View from the cheap seats ...

I won’t have as much to say about the last day of D23 as I did about Friday or Saturday. We were late getting started Sunday morning, which meant I was late to the big Cup ‘o Joe presentation, Marvels’ first foray into the D23 world (except for the five minutes or so they had at the end of the movie presentation on Saturday, of course). We went to the arena when we arrived and headed for the cheap seats; during Saturday’s big movie bonanza, the place was packed to the rafters, but there were only a few people up on level three when we arrived. The sections beneath us seemed to be pretty full, though. Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada was wrapping up his presentation and getting ready to take questions as we sat down.

And I gotta say, the question were actually pretty lively. They included:

–It started with a question about the possibility of more Broadway musicals after Spider-Man:Turn Off the Dark, to which Quesada responded there weren’t any plans right now.
–Another person asked why Marvel didn’t have a booth at D23, which brought applause from the audience. Quesada said as the creative guy he honestly didn’t know, but pointed out this was their first time to attend the show and maybe they’d have one next time.
–The next question was about reboots, and Quesada said they don’t do hard reboots — their characters still have the same histories. He then explained how the Ultimate Universe is a separate, alternate universe that’s only been around for 10 years. I’ve had these kinds of conversations with non-comic reading friends who keep seeing news stories about DC reboots and Miles Morales, so I could feel his pain.
–Will Marvel ever have a presence at any Disney parks? Quesada said there have been talks, but couldn’t elaborate.
–Another fan said he loved Howard the Duck, and wanted to know if Marvel had more plans for him, and if we’d find out he’s related to Donald. Quesada chuckled and mentioned the legal troubles between Marvel and Disney over Howard before Quesada was CEO. He also pointed out that the 25th anniversary of the Howard the Duck movie was coming up. No mention of Fearsome Four, though.
–Several fans asked about the possibility of Marvel doing Disney comics now that BOOM!’s Disney line was coming to an end. One fan (the same one who thanked Quesada for his work on Booster Gold) suggested that if Marvel did a Darkwing Duck comic, they should hire the creative team of Ian Brill and James Silvani, who work on the comic for BOOM! Studios. Quesada said where these licenses go is really up to Disney, pointing out they’ve done a few comics with them.
–Another fan asked if Marvel would be doing any stories that reference the “end of the world” coming in 2012, per the Mayan Calendar. Quesada said the world ends in Marvel comics every week.
–Is a Deadpool movie in the works? Quesada said that’s in FOX’s hands, but said Ryan Reynolds makes a better Deadpool than a Green Lantern.

After that we made another round on the floor, hit a few booths to buy stuff (lines! lines! lines! at all the shops!), and ended up spending some time just sitting in the D23 lounge they had for members upstairs. We were tired, it had the low light thing going, so we almost went to sleep. They also had free cookies!

And that was pretty much it. There was a Star Tours panel we thought about attending, but we were kinda conned out by then, so we headed back to our hotel to pack up and get ready for the trip home.

Incredibles by Bill Morrison

Day two of D23 kicked off early for us, as the big movie presentation kicked off at 10:30 a.m. and we knew there would be a line. We just didn’t realize how long of a line …

*****

(Before I get into that, though, I should mention the above artwork has nothing to do with the movie panel; it’s Bill Morrison’s homage to New Teen Titans #1 and the Incredibles, and was being sold at the Disney Fine Arts booth. I just thought it was really cool).

So yeah, we got there early and there was already a line snaking back behind the convention center. D23 had two lines each morning, one for D23 members and one for non-members. Members could start entering the show at 9 a.m., while everyone else came in at 10. We got in line around 8, I believe, and it was around 9 by the time we got into the convention center. We went directly to the Disney Arena line, where the big presentation was being held, and waited … and waited … then we’d move a little bit and wait some more. Eventually we made it really close to the door, and someone popped up to tell us we might not make it in because they were running out of seats. We almost bailed at that point, but luckily we didn’t because we were in the very last group of people they let into the arena.

