Disney bringing back Monsters and Muppets

Monsters and Muppets are coming back to a theater near you. At a press briefing at The Walt Disney Co. headquarters in Burbank on Thursday, studios chairman Rich Ross said Disney's Pixar division is creating a sequel to "Monsters Inc." that will hit theaters in November 2012.

The original film from 2001 grossed $529 million worldwide. Ross also said the studio was about to give the go-ahead to a new movie featuring the Muppets which will introduce a new character named Walter. "He's in felt and fur rehab now as we build him," Ross said.

It was not clear when the movie would hit theaters. But he said there will be plenty of cameos, as with all Muppet movies. So watch for Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, too. James Bobin, the creator of "The Flight of the Conchords" TV series, is set to direct.

The announcements were among several made during a presentation of the studio's upcoming slate of films. Disney is in the midst of selling off its Miramax Films division as it focuses on family-oriented fare from Marvel, Pixar, its own studio and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks unit.

Among other future films is a retelling of the Winnie the Pooh story using hand-drawn animation; a Tim Burton-led stop-motion animation movie called "Frankenweenie" about a boy's revival of his lost dog; and another Pixar movie called "John Carter of Mars" about a man who goes through a portal to the red planet as imagined by author Edgar Rice Burroughs. "Wall-E" writer Andrew Stanton of Pixar has been tapped to handle the otherworldly live action picture starring Taylor Kitsch. The movie is set to hit theaters in 2012.

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Walt Disney Pictures Alice In Wonderland Opens In Japan

Walt Disney Pictures hit movie “Alice In Wonderland” opened in Japan on April 17th and managed to bring in 700 million yen ($7.5 million USD) just that day! That’s double what “Avatar” brought in opening day in Japan.

Did you know that both director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp promoted “Alice In Wonderland” in Tokyo on March 22nd for the Japanese premiere? Very cool!

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Amusingly twisted 'Kick-Ass' too raw for kids

Don't be fooled by the TV ads or the trailer: "Kick-Ass" is not for the PG-13 crowd. It's rated R for a reason lots of reasons.

And we're talking "hard R," Quentin Tarantino territory. You'd think from the way that the film is being marketed that it's.

A goofy, lighthearted comedy about nerdy kids who don colorful latex outfits to fight crime.

"Kick-Ass" is a lot darker and meaner than that. We not only hear F-bombs but the hated C-word. Limbs are sliced off, torsos are impaled, heads are battered.Yeah, we've heard and seen it all before, but here's the twist: The curses and bloody violence are coming from an 11-year-old girl.

So consider yourself warned: Many moviegoers are going to be offended. But if you forget the way it's being marketed and take it for what it is — an outrageously violent, humorously twisted adaptation of a comic book — "Kick-Ass" lives up to its name.

It's demented, in much the same way that Tarantino's "Kill Bill" movies and "Inglourious Basterds" (recently a best-picture Oscar nominee, you may recall) — or Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight," for that matter — are demented. But it's in a highly entertaining way if you're willing to view the movie with the comic-book sensibility with which it was made. At various times it's intensely suspenseful, wildly exciting and uproariously funny.

Our story begins with geeky high-school comic-book lover Dave (Aaron Johnson) deciding it's time to become a real-life crime fighter. So he sends away for a costume, puts it on, takes to the streets and ... gets his butt kicked. But that's just the start, and soon he becomes a media phenomenon and youth-culture hero known simply as Kick-Ass.

He's not the only masked marvel in town. There's also a father-and-daughter vigilante team, Damon (Nicolas Cage), or Big Daddy, and 11-year-old Mindy (Chloe Grace Moretz, who steals the picture), or Hit-Girl. They're on a no-holds-barred mission to destroy the empire of crime kingpin Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong of "Sherlock Holmes"), and that means lots and lots of carnage. D'Amico's teenage son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, better known as McLovin'), decides to help dad by posing as a do-gooder himself; thus, Red Mist is born.

Of all of these characters, good or bad, with the possible exception of Big Daddy, Hit-Girl is the toughest. Given that she's a peanut who, with her purple wig and schoolgirl skirt, looks like she'd be more at home at a fifth-grade costume birthday party, that's pretty funny in itself.

One of the film's comic highlights comes when she's whaling on a group of armed thugs. She leaps and tumbles around the room like an acrobat, using various weapons to slice, dice and otherwise mutilate bad guys who are no match for her. What makes the scene so funny is this: While she's doing all of this bodily harm, the chipper theme song for the old kiddie TV show "Banana Splits" — "tra-la-la, tra-la-la-la ..." — plays on the soundtrack.

