lee unkrich Tagged Articles at Cinematical

When Toy Story 3 was announced to the wider world thanks to that little teaser before Up, a lot of people groaned. I don't know of a single person who hates either of the Toy Story films, and I don't think it's too mushy to say that they hold a pretty special place in everybody's heart. You don't want to see that watered down and exploited.

Thankfully, it's PIXAR at the helm rather than sequel-squeezing Disney, and they assure everyone that the third installment will actually bring closure to the series. SciFi Wire caught up with animator Angus MacLane at the Saturn Awards (he was responsible for Burn-E, and has been with Pixar since Toy Story 2 where he created the crazy Buzz clone), and he spilled a few secrets on the newest adventures of Buzz and Woody. To the surprise of no one that saw Up, their final installment will be a bittersweet one. Lee Unkrich will be directing, and the storyline will center on Andy leaving for college.

"I feel like we've grown up making these movies, and each of the films represents where the filmmakers were at the time of making the films," MacLane said. "Certainly we're approaching this film 10 years later, so I think we're sort of coming at it from the standpoint of [Andy] has grown up, and we've grown up with these toys, and we have a reverence for them, but we also have different things as a priority." In other words, you should start stocking up on Kleenex now, and prepare to feel old and tired when you leave the theater.

It has been over a year since the director and screenwriter were named for Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich and Michael Arndt). Finally, it seems that we're getting some plot details, but there's a case of dueling summaries going on. Over at Empire, they say that The Wall Street Journal got a bit loose-lipped in an article they recently ran about Disney Pixar stopping the outsourcing of their movies' video games. The Journal says: "Woody the cowboy and his toy-box friends are dumped in a day-care center after their owner, Andy, leaves for college." That makes sense. It's been 11 years since the last film, so a whole lot of time has gone by (not that time really matters in the film world).

Now, the twist comes in over at IMDb. Just the other day, the plot summary was updated and it says: "In this new adventure, Buzz Lightyear has encountered a malfunction and is being sent to Taiwan to be fixed. It appears that these malfunctions are occurring with toys all around the world! Now, Woody and a group of his friends are on a mission to save Buzz's destruction."

So, did the Journal really leak something? Is Disney/Pixar putting up a bunch of different summaries to mess with our minds? Or, is this summary on IMDb just b-s?

More importantly: Which would you prefer?

With Ratatouille set to hit theaters on June 29, the latest issue of Time Magazine provides some info on the next three Pixar films for you fanatics who aren't in the mood to wait to see what the animation studio has in store for us down the line. Dark Horizons managed to get a hold of the vague plot descriptions, but the most interesting part came in the announcement of a brand new Pixar flick for 2009; one we hadn't heard anything about until now. First up for Pixar will be Wall * E (to be released on June 27, 2008) and, according to DH, it's being described "as a space-set remake of a 1931 Charlie Chaplin film about a blind girl wooed by a tramp she mistakenly believes is a rich man." However, this film will be set in the year 2700 and, instead of humans, the main characters will be a robot named Wall * E and a female robot named Eve. Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) will write and direct, with Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt voicing the main roles electronically.

On June 12, 2009, Pixar will shovel out a film called Up. I'm not quite sure I follow the plot description, but here's what DH gives us: "A 'coming-of-old-age' story which follows an elderly man who befriends a clueless young Wilderness Ranger and gets into lots of globe-hopping, ass-kicking adventures with villains and beasts whilst still eating dinner in the early afternoon." Make of that what you will; I'll be curious to see how well this one does with an elderly man in the main role. Following Up, Toy Story 3 will hit theaters at some point during the summer of 2010. Lee Unkrich (co-director of Toy Story 2 and Finding Nemo) is currently writing the story, so there's no word on what type of adventure Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz (Tim Allen) will find themselves on this time, but I have to imagine folks will anticipate this one the most. Here's hoping the geniuses at Pixar take a real close look at the failures of some of this summer's threequels so that Toy Story 3 doesn't disappoint. Fingers crossed.

We knew this news was coming since way back when Pixar and Disney kissed and made up: Toy Story 3 is officially a Go. Variety fills us in with all the details: Production on the third adventure of Buzz Lightyear and Woody the Cowboy is about to get underway, but John Lasseter (director of TS and TS2) will not be at the helm this time. (He is the Chief Creative Officer for Disney Animation, don't forget.) This means that directorial duties fall squarely on Mr. Lee Unkrich, but this guy's more than earned the gig by now. (He was an editor/co-director on Pixar beauties like Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo.)

And here's another interesting tidbit: Seems that Little Miss Sunshine screenwriter Michael Arndt has been tapped to pen Toy Story 3. (Hey, score one for the little guy!) Anyway, Disney says that TS3 should be ready by 2009, which is kind of a long time to wait -- but, like most of you, I'm just thrilled that things worked out this way. We came kind of close to getting a Pixar-free Toy Story 3, didn't we?