, Jim Carrey, Nicholas Cage, John Travolta, Robin Williams, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy to producer/executives John Lasseter, Bob Zemeckis, and Jerry Bruckheimer, sat down to talk with Cook.
Comedian Adam Sandler in the Christmas 2008 Walt Disney Pictures release
Bedtime Stories.
Image copyright Disney©. All rights reserved.
No one seemed to be having more fun than Cook himself. He even got off a few sharp one-liners about his predecessor, now DreamWorks Animation, Inc. CEO Jeffery Katzenberg.
At one point after more than a dozen of Cook’s slightly stagy conversations, actor/comedian Tim Allen jokingly chided him, “Jeez Dick, what’s the matter? Couldn’t you get Jimmy Kimmel?”
Kimmel’s Disney-ABC late night talk show is taped directly across the street from the Kodak Theater.
Many of the stars did more than talk. Before coming on stage for his interview, George Lopez provided the voice of Papi, one of the dog stars from Beverly Hills Chihuahua, as Cook proceeded to interview the pint-sized pooch.
Adam Sandler appeared on screen in a short, satirical take-off on his upcoming Disney holiday release Bedtime Stories. Playing himself, Sandler could be seen reading a bed-time story to a nightgown and cap clad Cook, who snuggled in bed with a Mickey plush doll as “Uncle Adam” read him a story—that included the comedian getting a part of Disneyland’s income.
Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen, and John Travolta appeared on stage seated on Harleys as their Wild Hogs costar William H. Macy scooted on stage then off, to the sounds of machinery and scenery crashing in the wings. Undaunted, Macy rejoined the group as Cook told the quartet and the audience that the studio had decided to go ahead with Wild Hogs II.
“Of course we don’t have a script yet, and none of the contracts have been signed,” Cook told his guests.
“We didn’t have a script on the first one, did we, fellas?” Travolta asked his colleagues.
“I’m still waitin’ to get paid for the first one,” Allen responded.
As it turns out, there is a script; however, only Macy has read it. For the record, he likes his part.
Jim Carrey and Robin Williams were every bit as manic and inappropriate as they’ve ever been. Let’s just say it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the head of a major motion picture studio have his leg humped by a movie star in front of an audience of thousands. You guess which one did it.
Travolta, who seems to have found a home away from home with the Disney Studio, joined Williams to talk about the fall 2009 release of their new film Old Dogs. The film is about a pair of San Francisco business partners about to realize the dream of a lifetime. They’re on their way to selling the business they’ve spent thirty years building for a small fortune. Of course, on the way to the sale, something goes horribly and comically wrong.
In addition to Wild Hogs II and Old Dogs, Travolta can also be heard as the voice of Bolt in Disney’s upcoming Thanksgiving 2008 CG-animated film Bolt, about a canine actor who believes he’s really a super, wonder dog.
I Could Tell You, but Disney Would Have to Kill Me
There was a lot more to the Walt Disney Studios Showcase Event than film clips, trailers, and star chat. Following the day’s first bio-break, everyone returning to the auditorium was given a pair of Disney Digital 3D glasses to don. Once seated, the audience was treated to a full screening of the nearly completed Bolt, which, remarkably for a film so close to release, still lacked basic animation for several pivotal scenes.
Bolt, Mittens and Rhino from the Disney/Pixar film Bolt.
Image coypright© Disney/Pixar. All rights reserved.
The studio requested that Bolt not be reviewed until fully complete, and that reviews be held until the day of release. That said, I can tell you that the “talk of the walk” from the Kodak Theater to the Hollywood and Highland ballroom, where lunch was served, was every bit as much about wondering who voiced Mittens the cat as it was about stars John Travolta and Miley Cyrus.
Prior to screening Bolt, John Lasseter, creative head of Disney/Pixar Animation Studios, joined Disney Studio head Dick Cook on the sofa for an animated conversation, or, rather, a conversation about animation.