They confiscated our cell phones before we went in, gave us the wand to make sure we weren’t sneaking in a camera, and sent us to the very top row about two minutes before the presentation began. The presentation itself went from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., I believe, and was a star-studded, clip and news-filled production. Let me see if I can remember everything they covered … the first part of the presentation focused on their upcoming animated films, as Pixar’s John Lasseter walked through several upcoming projects for both Pixar and Walt Disney Studios. These included:

–Planes, a direct-to-DVD spinoff from Cars that features, um, planes. It features a cropduster named Dusty, who will be voiced by Jon Cryer … the first of many special guests to come out on stage. They introduced him as “The star of the CBS comedy Two and a Half Men …” and at that point I was thinking how awesome it would be for Charlie Sheen to come out and talk about Tiger Blood. The clip they showed had White Zombie’s More Human Than Human playing behind it, which was an interesting choice.

–Wreck-it Ralph, which I mentioned yesterday … it’s about the bad guy from a video game who wants to be a good guy. So he spends his days in a 1980s video game destroying buildings so that the game’s hero, Fix-it Felix Jr., can use his magical hammer to fix it and of course take down Ralph. They had the game set up at one of their booths:

Fix It Felix Jr.

Wreck It Ralph

They showed the first four-and-a-half minutes of the film, which features John C. Reilly as Ralph, Jack McBrayer as Felix, Jane Lynch as Sergeant Calhoun (a character from a Halo-like game) and Sarah Silverman as Vanellope von Schweetz. The footage was incomplete; in some parts it was black-and-white line art, but the voice over by Reilly was really funny. At one point Ralph attends “Bad-Anon,” a support group for video game bad guys. I didn’t know anything about this film until this weekend, but what we saw was great … it comes out in fall 2012. Oh, and both Silverman and McBrayer came out on stage to say a few words about it.

–Brave is next year’s Pixar film, set in Scotland and featuring a princess who has to choose one of three idiotic suitors for political reasons. She rides a horse, she shoots a bow, and she ends up meeting a witch who casts a spell … they showed clips from this as well, and brought out Kelly Macdonald and Kevin McKidd, who voice characters in the movie. It’s an action-adventure fantasy thing from Pixar, so it ought to be good.

–Monsters University, a prequel to Monsters Inc. Before they were buddies, Mike and Scully were rivals back in college, and this will detail those college days. Billy Crystal, who voices Mike, showed up to huge cheers from the crowd. It comes out in 2013.

–They also announced two new Pixar movies, which would come out after Monsters University … both of which are currently untitled. The first one is kind of a “What if the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs never hit the Earth?” and the promotional image showed a kid riding on the head of a brontosaurus. The other will take you into how your mind really works. They had mock logos made up for both of them, i.e. “Pixar’s Untitled Movie about Dinosaurs,” which was pretty funny.

–The animation part of the presentation ended with Buzz and Woody from Toy Story bringing out a cake in honor of Pixar’s 25th anniversary, and everyone in the arena receiving a cupcake. This was pretty awesome, and the cupcake was really good.

Next up was the live-action stuff, which included:

–John Carter, for which they brought out director Andrew Stanton, and stars Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins and Willem Dafoe. Stanton said he was first introduced to John Carter through the 1970s Marvel series, then went back and read the books. They showed the trailer and several clips, including one that featured Dafoe’s character, one of the nine-foot-tall four-armed martians, meeting Kitsch’s character. Both Dafoe and Samantha Morton’s characters will be done with CGI, but both of them walked aorund on stilts when filming their scenes so they could interact with the other characters. It sounds kinda insane. I like dthe clips they showed; Collins’ Deja Thoris should be one of the highlights.

–Frankenweenie, which is actually a stop motion animated film by Tim Burton. Burton is working on the film in London, but sent over two of the producers and a model of Frankenweenie for them to play with on stage.

–Oz the Great and Powerful, which tells the story of how the Wizard came to Oz. It stars James Franco, Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz, and it’s currently filming in Detroit. None of the stars were there, but they sent a video.

–The Odd Life of Timothy Green, for which star Jennifer Garner came out to promote. This is a Peter Hedges film, who wrote What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Pieces of April. It’s about a couple who find out they can’t have kids, so they write down everything they’d want in a kid and bury the scraps of paper in the back yard. A kid, Timothy Green, grows out of the ground.

–Jason Segel, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy came out to promote this fall’s Muppet film. They showed a couple of clips, which look funny and awesome and really made me excited to finally see this.

