Dwayne Johnson Talks About His Stunts In ‘Witch Mountain’

Dwayne Johnson, who stars in the upcoming Disney fantasy film Race to Witch Mountain, told reporters that he did his taxi-driver character’s stunt work and cab driving himself. "I actually did all of the stunt work, which was great for me," Johnson said. "I had a lot of fun—it reminded me just how fun and cool movies are."

Johnson, who reunites with director Andy Fickman after last year’s The Game Plan, said that the film was a learning process for both of them. "I had never shot action sequences like that," Johnson confessed. "Scott Rogers, who was the action coordinator for the Bourne movies, came on board, and he did these really great action sequences, and much to Andy Fickman’s chagrin, I was able to do all of the car stunts. Second unit shot them, that’s how he didn’t know that I was in the car. He would have said no, but I would not have listened, like I normally don’t when he gives me direction."

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Disney Pulls Out of Third ‘Narnia’ Film

Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media have confirmed that for budgetary and logistical reasons the Burbank-based studio is not exercising its option to co-produce and co-finance The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with Walden.

The Hollywood Reporter says the third installment was in preproduction and set for a spring shoot for a planned May 2010 release. The development puts the participation of the talent attached in doubt, adds the trade. Michael Apted was on board to direct a script by Steven Knight. The key players of the second installment, “Prince Caspian” — Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley, William Moseley and Anna Popplewell — were to return for the third film.

Walden has a strong relationship with the C.S. Lewis estate and will shop “Treader” in hopes of finding a new partner. The most likely candidate at this stage is Fox, which markets and distributes Walden fare under the Fox Walden banner.

Any partnership on a “Narnia” movie will require a substantial investment, however. “Caspian,” which filmed in the Czech Republic, Mexico and New Zealand, cost $200 million. The first film, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” was shot mostly in New Zealand for $180 million.

Source: ComingSoon.net

Bruce Boxleitner Returns for ‘Tron 2.0′

Bruce Boxleitner, who played Alan Bradley and the title character in Walt Disney Pictures’ 1982 film Tron, is currently filming a role for the studio’s upcoming Tron 2.0. He joins fellow original cast member Jeff Bridges and newcomers Olivia Wilde and Beau Garrett in the anticipated action-adventure.

In the original, hacker/arcade owner Kevin Flynn (Bridges) is digitally broken down into a data stream by a villainous software pirate known as the Master Control Program (MCP) and reconstituted into the internal, 3-D graphical world of computers. It is there, in the ultimate blazingly colorful, geometrically intense landscapes of cyberspace, that Flynn joins forces with Tron (Boxleitner) to outmaneuver the MCP that holds them captive in the equivalent of a gigantic, infinitely challenging computer game.

Though plot details are being kept under wraps, it is know that the new movie will act as the “next chapter.” Wilde will play a worker in the virtual world who tries to help fight Master Control Program, while Garrett will play a siren in the virtual world.

Source: ComingSoon.net

Toei, Disney’s 1st Full ‘RoboDz’ Episode Streamed Online

Anime News Network has a piece on Toei and Disney’s joint production:

The Japanese studio Toei Animation has posted the full first episode of RoboDz, its joint computer-graphics production with Walt Disney. RoboDz is one of three projects that Walt Disney is co-producing with Japanese animation studios for Japanese audiences. (The other two are Madhouse’s Japan-based Stitch! television series spinoff and Jinni’s Fireball television series about two robots.) Read more

Tron 2 Announced At Comic-Con

Disney unveiled computer animation for a sequel to its classic 1982 animated SF movie Tron in a surprise announcement to more than 6,500 fans at Comic-Con International in San Diego on July 24.

The sequence opens with a camera twisting through the clouds during a thunderstorm, then down and across a grid. In the center, a figure in a new version of the blue light suit runs and jumps, and a new version of the lightcycle materializes under him. Read more

Disney Studios Launches Graphic Novel Program

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