The first day of Comic Con 2009 began VERY early in the morning, but just past 11 AM things were up and running with the first studio panel of the day, the “Disney: 3D Panel,” featuring A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland and Tron Legacy.
The Disney panel was moderated by comedian/actor Patton Oswalt (Big Fan) and began with Robert Zemeckis introducing his latest 3-D motion capture feature, a retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, a film in which Jim Carrey portrays eight different characters including Ebeneezer Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.
When asked why he felt this was a story worth retelling Zemeckis added how the Dickens novel was actually more “trippy” and “surreal” than previous adaptations and as for the casting of Jim Carrey and whether the film will be more comedic he said, “No one in the movie is winking at the camera, but I think there is some pretty funny stuff in it.”
A clip from the film was also shown, extending the clip already seen online and previewed to the right, as well as giving a brief montage of several scenes from the film and although it was dangerously loud (my ears may still be ringing), it looks awfully impressive and definitely dark. “It’s a ghost story,” Zemeckis said and it definitely won’t be the Mickey Mouse adaptation.
Of course, with the scene that was shown I wasn’t able to get a complete grasp of the tone (looks extremely dark) and I have never been a big fan of the CG motion capture technique with both of Zemeckis’s earlier tries (Polar Express and Beowulf) not quite cutting it. However, while Zemeckis did say he was “dedicated to sending this artform out to the world” and almost completely passed on the idea of doing anymore live-action, a few fans may be interested to know that when asked about the rumors to a potential sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? he answered:
I can neither confirm nor deny, but I will tell you this, if that ever does happen the 2-D animated characters from the animated movie will remain 2-D and will not be dimensionalized. Not to say there wont be 3-D [in the film], but that’s just my feeling if that was to ever happen down the road.
Not sure what that means for a possible return for the 1988 cartoon rabbit, but he definitely wasn’t saying “no.”