–The they promoted an upcoming DisneyNature film about chimpanzees. It looks like a propaganda film to make us think these things are cute and cuddly, but we all know better, right? Like I never saw Planet of the Apes …

–Last and certainly not least, Marvel’s Kevin Feige came out after they played a “sizzle reel” that recapped all the Marvel Studios films that have come out since 2008 (i.e. the Iron Man films, Hulk, Thor and Captain America). The clips they pulled all kind of tied together, so you had General Thunderbolt Ross talking about the super soldier program, Nick Fury visiting Iron Man, etc. In other words, it was all about the continuity they’ve been building. Interestingly enough, the Hulk clips didn’t feature Ed Norton Jr. at all.

Feige then introduced a scene from the Avengers that he said the rest of the world wouldn’t be able to see for awhile. Let me see if I can remember all the details …

It opened with Loki trapped in some sort of cell in the helicarrier, talking with Nick Fury. Fury says if Loki so much as tries to scratch the glass, the cell will fall 30,000 feet to the ground below. Loki says the cell wasn’t really built to hold him, but a mindless beast … they then flash to Black Widow, who glances up at Mark Ruffalo/Bruce Banner. So apparently SHIELD has captured Loki and has him imprisoned. They also flashed to Thor at one point in their conversation, and to a glove that was either Iron Man or Cap (I think it was Cap), as well as Cobie Smulders/Maria Hill. Loki says something about how powerful he is, and Fury offers him a magazine to read. It cuts to Banner, who says something like, “He really grows on you, doesn’t he?”

Next a plane is shown flying over a city — I’m assuming this was a Quinjet. I mean, it’s gotta be a Quinjet, right? It was quick, so I’m not 100 percent on that. Anyway, the next scene has Tony Stark talking to Loki, and he gives the God of Mischief a “roll call” of the Avengers, noting they have two super assassins, Hawkeye and Black Widow, who we get to see in action; a demigod — hey, there’s Thor being Thor-like; a living legend “who kinda lives up to the legend” — hey, there’s Cap! — and then says they all have a reason to hate Loki.

Loki says, “I have an army.”

Stark replies, “We’ve got a Hulk.”

Flash in a quick shot of the Hulk roaring, and cut to the logo …

There were other flashes in there … I’m pretty sure there was another shot of Hawkeye, plus Clark Gregg/Agent Coulson at some point. It was pretty loaded and looked really cool.

Next Feige said that Joss Whedon and the cast were wrapping up shooting, for which they had about two weeks left, and said that unfortunately Whedon, Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Evans couldn’t make it, but sent their best … then he introduced the cast members who were at the show — Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Cobie Smulders and Tom Hiddleston. Downey took the microphone and made a comment about how they felt like kids visiting their parents on the weekend, then told them to roll the footage one more time. Here’s the group out on stage, courtesy of Marvel.com:

So, wow … it was pretty cool to see all of them assembled like that. We did some other stuff today, but it’s hard to top all that.

D23 2011

We’re back in our hotel room after a day at Disney’s big D23 event in Anaheim, and what a day it was … you can check out some pictures from it after the jump.

*****

D23, Disney’s fan convention, came back to Anaheim after its debut in 2009. It was noticeably busier this time around than it was two years ago, and by the time we made it to the convention center, there were already massive lines for the big arena presentation and, of course, for the “dream store” where you could spend money on all sorts of Disney stuff. This is a very well-run show, as the Disney staff was always on point, pleasant and helpful as they moved mass quantities of folks in and out of auditoriums and other areas, and everything, for the most part, is set up to give you room to move. There were a couple of times today when I got that about-to-be-crushed, floor-of-Comic-Con feeling (particularly in the shops), but they were few and far between — for the most part the crowds never felt overwhelming.

I guess the biggest disappointment of the day was the fact that Marvel doesn’t have a booth at the show. They’ll be represented Saturday at the movie presentation and Sunday at the Marvel-specific presentation featuring Joe Quesada, but I was hoping maybe they’d show up full force and set up something on the floor. Ah well; maybe they’re still dipping their toes into being part of the bigger Disney family, and the next D23 will feature a bigger presence.

