Empire Big Screen: Disney Showcase and Muppets Interview

Disney’s showcase at the Big Screen event/festival/shindig boasted an interesting selection of clips and footage from some interesting looking films. Shawn Levy was first to show up with some fun footage from the robot-boxing movie Real Steel (which I did get to see in order to prepare for the upcoming interview I did with Shawn Levy, but I’m embargoed from reviewing until October 7th). The clips we saw included one boxing match and a scene in which star Hugh Jackman and on-screen son Dakota Goyo discover an old robot quite by accident in a scrap yard. Levy was keen to stress the film’s focus on the father-son relationship and its classic underdog sports story rather than the robotic brutality. Real Steel looks like a lot of fun, but who knows how good it will be? WHO KNOWS?

We also got to see quite a bit of footage from John Carter (formerly of Mars), Disney’s new space-fantasy tour-de-force (or Avatar cash in, if we’re being cynical. Which we’re not!). The footage was introduced by Pixar big kahuna Andrew Stanton, who has played some sort of role (often writing and/or directing and/or producing) on pretty much every film the studio has churned out. John Carter is his first live action flick and is something of a labour of love, given that Stanton has wanted to bring the story to the screen since his childhood. We saw a burly-looking Taylor Kitsch as the titular John meeting some green aliens and doing a lot of jumping around, followed by what looked an awful lot like the coliseum scene in Star Wars Episode II. The CGI didn’t look quite finished, but given that Pixar have been doing photo-realistic visuals for some time now, I’m certain the finished article will look fine. Overall though, John Carter looks good fun. The trailer was improved no end by the classy inclusion of Peter Gabriel’s ‘My Body is a Cage’ as background music.

The last major bit of the showcase was Spielberg’s War Horse, which was introduced by star Jeremy Irvine. Irvine had been playing a small chorus part in a stage production during his audition before getting the part; the jump up to the big league proving as surprising to the actor as anyone else. The footage we saw seemed as stirring and care-laden as anything else Spielberg has done and should do justice to the well-loved book by Michael Morpurgo and the stage play.

They also showed the teaser at the end of Captain America for The Avengers, which is basically a lot of fast cuts between people talking in a grey steel room.

Disney’s showcase was followed by a live satellite link up with Kermit the Frog (Kermit the goddamn Frog!) and director James Bobin (Flight of the Conchords) in which they chatted about the new Muppets film, The Muppets. The interview was a lot of fun and was many people’s highlight of the weekend. The new film seems very much in the vein of classic Muppet’s comedy and we were treated to a sizable chunk which saw Jason Segel, Amy Adams (both perfectly suited to The Muppets) and their Muppet friend Walter tracking down Kermit in order to convince him to get the old gang back together in order to save the Muppet Theatre. The clip included a very sweet song by Kermit and boasted a handful of big laughs, even in its brief duration, which bodes exceedingly well for the film’s release. Kermit’s chat – in which he took several questions from the ecstatic audience – was interrupted by Fozzie Bear and, of course, Miss Piggy who threatened to spill the backstage beans on Jason Segel before the clip cut off. February cannot come soon enough.