Sick? Absolutely. There are other little pop-culture references thrown in. When Damon dresses up as Big Daddy, in what looks like a Batman costume, he changes his voice pattern to speak in the halting, dramatic, cornball style Adam West used as Batman in the '60s TV show.

But Hit-Girl is clearly the star of this show. There's a fine line between what's amusingly irreverent and what's offensive, and many moviegoers are likely to find "Kick-Ass" crosses it. But you can argue that this is the case with the work of lots of filmmakers, whether it's the Coen brothers or the Farrelly brothers. We all draw the line somewhere, and, despite some of its questionable aspects, I found "Kick-Ass" to be a blast.

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First Poster For The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

As the title says folks, the first poster has now been released for Disney’s other big-budget live action film, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE, and it rocks! If nothing else, the fact that this film stars an on-form Nicolas Cage, going head to head with Alfred Molina should be enough to get bums on seats. And despite my high hopes for that other live action Disney movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, dare I say that I think this one…looks..better?

That’s an affirmative, and the poster isn’t bad either. It’s more a teaser than a full-on one sheet and it features Cage’s character, Balthazar Blake, sporting a pretty cool looking Dragon ring. Take a look and let me know what you think

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Shrek producers left red faced after authorising 'saucy' men's magazine shoot

Barely-clothed models appear alongside Shrek, Princess Fiona, Donkey and The Ginger Bread Man in a spread that was designed to promote the fourth instalment of the hugely successful animated franchise. But instead DreamWorks executives admitted they regretted allowing.

The family-friendly characters to be used in the highly-sexual campaign in the latest issue of an American fashion magazine. The spread in VMan, a men's magazine, was authorised ahead of the world premiere of the series fourth movie, Shrek: Forever And After, due to be released in the spring.

In one shot Donkey, voiced by Eddie Murphy in the films, is pictured snuggling up to a lingerie-clad model while a shirtless man lies on a bed in the background, in an apparent reference to a ménage a trois between the characters.

In other photographs, Shrek, played by Mike Myers in the films, and Princess Fiona, who is voiced by Cameron Diaz, pose with male and female models wearing barely-there leather and denim outfits.

The Ginger Bread man, meanwhile, holds a lolly-pop for the model who strikes a suggestive pose. While in another, a mostly bare-chested model wearing a cross feeds grapes to Puss in Boots, who is voiced by Antonio Banderas.

Executives at DreamWorks Animation and Paramount, were left shocked when they saw the published works appearently expecting a less provocative, more reverential treatment of its most valuable characters.

“While we do respect Vman's creative vision, the shoot did not turn out the way originally envisioned when the idea was first presented by the magazine," said a Paramount spokesman.

"In hindsight, we would have declined to include the Shrek characters in such a magazine spread."

Jacob Brown, the New York-based editor of the magazine, declined to comment.

Vman is thought to have initially offered its cover to Shrek but when Paramount executives declined that treatment the magazine's editors then suggested an inside spread.

Paramount executives – with visions of a successful "Simpsons"-style marketing ploy dancing in their collective heads – gave Vman the green light.

During discussions between the magazine and Paramount, as the distributor of the animated sequel, magazine editors likened their vision to the Harper's Bazaar photo spread of Homer, Bart and the rest of the Simpsons two years ago.

Released just ahead of "The Simpsons Movie," Harper's featured the cartoon cast wearing Chanel, Hermes, Versace and Louis Vuitton – without the intrusion of human models. The spread essentially was elegant and inoffensive.

The studio said it would not pursue legal action against the magazine.

In the fourth film, Shrek finds himself in an alternate version of Far Far Away, where ogres are hunted, Rumpelstiltskin is king and Shrek and Fiona have never met.

The movie has Shrek trying to save his friends, restore his world and reclaim his one True Love.

Cameron Diaz last week said Shrek fans would enjoy watching the lovable green ogre and Princess Fiona fall in love all over again in the fourth movie.

"What I love is with Shrek and Fiona, it's their love story all over again – you get to watch these two characters fall in love all over again," she said.

"That's what was so beautiful and captivating in the first film. These two, and how they come to know they are for one another, and true love. You hope it does exist."

The films, which hit the big screens in 2001, were recently voted the best children’s film ever made and is thought to have grossed more than £1.4 billion at the global box office.

