D23 Movie Panel

Disney movie news. [Link]

--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.

Plus, a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Yay. Three was enough. I want to see more on John Carter of Mars and the new Muppet movie.