Anyway, onto the pics …

Pirates of the Caribbean was well represented at the show, both in the form of a giant version of the Black Pearl and an area where they showcased props from the film (and of course pushed the upcoming Blu-Ray/DVD release):

The Black Pearl

Pirates wheel

One of the highlights on the show floor was the Parks and Resorts area, where they showed off some of the upcoming additions to their theme parks. For instance, next summer brings an expansion to Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. It’ll include new rides, like a mine train featuring Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. They had a miniature set up showing the additions:

… as well as one of the prototypes of the mine train cars:

There’s also a new Cars Land that’s opening at Disney’s California Adventure, and they had some of the Cars that’ll live there:

We also went to the Disney Parks arena presentation, where they showed additional details and a lot of CGI demonstrations of the new rides and attractions. Unfortunately they didn’t announce anything major there, like a new ride or park, like they did in 2009. Instead they mainly gave updates on the progress of all the stuff they announced last time, sharing more details now that a lot of this stuff is close to being finished.

Walt Disney Animation Studios had a booth, where they were promoting a new Prep and Landing Christmas special and a new film due in 2012 called Wreck-it Ralph, about a video game bad guy who wants to be good.

Wreck It Ralph

The Collectors Forum area most resembled the dealer’s room at a comic convention, where various vendors set up to sell collectibles, artwork, T-shirts and a whole lot more. Several of the artists who worked on BOOM!’s Disney books, including Allen Gladfelter and Amy Mebberson, had a booth where they were quite busy doing sketches. Most of the dealers in the area were Disney-centric, but a few of them had Marvel merchandise, including the very cool T-shirt sellers Mighty Fine:

Mighty Fine booth

Probably my favorite T-shirt purchase of the day — and there were many — was this 20th anniversary Rocketeer shirt:

Rocketeer shirt

… celebrating the film that featured Dave Stevens’ famous creation. These are branded with D23 on the back, but I think they were probably made for the 20th anniversary event they held earlier this summer. This is one of two Rocketeer shirts I bought; the other one featured a Bull Dog Cafe logo.

D23 2011

Disney’s D23 Expo takes place this weekend in Anaheim, as all things Disney converge at the Anaheim Convention Center for three days. This is the second D23 event; the first one took place a few short weeks after Disney bought Marvel, so they weren’t at the event, but what a difference two years makes.

Marvel CCO Joe Quesada will host a session on Marvel on Sunday, and Kevin Feige, president of production for Marvel Studios, will join the movie presentation on Saturday. Does that mean we’ll get to see all the Avengers come out on stage in their costumes? One can only hope. The LA Times takes a look at how Marvel is going to fit into the mix, and since I’m in Anaheim right now, watch for reports on Robot 6!

D23 Expo

Although a lot of folks are focused on Comic-Con International and the roll out of the panel schedule this week, Disney’s D23 Expo announced their “arena schedule” for their next event, scheduled for Aug. 19-21 in Anaheim.

I attended the first D23 event two years ago, and the arena presentation were by far the highlight of the weekend. They were announcement-filled, star-studded affairs with all sorts of Disney flair. For instance, the presentation by Walt Disney Studios included appearances by John Travolta, Nicholas Cage, Robert Zemeckis, Tim Burton, the Muppets and Johnny Depp dressed as Jack Sparrow, as they announced the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. And during the Disney Parks presentation, Darth Vader and a load of stormtroopers came out to announce the Star Tours upgrade.

The first D23 Expo was held right after Disney had announced they were buying Marvel, so the House of Ideas didn’t have a presence. But what a difference two years makes, as Marvel CCO Joe Quesada will host a session on Marvel on Sunday, and Kevin Feige, president of production for Marvel Studios, will join the movie presentation on Saturday. Does that mean we’ll get to see all the Avengers come out on stage in their costumes? One can only hope.

You can find the complete arena schedule after the jump.

*****

Friday, August 19, 2011

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 2011 Disney Legends Ceremony – Hosted by Tom Bergeron. Honorees Regis Philbin; Jim Henson; Disney Princesses Jodi Benson, Paige O’Hara, Lea Salonga, Linda Larkin and Anika Noni Rose; Bo Boyd; Jack and Bonita Wrather; Guy Williams and Ray Watson will be inducted as Disney Legends for their contribution to the creative legacy of The Walt Disney Company in a special presentation exclusively for D23 Expo guests.

