Source:Heather Newgen

September 26, 2008

ComingSoon.net's L.A. correspondent Heather Newgen spent most of Wednesday, September 24 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood to attend a special presentation by Disney Pictures of their upcoming slate. You can read about some of the projects they have in the works below, plus you can read her earlier report about their three movies revolving around superstar Johnny Depp here.

After an impressive opening featuring a symphony performing Disney movie theme songs while clips of their popular films were shown in the background, teen sensation Miley Cyrus surprised an unsuspecting jam-packed crowd of people at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood where Disney Pictures previewed upcoming films for selected invited guests. To promote her new project Hannah Montana: The Movie (opening April 10, 2009), she performed a song from her new flick, which is about choosing between living the fast-paced rock 'n' roll lifestyle or returning to her humble hometown roots. Before she took the stage, Cyrus and her dad Billy Ray talked briefly to Dick Cook, Walt Disney Studios' chairman and moderator of the event, about how excited she is for the movie to hit theatres and how she's looking forward to turning sixteen soon. She hinted to her dad that she wanted a car for her birthday and he joked about how she could buy one for herself.

That wouldn't be the only shocker the studio had in store, as the audience gasped with great surprise and excitement when Jim Carrey walked out on stage to talk with Cook about Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol which hits theatres on November 6, 2009. Carrey not only plays Ebenezer Scrooge, but six other characters as well. When asked how he managed to take on so many characters he laughed, pointed to his head and said, "There's a lot going on in here; it's pretty much just a party and everyone is welcome." Zemeckis was also on hand to talk about his latest project which uses performance capture much like The Polar Express and Beowulf; he stated, "This is a perfect story to be told in this new technology."

However, the studio had much more planned for the seven-hour event, including their new romantic comedy The Proposal in which Sandra Bullock co-stars with Ryan Reynolds. From the footage we saw, we're glad she's returning to comedy, but Bullock explained why she stayed away from the genre for so long: "I wasn't feeling funny so I went to serious, but I feel funny again," and she joked about the nude scene she has in the movie. "The biggest special effect is how they made me look naked in the film versus what Ryan actually saw." We all laughed. She went on to tell us how the studio assured her she'd look great and she said, "I expect some Pixar action."

In the film, Bullock plays a hard-ass executive and Reynolds is her spineless assistant who puts up with constant verbal abuse from his boss. When she finds herself on the verge of being fired because her Canadian visa is about to expire, she tells the other execs her and Reynolds are engaged and there's no reason for her to move back to Canada. He walks in just as she's telling others and he reluctantly goes along with it. Everyone else in the office gives him a hard time of it behind her back, and he sucks it up and walks with his head down back to his desk and his coworkers make fun of his cowardly ways.

To keep up the charade, she goes to visit his family for a weekend in Alaska and they couldn't be happier about the announcement. The only problem is, they're so excited, they suggest they get married right away while all the family is together. Bullock soon realizes she got herself into quite a predicament, or did she? It looks like she starts to reexamine her big city life and fall her for assistant.

The Proposal is scheduled to be released on June 12, 2009.

If you liked Wild Hogs, get ready for John Travolta, Tim Allen, William H. Macy and Martin Lawrence to come back and have more adventures on the road in Wild Hogs 2 Bachelor Ride. William H. Macy drove a motorcycle across the stage pretending to crash, which made the audience laugh. Lawrence joked about how he hasn't read the script yet and said, "I'm going to try to read it this weekend." The guys all wore matching leather motorcycle jackets and Travolta told us he "had a bike before a car."

Disney definitely knows how to entertain and when Cook started talking with John Lasseter who serves as executive producer on Toy Story 3 (released June 18, 2010), military soldiers dressed in shimmering green uniforms rapelled down from the ceiling on ropes and marched up the stage. The curtains opened and characters dressed as Buzz, Woody, Mr. Potato Head and Little Bo Peep sang and danced to "You've Got Me As a Friend." The premise of the third film will show what happens to the toys as their owner Andy leaves for college. Lassester told the Kodak Theatre how his son just left for college and how he didn't expect to have the strong emotions he did, and he thinks the film will hit home for a lot of people.

Cook and Lasseter told the crowd that both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 would be returning to theaters in 3-D.

In total, Disney has sixteen 3-D films in the works including Disney's upcoming holiday release Bolt, next year's Pixar summer offering Up, The Princess and the Frog (December 25, 2009), Toy Story 3, Cars 2 (announced for a summer 2011 release), Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (March 5, 2010), and Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol.

To hear more about these projects, stay tuned to ComingSoon.net over the next couple months as we're sure to have more on all of these projects as they develop.