An early review of Enchanted calls the movie "a step in the right direction" for Disney. And is Tim Burton making a new stop-motion movie for the Mouse House?

Ain't It Cool News recently posted an early review of the Walt Disney Company's Enchanted, the hybrid live-action/animated movie coming out November 21st.

This review was by a reader with the online handle Bento Ramone, who identifies himself as a "First Year film student at the North Carolina School of the Arts."

He quickly talks about how he saw "a special advanced screening of Disney's Enchanted hosted by Dick Cook, the Chairman of Walt Disney Pictures."

"I was raised on Disney story-telling," Bento admits. "Snow White was there for our grandparents, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Winnie the Pooh and countless other classics were there for our parents, and I was born into the Renaissance of The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast."

Enchanted: A Step in the Right Direction for Disney

"Enchanted bridges the gap to a new generation . . . I do not want to deal with spoilers, because I usually try to avoid them myself. I will say that their are some things that work beautifully in this movie, and some things that just do not," Bento says.

"But the overall result is a huge success for Disney . . . If you go into this with the same heart and the same mind that you would have gone in to see something like Cinderella or Snow White, you will find yourself enjoying at least something in this picture. I'll just call this a step in the right direction for Disney."

Pretty groovy stuff, and in line with what I've been hearing about this flick as well. Enchanted isn't a slam-dunk yet, but it's getting there. And it's nice to see the Mouse House getting back to its roots, albeit with a post-Shrek smirk and wink.

A New Stop-Motion Project for Disney? And Who is the Director?

However, it was in the post-screening Q&A when the fun stuff kicked into gear. The audience asked Cook about Disney's future plans, and the Mouse House chairman said that "Disney will have a little of everything on its upcoming slate. A new 2-D piece called The Princess and the Frog is in the works."

However, the Disney chairman seemed to have let something slip about an upcoming stop-motion project.

"When prodded, Cook hesitated to answer," Bento writes. "He tried to hint his way out of the question, but . . . what he was hinting at was crystal clear and garnered quite a round of applause. He said that the project would be helmed by the creative mastermind behind the majority of stop-motion pictures in the last decade."

Gee, which creative mastermind is well known for working with Disney, and is behind "the majority" of stop motion pictures in the last ten years?

"Our Dean looked at him slyly," Bento writes, "and asked, 'This guy has never worked with Danny Elfman before has he?'"

Rumour Time: Is Tim Burton Remaking Frankenweenie as a Feature Film?

AICN's Moriarty added some gasoline to the blaze when he mentioned a note he had received in his inbox this morning.

"It's a feature length remake of his short Frankenweenie," claimed an anonymous contact. "All stop motion."

The anonymous contact hung up on Moriarty when he tried to get more info, but this seems fairly clear. According to rumour, Tim Burton is making a feature-length adaptation of his 1984 short, about a boy who brings his beloved bull terrier back from the dead.

The original Frankenweenie was deemed a little too creepy for the Powers That Be who ran the Mouse House back in the early 1980's (quelle surprise), but was later placed as an extra in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas DVD.

Once again, THIS A RUMOUR! Even though there seem to be some solid grounding to this story, let's just treat this news with a large pile of NACl until the Mouse House, or Burton himself, confirms what's going on. But still: pretty freakin' cool. Your thoughts?