3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Walt Disney Parks and Resorts – Join Tom Staggs, Chairman of Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, as he gives D23 guests a special behind-the-scenes glimpse into some of the exciting projects currently underway at Disney’s parks and resorts around the world.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. The Walt Disney Studios – A fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse at the exciting roster of projects on the horizon at The Walt Disney Studios. From exclusive video clips and live performances to filmmaker discussions and star appearances, this session will be hosted by Rich Ross, Chairman, The Walt Disney Studios; Sean Bailey, President of Production, The Walt Disney Studios; John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios; and Kevin Feige, President of Production, Marvel Studios.

6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. The Lion King 3D Exclusive D23 Screening – Disney fans will have access to an exclusive advance screening of The Lion King in Disney Digital 3D(tm), ahead of the film’s highly anticipated theatrical and home entertainment releases. “The Circle of Life” takes on a new dimension as Simba, Mufasa, Nala, Timon and Pumbaa grace the screen once again, this time in breathtaking 3D.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Marvel Comics – An exclusive and unprecedented experience that will take you through the evolution of Marvel from its first comic book in 1939 to its current position as one of the most important creative forces in the world. During this presentation, which will include interactive Q&A segments, you will not
only get an inside glimpse of the history of Marvel and its iconic Super Heroes but also discover why Marvel truly is the House of Ideas. This session will be hosted by Joe Quesada, Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer and one of the most respected and sought after writers and artists in the entertainment industry.

2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Disney Channel – Fans are invited to experience the excitement of a spectacular live performance, featuring stars of Disney Channel’s hit series Shake It Up. From meeting the cast of television’s first dance-driven sitcom and learning moves from a Disney Channel dance master to a special panel, autograph session and more, this unforgettable experience awaits Disney fans of all ages.

Destination D: Disneyland '55

Disney officially announced today that its D23 Expo will be a biennial event, alternating years with Destination D, a smaller event exclusively for members of the D23 fan community.

News that the second D23 Expo won’t be held until 2011 leaked out last week, but it wasn’t known until today what, if anything, Disney had planned for this year.

The inaugural Destination D, with a theme of “Disneyland ’55,” will be held Sept. 24-25 in the Grand Ballroom of the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. Presentations and screenings will center on the 55th anniversary of the theme park.

Disney also set Aug. 19-21, 2011, as the dates for the next D23 Expo, viewed as Comic-Con for Disney fans. Tickets go on sale Aug. 19, 2010. The debut event drew a reported 40,000 fans to Anaheim for presentations on Disney’s film slates, appearances by stars like Johnny Depp and John Travolta, and displays by Disney divisions and licensees.

D23 Expo

Following Disney’s inaugural D23 Expo in September, many wondered what the next installment might look like now that Marvel is part of the House of Mouse. It turns out we’ll have to wait another year to find out.

Geoff Boucher reports that Disney plans to stage the D23 Expo as a biennial event, which means the second convention won’t be held until sometime in 2011.

“I’m not sure when this decision was made or how the expo was viewed in the new regime at Disney,” Boucher writes on The Los Angeles Times’ Hero Complex blog, “but I’ll try to find out.”

Last year’s event, held in Anaheim, featured presentations on Disney’s upcoming film slate and appearances by several stars, booths by BOOM! Studios and other licensees, displays for Disney divisions like ABC and Pixar, and more. As JK Parkin noted in his coverage for Robot 6, attendance for the first two days — a Thursday and Friday — was light, but picked up considerably on the weekend.

1. Overall, this was an extremely well-run event. Not surprisingly, Disney knows something about hosting thousands of people in a fairly confined area, and doing it in a way that those people leave worn out but with smiles on their faces. That doesn’t mean there weren’t issues – I’m still waiting for someone to give me back the hour or so I spent waiting for the Princess and the Frog presentation to start – but looking at the entire weekend, Disney handled the crowds really well. This was a combination of pre-planning (most of the employees who were handling the crowds seemed to have come over from Disneyland, where I’m sure they’re used to moving large masses of people around) and on-the-spot learning (getting out of Sunday’s big arena presentation on the animation slate was much easier than leaving Friday’s live-action film presentation, and I’m pretty sure Sunday’s crowd was bigger).