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Interview - Chloe Moretz Kicks Ass

In the superhero flick, Kick-Ass, there are the good, the bad and the brutal. As the 11-year-old vigilante, Hit-Girl, Chloe Grace Moretz gets to play all three in one character opposite Nicolas Cage's Big Daddy. You'd never expect that range from the mild-mannered 13-year-old relaxing at a downtown Toronto hotel. But she is, indeed, capable of defining the cute but incredibly foul-mouthed girl-gone-wild in Kick-Ass, which opens Friday.

Smiling sheepishly, Moretz admitted during the interview that she's been getting that reaction a lot lately, not to mention protests from a few family groups upset over her provocative performance in Matthew Vaughn's film based on the Mark Millar comic.

Certainly, the age-inappropriate fuss is nothing new for a young actress. Dakota Fanning went through the same controversy when naysayers protested her graphic portrayal of a child rape victim in 2007's Hounddog. More than 30 years ago, Jodie Foster took flak for playing an adolescent prostitute in Taxi Driver. Some things never change.

"I am an actress and I was playing somebody who was raised to do what she does," said Moretz, who shot the movie in Hamilton, Ont., Toronto, New York and London.

She'd rather discuss acting opposite movie star Cage, and facing the challenge of playing the ultimate adolescent street fighter. She has especially fond memories of Cage, describing him as gracious and kind.

"He was a good example for me. On set, he was really nice to everybody all of the time."

Preparing for her active Hit-Girl part was something else again: There were gruelling martial arts and gymnastic sessions. "I did that for six months," she said. And while filming in Toronto for a month, she trained at the Toronto School of Circus Arts to learn movement.

The peculiar thing is that Moretz's Hit-Girl isn't the headliner in the film. Kick-Ass is the name of a wannabe superhero who is a high-school super-dud by the name of Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson). When he costumes up in a bid to do the right thing, he's nearly murdered, but recovers, then crosses paths with real crime fighters Hit-Girl (Moretz) and Big Daddy (Cage).

Their single-minded mission is to bring down New York's crime boss, Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), by eliminating his drug-syndicate henchmen.

Since Big Daddy's been training Hit-Girl for nearly a decade in the lethal craft of killing, we discover quickly that the child's a barbarous assassin willing and able to eliminate all in her way, with extreme and bloody efficiency.

With Kick-Ass as their quasi-mascot, Hit-Girl and Big Daddy close in on D'Amico, with only D'Amico's son (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), posing as another wannabe superhero, in their way.

While the fight sequences are jarringly violent, Kick-Ass, the movie, does have a sense of humour about itself, with enough cloaked, or not-so-cloaked, comic book, TV and movie references to keep even the most obsessed pop-culture fanatics amused.

Still, Moretz's sprightly portrayal of the ruthless killer is the main talking point for fans. "I don't like that so much," Moretz admitted.

Born in Atlanta, Ga., Moretz credits her boldness to the fact she grew up with four older brothers, and her drive to be an actress. At six, she moved to L.A. with her family and booked a few TV guest spots on The Guardian and Heart of the Beholder.

But she really made a name for herself by portraying the daughter in the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror with Ryan Reynolds. She also showed up in the films Big Momma's House 2 and (500) Days of Summer, and, most notably, on the popular TV shows My Name Is Earl, Desperate Housewives and as a recurring character on Dirty Sexy Money.

This year, the actress had a co-starring part in the just-released Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and will be featured in the upcoming live-action movie, Jack and the Beanstalk.

So far, the pre-release buzz surrounding her Hit-Girl performance has opened up more opportunities. Moretz has signed to co-star in the thriller, The Fields, and is set to do an Elizabeth Banks segment of a comedy feature. She says she's also looking forward to filming Martin Scorsese's historical drama, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

And wait until those concerned parents' organizations get a load of Moretz's role as the down-and-dirty kid vampire Abby in Let Me In, a remake of the Swedish terror trip, Let The Right One In, based on the novel.

"Our movie will be our version of the book," said Moretz of the film set to open in the fall.

Meanwhile, the actress is looking forward to her busy career, which she hopes will include her family. Her 23-year-old brother, Trevor, is her acting coach, and Moretz said that, some day, she wants her siblings to help put together a film project.

Her older brothers, she confessed, continue to be her biggest supporters and her main protectors."Yeah," Moretz said, "I feel sorry for the boys when I start dating,"

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When good kids' movies become bad adult flicks

As someone who saw "Mad Max" at age 7 and the original, unbeatable "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" when I was young enough to believe it was based on a true story, I make a poor candidate for railing against Hollywood's bad influence on kids.

