The theme parks under Walt Disney’s corporate umbrella have been getting a ton of attention lately, from a Sundance film called Escape From Tomorrow that shot behind the scenes in the Disney parks to a Jon Favreau-directed adventure that reportedly will take place in one of the Disneyland park areas in Anaheim, CA. Now we hear that another major feature is adopting the name of a classic Disney theme park … and it shifts focus away from what the movie might actually be about.
Brad Bird’s next live-action movie, a sci-fi drama once known as 1952, has officially changed its title to Tomorrowland. That’s a major part of Disney’s Magic Kingdom park in Orlando, the home of Space Mountain and a fantastic Buzz Lightyear ride/shooting-game combination. This also leans us back to a theory floating around the Internet that this movie somehow might be tied to Walt Disney’s origins … and maybe the insight he had into the construction of the Disney parks? But that’s a spitball being lobbed into a thuderstorm.
Here’s what we do know for sure: Bird is directing the movie from a screenplay by Damon Lindelof (from a concept cooked up by Lindelof and Jeff Jensen), and the tone of the project has been compared to Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. That photo above is a pic shared by the creators of a box filled with inspiration they had for the film. George Clooney has confirmed his participation in the film, though beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. Disney has circled Dec. 19, 2014 as a release date for the mysterious project, so now we just have to sit back and wait for the rest of the crucial puzzle pieces to hit the table before we can move them around into a shape that we can figure out.
