There is an Up!
Mysterious Title Will in Fact be Pixar's Movie for 2009
Disney/Pixar's 2009 movie will in fact be Up, a CGI flick directed by Pete Docter (Monsters Inc). Bob Peterson is writing the script.
(Source: www.variety.com)
When I dismissed reports that Disney/Pixar's 2009 movie would be an unknown flick with the enigmatic title of Up, I did so secure in the knowledge that the Emeryville Boys were bringing Toy Story 3 to mondoplexes that year. Okay, so I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again.
Now, it appears that information has changed and I am tucking into a plate of yummy crow. Toy Story 3 is moving to the summer of 2010 in order to compete directly with none other than DreamWorks Animation's Shrek 4, and Up has been confirmed as the animation powerhouse's 2009 offering. That means Andrew Stanton's WALL-E (a flick that's giving me more of a buzz the more I hear about it) is moving to 2008 to take on DreamWorks Animation's Madagascar: The Crate Escape. Anybody want to bet on that match-up?
So what's up with Up? There's not a lot of information on this movie out right now, only that it's directed by Pete Docter (the guy who directed 2001's Monsters Inc.) from a script by Pixar veteran Bob Peterson, who helped write the screenplay for Finding Nemo and was the story supervisor on Monsters Inc. Peterson has also signed on as co-director of Up.
The story details for Up are a little sketchy, but here they are. Like 90% of all Pixar movies, this is based on an original idea: the story follows a 70-year-old man who teams up with a wilderness ranger to combat assorted wild animals and villains.
This flick seems to be aiming for a slightly older audience than previous Pixar offerings though, to be fair, 2004's The Incredibles did get a PG rating from the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings ghouls.
I'm also breathlessly waiting for the increasingly random and controversial types at the MPAA think of some of the plot elements in WALL-E: the blubbery humans, the environmental issues, etc.
So, whatever else comes to pass, Up is confirmed as Pixar's offering for 2009 and will enter theatres on June 12th of that year. I will let you know what's happening with this flick as more details become available.
Fun Fact: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson have a lot on their plate, because they have also been tapped to write the screenplay for the long-awaited adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars. That flick is either staying with Pixar, with Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton helming, or moving to Robert Zemeckis' new motion capture studio, which is also owned by the Mouse House.
