Normally a week doesn’t go by where we don’t get some intersting Disney news, but the hot topic involving Mickey and Co. these days is Disneyland.
ABC’s ordering of a TV pilot loosely based on a Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride is an interesting one. According to Variety “plotline involves a 19th century New York doctor and his family who are given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to relocate to a frontier mining town run by a powerful but mysterious tycoon. Soon, they quickly realize that not everything in Big Thunder is as it seems.”
Doesn’t sound as exciting as the ride, which happens to be my favorite on all the Disneyland/Disney World attractions. Producers know the title will attract people, but the show will have to be interesting and exciting to keep them around (if it even makes it to the network at all).
On the movie front, Disney’s decision to change the title of their Dec. 2014 Sci-Fi release previously known as “1952” to “Tomorrowland” is making more and more people believe that the Brad Bird-directed film will be about Walt Disney’s creation of Disneyland. Bird is also producing and co-writing the script with Damon Lindelof. So far very little is know about the super-secret project, except that George Clooney will star. With a December release you know this one is already being planned as an awards contender.
In the meantime, we only have to wait until this December to see Tom Hanks play Walt Disney in “Saving Mr. Banks”. This movie, we know, is the story of the making of “Mary Poppins”. Hanks isn’t part of this awards season due to the good but underwhelming “Cloud Atlas”. Expect that to change next year.