Brad Bird, the creative mind behind The Incredibles, Ratatouille, The Iron Giant, and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, is preparing for the release of his next big film, Disney’s Tomorrowland.
A new trailer was released today, which you can watch below.
Tomorrowland is not only based on the land at Disneyland/Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, but also the inception of Disneyland itself and Walt’s eager imagination in creating a futuristic world. It’s bound to be a special film for Disney fans, as well as something accessible to the larger public, given its cast and crew.
The film is about Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), a teen who loves science and discovers a futuristic world that exists between time and space. Frank Walker (George Clooney), an inventor who once visited Tomorrowland as a kid, agrees to help Casey learn about the world.
While the buzz around this movie has mostly been mystery and getting people intrigued, this trailer does give us a better look at the film. It’s a fight for the future, a better future, and Casey is The Chosen One type character of the film who’s meant to save this future. There are fighting robots, a bathtub rocket launcher, and a lot more exciting shots in the trailer.
I think the mystery works for a film like this and could be a sleeper hit at the box office, and certainly a better film based on the Disney parks than previous ones (ahem The Haunted Mansion).
Before the trailer was released, Bird and producer Damon Lindelof hosted a live Q&A on Facebook.
Bird and Lindelof both touched on the themes and inspiration for the film. Bird said that he was inspired by “how the future used to be seen in contrast to how it’s seen today” while Lindelof, in response to a fan saying he had a darker essence, replied that this movie “is really a reaction TO dystopic sci-fi… as much as I love that stuff, we really wanted to explore what happened to our jetpacks!”
In terms of Hugh Laurie (playing a character named David Nix), who we’ve seen very little of, Lindelof stated that he was the only actor they considered for the role because they needed someone who could: “be very, very smart; be very, very funny; and go toe to toe with George as to who is the greatest former TV doctor.”
He also said that his first “wow” moment in working on this film for the past four years was when they started discussing Disney at the 1964 World Fair and he realized they were “tapping into something pretty cool here.”
Cool is an understatement, I think. There’s clearly a lot of passion involved with a project like this and it holds a lot of promise.
Tomorrowland is set to come out on May 22, 2015 and stars Britt Robertson, George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Judy Greer, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key, and Raffey Cassidy.