Come to think of it, those movies actually had a positive effect on me. "Max" taught me at a young age to conserve gasoline and question Mel Gibson's sanity. And it's largely thanks to "Massacre" that I'll never accidentally sever a limb with a chainsaw; I still cower from those things like a dog does from fireworks. I do have an unusually strong affinity for Texas barbecue, though.

The thing is, those two bad movies of my otherwise semi-wholesome childhood were clearly made for adults, not children. What's so annoying about Hollywood nowadays is that it's getting harder and harder to make that distinction.

An R-rated "Batman" movie ("The Dark Knight") was one thing -- an excusable marketing move, if only to help comic-book fans feel more adult. But what's with all the kids' movies in theaters now that look as if they weren't made with young kids in mind whatsoever?

"Avatar," of course, could be the shining example of a would-be children's movie spoiled by violence and lots of other stuff too freaky for anyone born in this millennium, but at least it got a PG-13 rating. Did you hear there was even a steamy blue-on-semi-blue lovemaking scene edited out just to keep that rating? Makes you wonder if James Cameron will stoop to marketing the DVDs as "loaded with XXX-tras!"

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Happy Kids: The Movie Audience Members I Don't Mind Overhearing

I believe we can universally agree that people who talk in the sacred darkness of a movie theater are very, very bad people.

(Unless it's the kind of showing like Troll 2 that begs for everyone to laugh and talk along.) But over the weekend, I decided there's one group of moviegoers that it's always awesome to overhear: small children.

I went to see How To Train Your Dragon for the second time, knowing that a lazy Saturday afternoon could make for an ugly screening.

The signs weren't promising -- kids hyped up on sugar, overtired, running around. But then the movie trailers began, and they immediately went quiet. In fact I began wishing for a kid of my own because it would make for a great feature to record their reactions to the noisy, slapstick trailers that are aimed at them. Despicable Me? Some genuine laughs. Marmaduke? Hysterical chortling. (I know. Well, the dogs do dance. When you're three, that's probably the height of magic.) Furry Vengeance? Yawns. Megamind? "Fish tank! Fishtank!" (Sorry, Will Ferrell. No one likes your blue guy.) They even seem burnt out on Shrek. Way to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, DreamWorks. (That should be an after credits sequence in Shrek Forever After.)

Once Dragon began, the hysteria ceased and I had the benefit of seeing two shows at once since the little guy sitting next to us was as funny as the movie. He followed along far more closely than his tender years would suggest, and he immediately latched onto Hiccup's search for "the nightmare" and predicted how he could find it before gleefully pointing out "He thinks he's toothless!" to everyone nearby. Spoilers follow, so read at your own risk

For a moment, I thought he'd seen the movie previously as he immediately announced Hiccup should "build a fake tail for the dragon", but he hadn't! It was the gadgety, creative thought of a preschooler. The kind we all think is dead thanks to video games, computers, and a grass-less existence.

Now, here I should probably stress that we were all seeing it in good, old-fashioned 2D. This is important because in the film, there's a scene where Toothless introduces Astrid and Hiccup to the ancient menace the dragons are required to feed. He's an enormous, hideous, frightening T-Rex looking monster. He pops out very unexpectedly. It's scary. And man, did that little guy leap back in his seat. His face crumpled. I really thought he was going to lose it.

But no. He crept back forward, whispering about the movie again. I can't remember all the things he said, but they were hilarious and sweetly insightful. Once the epic battle began, he gave up sitting and just stood, hands clasped together. It was the pitch perfect illustration of "edge of your seat," and when Hiccup and Toothless were safe and sound, he threw his hands up in the air. Genuine relief! This was a big moment for the first young audience I saw it with -- there were a few kids who didn't bother with inside voices: "Oh Mommy, he is DEAD. They think he is DEAD." The fear gave way to spontaneous clapping at the credits. It was wonderful.

There's something very exhilarating about the way kids enjoy a movie, even something as awful looking as Marmaduke. There's no pretense, there's no analysis, there's no trying to be cool. The dogs are dancing, and it's funny, and oh Mommy did you see that? I love that they're so excited by what's going on that they can't stay silent or seated, I stifle my laughter caused by their goofy little comments that state the obvious. But things like Toothless' cinder bed isn't obvious to them; it's novel and demands a loud declaration.

