Director Andrew Stanton has spent almost his entire career in the world of animation, working at Pixar since the original Toy Story and acquiring two Academy Awards in the process, but he's ready to take a break. It turns out the filmmaker's immediate future rests in the world of live-action -- with the particular draws being the much faster turnaround time, and the greater freedom for improvisation and surprise in the production process.
Andrew Stanton revealed this interesting note about his upcoming plans earlier this morning when I sat down with him for a one-on-one interview during the Finding Dory press day in Los Angeles. We had a great, long conversation about his latest feature -- which I'll post more from in the coming days -- but it was at the end of our talk that we discussed what his ideas are for the future. While many filmmakers are hesitant to talk about what's next for them just before their new movie comes out, Stanton told me that he is always thinking about it, and has made some key decisions:
I'm not getting any younger, so I'm probably going to flop to live-action for a little bit. Because it's quicker and it's a little bit more of the opposite... It's the antithesis of animation. Animation you get to control everything, and it's awesome in that sense. But there's no spontaneity, and it takes a long time! And so there's high risk for the complete opposite reasons of live-action, but I need a little bit of short term spontaneity -- to play with that.
For reasons that should be obvious, I followed up by asking if there was anything in particular that he was looking at. He couldn't give me any details, but did say that there are irons in the fire, and that we should be hearing some news in the coming months. Said Stanton,
I have a lot of options. But I definitely want to get busy before the year is out.
Of course, this won't be Andrew Stanton's first time around in the live-action game. While Andrew Stanton's career in animation has been incredibly impressive, making beloved films like Finding Nemo and Wall-E, things didn't go super smoothly when he made his first transition into the alternate film medium with John Carter. When the sci-fi adventure movie was released in 2012, it didn't get much of a critical or box office reception, and instead experienced a large quantity of unfortunate blowback (an unfair amount, in this writer's opinion). That being said, Stanton has proven himself as an incredibly smart and inventive filmmaker, so our hopes are high for his future.
Before Andrew Stanton starts moving forward in the live-action realm, you'll be able to see more of his great animated work in theaters next week, as Finding Dory arrives in cinemas on June 17th.
