Disney brought A-list talent to the stage at the Anaheim Convention Center.
President of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production Sean Bailey came on and stirred up Muppet mayhem with details about Disney’s Muppets Most Wanted, welcoming Ty Burrell to the stage—via Le Maxium, a tiny European car that aptly underscored the actor’s portrayal of French Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon. The film also stars Ricky Gervais, plus Tina Fey, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, who greeted guests of the D23 Expo “live” from the film’s international set—somewhere far, far away.
Directed by James Bobin and produced by David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman, Disney’s Muppets Most Wanted takes the entire Muppets gang on a global tour, selling out grand theaters in some of Europe’s most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine—the World’s Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit—and his dastardly sidekick Dominic, aka Number Two, portrayed by Gervais. Fey is featured as Nadya, a feisty prison guard. Bobin co-wrote the screenplay with Nicholas Stoller, who is also executive producer with John G. Scotti. Featuring music from Academy Award-winning songwriter Bret McKenzie, Muppets Most Wanted hits the big screen March 21, 2014.
Disney’s Into the Woods celebrated its first public introduction as Sean Bailey shared some details with the audience about the highly anticipated musical. Rob Marshall, the talented filmmaker behind the Academy Award-winning musical Chicago and Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is set to helm Into the Woods, which stars Academy Award winning actress Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine and Emily Blunt. Marc Platt, who produced the multiple Tony Award-winning musical Wicked on Broadway, will produce Into the Woods, along with producers Marshall, John DeLuca and Callum McDougall.
Into the Woods, based on the Tony-winning original musical by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim, surrounds a baker and his wife’s quest to break a witch’s curse in order to start a family. Along the way, they encounter several well-known fairy tale characters and together they learn what happens after happily ever after. The film is slated for a December 2014 holiday release.