2. Overall, this was a very controlled event. As I mentioned in a previous post, entering some of the presentations (and note I call them presentations and not panels – I’ll get to that in a moment) required you to give up your cell phone, cameras and other devices before entering.

I can understand why a company like Disney, which puts countless hours and dollars into developing movies and the like, would want to also control how they’re disseminated onto the Internet, but it still felt very old school in this age of social media and online video, when many companies know they don’t have as much control over their “message” as they once had. Plus, from a logistical standpoint, it added more time onto the end of the presentation that could have been spent doing something else.

Beyond that, though, I think the bigger presentations on the movies, theme parks and animation segments could have used some interaction. That’s one of the strengths of something like Comic-Con, I think – having the opportunity, as a fan, to ask questions of the actors and writers and creators who attend. Also, while the appearances by Johnny Depp, John Travolta, etc. were appreciated, each of them spent maybe two or three minutes on stage. It would have been nice if there had been a little more fan interaction or, at the very least, maybe some longer panels after the big movie presentation where they could talk about their careers or projects or whatever. I think it would provide a little more spontaneity and fun to what otherwise was, essentially, a very well-done marketing presentation.

That doesn’t mean that everything was one way. For instance, Disney had a great exhibit set up on its parks and resorts where you could talk to Imagineers about upcoming rides and additions to their parks, which was one of the highlights of the whole event.

3. This was a well-attended event … on the weekend. I’m guessing this probably won’t be as much of an issue when/if Disney decides to do future events, but the crowds on Thursday and Friday were much lighter than the weekend traffic. That suggests the event probably drew in a lot of locals, but maybe not as many out-of-towners who saw it as a big-draw vacation opportunity.

But I’d also guess a lot of people heard about the Depp/Travolta/Cage appearances on Friday, and if Disney can continue to bring in that kind of star power (and can use it to market the event) I doubt that’ll be an issue.

4. I thought I would get bored as the weekend went on, but I didn’t. As I mentioned before, my wife’s a huge Disney fan, and I imagine the D23 Expo being created specifically with her in mind. But after attending Comic-Con for so many years, where panels and content and the dealer floor provide enough entertainment for multiple days (and then some), I wondered whether Disney would have enough stuff for me to do.

However, I left feeling as if I had seen a lot, but had also missed a lot of stuff, too, such as the Muppets panel and the Flash Forward screening and, well, everything on Thursday.

5. This event will be so much cooler once the Marvel deal closes. For comic fans, anyway, I’m sure that goes without saying. That doesn’t mean comics weren’t represented, as BOOM! was there to promote their licensed Disney books, but once the Marvel room is added to the House of Mouse, they’ll have the opportunity to showcase everything Marvel on the showroom floor. That will be fun to see.

6. Fans are fans, y’know? I may not have an opinion about the subtle differences between the Pirates of the Caribbean rides at Disney World and Disneyland, but I can respect the fan who can spend an hour talking about them, as one fan did behind us while we were waiting in a line. If only she read comics, we would have had a lot to talk about.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my wife and I are in Anaheim for Disney’s inaugural D23 Expo. Our Saturday started a little later than our Friday, as we thought we should take advantage of the opportunity to sleep in on at least one of our days out of town, and the first presentation we wanted to see wasn’t until 11. So we made it to the Anaheim Convention Center a little later than we did on Friday.

From what I could tell, Saturday was a whole lot busier than Friday, as the weekend attendees (and more kids, as Geoff Boucher noted) came out. The leisurely pace of Friday was replaced with longer lines and thicker crowds. I should add that it’s still a long way from the chaos of Comic-Con, but there was a noticeable difference between the two days.

The first thing on our agenda was the theme park presentation, where they showcased upcoming additions/changes to their theme parks, cruise line and resorts … these included a new Alaskan cruise that my wife thinks we need to sign up for as soon as we get home, as well as some cool new stuff they’re adding in Hong Kong. In Florida, they plan to expand Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom, doubling it in size, supping up their Dumbo ride and adding a Little Mermaid ride, among other changes.