I don't consider myself a jaded moviegoer, but it's really refreshing to experience the film through young eyes. It makes me sigh for the movies that blew me away at that age. I can still remember walking out of E.T. (a re-release -- I must have been 3 or 4 years old) with my eyes swelled shut from the tears. I couldn't even breathe. It was the most real, awful, heart-wrenching ending I had ever seen. Seeing that little Dragon watcher raise his hands to the sky in praise brings that back. As adults, we always know the cute hero and his cute pet are going to be ok. Kids still have that awful, terrible doubt that it isn't. It's good to momentarily forget the usual story arc, and experience that tension, even if it's secondhand.

I would be angry if it was anyone over the age of 8, and I certainly think it's important for parents to encourage good movie watching behavior even in the smallest viewer. But I really enjoy hearing the stage-whispered thoughts of the young. I no longer dread afternoon showings, and families of small children. I find they haven't ruined the DreamWorks or PIXAR showings, but enhanced the experience. If you're feeling cranky, the contact high of spontaneous, enthusiastic "That was the best movie I've ever seen!" applause is a fine cure. Don't dread the kid chatter. Embrace it! It's a show as enjoyable as the movie itself.

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Dumbo and What Kids Expect from a Kid's Movie

Sometimes people like to tell you that little kids can’t be lied to, or they somehow see to the truth of things, or that in their eyes you, as person operating in the adult world of lies and deception and pregnant subtext, will be made naked before them. Naked metaphorically, I’m talking here. This, of course, isn’t true. Kids can be lied to about facts, just like everyone else.

What kids can’t be lied to about is entertainment value. Kids know what’s entertaining and what’s not entertaining much better than adults because they don’t get muddled by literary allusions, intellectual investigations, subtle uses of color and light, or the way your use of male characters brings across the impotence of patriarchy in fin de siècle America. Or whatever.

They care about storytelling and ethics. Can you hold their attention, and can you show them that this scary, strange, chaotic world might have some island of safety somewhere? That’s it.

Which is why every kid’s movie is about learning to believe in yourself. (Except Pixar movies, which are all about friendship, but we’ll get to that in some other column.) Every kid’s movie is about how those things you hate about yourself turn out to be the very things that make you unique and useful in the world. Most of the movies I’ve talked about so far are ones that I saw after puberty, after high school and college and grad school and Syd Field and Andre Bazin and Harold Bloom and getting paid to write about movies.

But Dumbo is different. Dumbo was the very first animated feature I remember watching. My step-father had it on VHS. He had a bunch of stuff on VHS in a huge cabinet right next to his wood-paneled TV. He’d listed every movie in his collection in a little black three-ring binder on college-ruled paper, with the title, length, tape-number and counter-number written out in precise block letters.

My stepdad was black, my mom’s white. Actually my real dad’s black too, but the point is that when I was a kid I was in an obviously multiracial family. I grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood in Richmond, California where I was the only mixed-race kid around. So when I tell you that I identified with Dumbo, it’s not just because I’ve seen my fair share of pink elephants on parade.

Dumbo is the artist’s version of the ugly duckling story. As you must know, Dumbo is a little elephant with big ears who can’t play any of the elephant games. He messes up the tricks, he can’t get anything right, and when his mother gets mad trying to protect him from the teasing, she’s thrown in a cage. When Dumbo ends up in a tree after downing some hallucinogenic Champagne, his mouse buddy realizes Dumbo can fly. But after a lifetime of taunting, Dumbo just doesn’t have the self-confidence to take the leap of faith that flying requires. So his mouse buddy (Timothy Q. Mouse!) comes up with one of the greatest movie-objects in history: the magic feather. The feather, of course, isn’t a magic feather at all, it’s just a feather – but Timothy Q. Mouse knows that until Dumbo learns that those stupid ears of his are a benefit rather than a curse, he needs a crutch.

Back on that block in Richmond, my biggest deficit was that I was half black and half white, and none of the kids knew what box to put me in. Which was tough, but it meant that if I had just the right amount of self-confidence – I could step into different worlds. The black kids, the white kids, the Latino kids, the Jewish kids, I could befriend all of them. I wouldn’t ever quite be part of their world, but I could certainly visit them – all because of this thing I’d thought of as a flaw.

I love that magic feather. I think about it a lot. Whether it’s a friend’s kind word, or a particularly kind letter of recommendation from a mentor, or a paycheck for my thoughts about te movies I love, there are all sorts of magic feathers out there.

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