Repeating much of what he told the press at a Disney/Pixar media event last April, Lasseter recapped the two studios’ release schedule through 2012, reminding all those present that nearly all the animated films on the Mouse’s schedule would be in Disney Digital 3D.
Lasseter did make some news by officially unveiling one of the worst kept secrets at the studio. In anticipation of Cars 2, the sequel to Pixar’s 2006 CG-animated hit Cars, the studio will soon be releasing a series of animated shorts called…wait for it…Cars Toons, featuring Mater the tow truck, again voiced by Larry the Cable Guy.
Cars Toons will debut on the Disney Channel. Cars 2 release has been moved up from 2012 to 2011.
If you’re wondering why a film, even though very successful, that came in fourth behind Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille in all time box office receipts is rushing to the head of the sequels line, just take a look inside your local Toys R Us.
Cars merchandise sales are stronger today than they were during the film’s 19 weeks in release.
Absent from the days events was filmmaker Tim Burton, who, Cook announced, will be producing and directing for Walt Disney Pictures a new CG-motion capture (MoCap) version of Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp, another actor who seems to have set up a semi permanent shop at Disney, as the Mad Hater.
Christmas Yet to Come
Speaking of MoCap, even though it won’t hit theatres until December 2009, the Walt Disney Pictures presentation of Bob Zemekis’ production of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol was a big part of the afternoon portion of the Walt Disney Studios Showcase Event.
In addition to taking over the Kodak Theater and Hollywood and Highland ballroom, the Mouse also turned an empty retail space in the retail-tainment center into a gallery of artwork, costumes, and technical displays from its 19th century holiday epic, complete with fully costumed Dickensian Christmas Carolers roasting outside the gallery in the 90 degree weather.
Back inside the air-conditioned Kodak Theater, Zemeckis and Jim Carrey, the film’s star, talked about completing filming in “the Volume,” a specialty studio used by Zemeckis for MoCap filmmaking.
Several of the actors from A Christmas Carol will have multiple roles. None more than Carrey who, thanks to CG-animation and manipulation, will portray the full range of Dickens’ famous parsimonious penny-pincher’s life, as well as being on screen with himself as the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.
Strike Up the Band
Following a boisterously exuberant session with Disney Studios partner Jerry Bruckheimer, accompanied by frequent Bruckheimer star Nicholas Cage—at which the two moguls confirmed there will be a Pirates of the Caribbean 4 with Johnny Depp and a National Treasure 3 with Cage—Cook seemed to sense the audience’s energy level ebbing with the late afternoon hour.
“Well I guess we’ve had just about everything today,” a smiling Cook told the audience, “except the USC Trojans marching band.”
At that very moment, the doors at the back of the theater swung open and in marched the USC Trojans marching band playing, of all things, The William Tell Overture!
For those in the audience too young to remember when home entertainment was a big box full of glowing tubes—called radio, and later television—whenever performed, Gioachino Rossini’s rousing anthem is positively guaranteed to do one thing: bring millions of Baby Boomers to their feet shouting, “Hi-Ho Silver and away!” which I…er, they did as the curtain went up on the stage of the Kodak Theater, revealing the iconic, but real, figure of a masked man mounted on beautiful snow-white stallion.
The banner above the horse and rider read, Walt Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer present The Lone Ranger.
As the USC band marched out and the masked man and Silver departed, Cook returned to the stage and said production on the Lone Ranger was moving forward, but that casting wasn’t complete.
“I wonder who we can get to play Tonto?” Cook asked no one in particular. As he spoke, who should come sauntering on stage, wearing a feather in his dreadlocks and holding a mask to his face but…Captain Jack Sparrow!
Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp himself in full character, along with the addition of the feather and mask, which he handed to Cook.
Yes, friends, Captain Jack is Tonto!
The toys are back in town under the direction of Lee Unkrich.
Image copyright© Disney/Pixar. All rights reserved.