The panel ended with the announcement that Star Tours would close down next October, which brought out a ton of Stormtroopers and Darth Vader, as the Empire “took over” the presentation. Star Tours will be replaced by Star Tours II, and they showed some 3-D podracing footage from the new ride:

After lunch, we spent the rest of the day on the third floor, checking out movie props, watching animators draw and seeing the Princess and the Frog presentation, which started really, really late. So far that’s been the only negative experience here. I didn’t have my cell phone, as they took them away from us before letting us into the theater, but the panel was supposed to start at 3, they didn’t let us into the room until 3:15 and then we sat for quite a long while before it ever started. It was supposed to end at 4:30, but by the time we got our phones back it was 6.

And I should add the presentation itself was well done, as they had all the animators on stage talking about the process of creating the film, and they showed some sequences from it. Anything negative was related to getting in and the delay, not anything that happened on stage.

Here are some photos from the third floor … most should be self-explanatory, but that last one is from the upcoming Sorcerer’s Apprentice film with Nicholas Cage:

Mark Waid

So the movie panel I talked about in an earlier post was a big highlight of the day, but another one was getting to meet Mark Waid, who I haven’t ever met in person, at the BOOM! booth at D23 today.

Or, actually, one of the BOOM! booths at the show, since they have two. I’ll explain after the break …

Here’s the other BOOM! booth. The first one, in the Mark Waid picture, is in the Consumer Products area of the show, where you can walk around and view all the various licensed products that Disney does. Everything from comic books to toys by Mattel to these huge $6000 playhouses based on locales from the Jungle Book and Cinderella and the like can be found here, but apparently nothing is actually being sold. If you walk past the Radio Disney booth (where you can hear the Jonas Brothers every other song) you’ll find a section called the Collector’s Forum, where the second booth sits among various retailers selling things like classic movie posters, Disney artwork, movie cels … and BOOM! selling comics and trades of their Disney comics.

Above are two Cars cars on display in a huge interactive exhibit they have set up to show off upcoming enhancements to their theme parks. The California Adventure park right here in Anaheim is going to get a new area with a Cars theme that will include several new rides. They had models set up of the area, due in either 2011 or 2012, along with Imagineers (the folks who develop the rides) who were on hand to explain them. The area also had models of new attractions coming to Hong Kong Disneyland that looked really killer, as well as a new resort they’re building in Hawaii (which, just to be clear, wasn’t a theme park; it looked more like a giant hotel crossed with a water park).

They also had that roving animatronic dinosaur thing available for pictures:

I’ve seen it at California Adventure before; it’s both creepy and cool.

And then they have something called Lost University, based of course on the ABC show Lost, as well as props from the show that’ll be auctioned off next year. The LU stuff was all on the computer and I never sat down to check it out.

It was an interesting day; the show’s not crowded by any stretch of the imagination (well, unless you want to buy something at the Disney Dreamstore before 9 a.m. … the checkout line was at least 30 minutes, according to one employee) and it’s easy to walk around and look at stuff. The movie panel was pretty packed, but wasn’t quite standing room only, and getting in was a breeze. Getting out was kind of a pain, as everyone had to retrieve their checked cell phones and cameras at the same time, but that moved relatively well, all things considered. I have to wonder, though, if because this is the first year and no one really knew what to expect, if having Johnny Depp and John Travolta and other big stars pop in for panels will cause an uptick in the crowds next year.

More tomorrow if I get a chance …

My wife and I flew down to Anaheim, Calif. last night to attend Disney’s first-ever D23 Expo, a fan convention focused on anything related to the House of Mouse. The event kicked off on Thursday with a presentation by Bob Iger, Disney CEO, which we unfortunately missed, but you can read about what he said about the Marvel deal over on CBR.

We picked up our badges — or, actually, wristbands — last night, and headed over to the Anaheim Convention Center this morning for our first full day.

We had a few things on our agenda for today, not the least of which was the big movie presentation by Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Cook’s presentation basically covered everything that fell into the live-action category; John Lasseter of Pixar fame will be here on Sunday to talk about their animation slate.

And let me tell you, if there’s one thing Disney knows how to do, it’s put on a good presentation. Cook spoke in the convention center’s huge arena, to a crowd of about 5,000 I think was the number he gave. Before we headed into the arena, we stood in a long but fast-moving line and had to give up all electronic devices to a friendly Disney employee. Cameras, cell phones, laptops, etc. weren’t permitted into the presentation, which killed any thoughts I had about Twitter updates or live coverage, or even photos to share later.

But anyway, you could tell this wasn’t going to be a normal presentation or movie panel when the orchestra and singers took their places next to the stage. It kicked off with a musical/video tribute to past Disney films, everything from Pretty Woman and Pearl Harbor to Mary Poppins and Sleeping Beauty. The orchestra performed all sorts of music from the Disney mainstays, i.e. Circle of Life, Beauty and the Beast, etc.

Then Cook went into the films and started bringing out the stars:

–Robert Zemeckis as there to talk briefly about A Christmas Carol, a 3-D stop motion thing (think Polar Express) starring Jim Carrey as Scrooge and a lot of other characters. They provided 3-D glasses, of course, so we could watch the trailer and some scenes from the film. Zemeckis is also working with Disney on a Yellow Submarine film.
–John Travolta, his wife Kelly Preston and their daughter were there to promote Old Dogs, a film with all three of them, Robin Williams, Seth Green and a lot of other folks. Travolta and Williams are two older single guys, best friends, and they find out Williams’ character has twins from a previous girlfriend. They showed the trailer and a clip, and the crowd seemed to find it hilarious; it just kind of reminded me of something akin to Wild Hogs (which people also went nuts over when they heard there would be a sequel).
–Jerry Bruckheimer was there to talk about Prince of Persia, which comes out next summer. I thought the clips they showed were pretty cool, but the crowd didn’t respond as loudly to them as they did to other clips.
–Nicholas Cage was there to talk about the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. This is one I wasn’t too sure about going into it, but after seeing the clips and behind-the-scenes stuff they showed, I’m probably a little more excited about this one. Cage plays an older sorcerer who has been looking for an apprentice for centuries … and he finds him in New York City. Alfred Molina plays the bad guy. I don’t know; this could end up being really bad, but I dug what I saw during the presentation. Cook also asked Cage if he was up for a third National Treasure movie, which made the crowd roar.
–Tim Burton was on hand to talk about Alice in Wonderland; I was half expecting Johnny Depp to pop out while he was talking, but it didn’t happen. I also had to chuckle when Burton told Cook he wanted to make an Alice in Wonderland film because he thought no one had ever done it justice … cough, cough.
–After showing the Wonderland trailer, Cook said that they were doing a full-length version of Burton’s Frankenweenie short from many moons ago.
–Live via video from New Zealand, Guillermo del Toro talked about the new movie studio he formed with Disney, called Disney’s Double Dare You. They plan to make animated films with a bit of a horror/adventure bent. del Toro mentioned he was a big fan of rides like The Haunted Mansion, and he wanted to capture the storytelling feel of those sorts of rides in these films. The first one is called The Trollhunters, based on one of del Toro’s ideas.
–Miley Cyrus came out to perform a song from … well, I’m not exactly sure. But I can check “See Miley Cyrus perform live” off my bucket list.
–Also performing on stage were the Muppets, who came out from behind the curtain in a big boat and performed a number. This was one of the highlights, but probably not THE highlight … Cook said a new Muppet film was in the works, called The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made.
–Cook also spoke about other films that are further in the future, like John Carter of Mars and The Lone Ranger. They debuted some concept art for the former and said Johnny Depp would play Tonto in the latter (not sure if that was “new” news or not.) It seemed like there were a couple of other films mentioned as well, but I can’t remember what they were. But watch for a report on the main site.

People were already getting up to leave when Cook pulled a Steve Jobs and said there was one more thing he wanted to mention. At that point, the Pirates of the Caribbean logo appeared on the big screen, with the words “On Stranger Tides” underneath it, followed by “Summer 2011.” Of course, the crowd was going nuts, then was standing and cheering as the curtains were pulled back to reveal a giant masthead and sail. You could the silhouette of someone in the sail, and as it rotated around, there was Johnny Depp, dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow, who swaggered out on stage. He stayed in character as he spoke to Cook, saying he was looking for a talking frog because he likes them — “they taste like chicken” then made a reference to it being time for Rum. Overall, it was a really cool moment and a really cool way to end the presentation.

I’ll have more about what we did and saw soon …