When you go to theme parks a lot, you start to look for new ways to enjoy them. For some, this might mean seeking out experiences you haven’t had. I love attending Disney After Hours events to get unique experiences that aren’t available during normal operations. Some people, who love theme parks and are also wild athletes, have decided that going to Disney World and running marathons are things that go together. Now, as runners prepare for a big Winnie the Pooh race, the park has a funny and dark warning.

If you’re a runner and a Disney fan, then you’re likely at least familiar with RunDisney. The organization sets up running events, from 5Ks to marathons, that allow people to run in and around Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Each race has a theme, and many fans like to dress up according to the theme. If you’re considering doing so for Disney World’s Winnie the Pooh-themed Springtime Surprise 10K next year, Disney World has one request. Please wear pants.

I almost died laughing when I saw this post from an online friend, Theme Park Twitter’s Pinapple Princess, Victoria Wade. One has to simply assume that if RunDisney has to tell you that you need to wear pants, it’s because previously there was a problem with somebody not wearing pants. Adults can often get up to shenanigans at Disney Parks that aren’t exactly family friendly, but hopefully we can all agree to keep our pants on, yeah?

Winnie the Pooh is one of a surprising number of animated characters that don’t wear pants. In the case of Pooh, it actually makes more sense as he is canonically a stuffed bear, not a real one. But one can certainly imagine that if somebody tried to Disneybound as Winnie the Pooh, they may have difficulty figuring out how to dress their lower half.

Disneybounding is the practice of dressing up in clothes that, while not technically a costume, evoke a particular character through colors and styles. It's especially popular on Dapper Day, an unofficial event at Disney Parks that sees guests dress in their best as they walk the parks.

Kids wearing costumes in Disney Parks is generally allowed, but rules can be a bit more strict for adults as Disney doesn’t want people confusing a guest for a Cast Member. Disneybounding was born as a way to give Disney Adults a way to dress up.

Disneybounding has become quite popular at the RunDisney races, as most of the people who participate in them, at least based on my limited exposure, are more often Disney fans who don’t mind running than they are runners who just decided to do a Disney event.

If you’re all concerned about a lack of pants in the 10K run, the 5K version of Springtime Surprise is themed to Zootopia, which is getting a sequel later this year. Those animals tend to wear pants, except for the nudists, of course.

Disney has created some incredible songs and has captured generations of musical lovers, from sad songs to uplifting songs and more. But sometimes, there are songs in movies that just should not be there, and today, we are going to talk about 32 Disney songs that just aren’t good and should never have been in their movies. 

“Fixer Upper” (Frozen)

So even if Frozen was a massive hit for Disney when it was released, let’s be openly honest here and say that “Fixer Upper” is just not a hit for many reasons. 

I feel like Frozen was so focused on the relationship between Elsa and Anna that a romance almost felt kind of forced, but then “Fixer Upper” came around, and it was just uncomfortable the whole time. 

“Fathoms Below” (The Little Mermaid)

I think you’d have to be insane not to love the movie that started the Disney Renaissance films, and the music from The Little Mermaid is pretty much loved worldwide – but you never see people liking “Fathoms Below” for a good reason. 

The song is pretty forgettable in several ways, but it’s also not super good compared to many of the other songs from the famous musical. 

“This Is The Thanks I Get?!” (Wish)

Wish was split between critics, and one reason was that many felt King Magnifico, the Disney villain, fell flat. And his villain song, “This Is The Thanks I Get?!” fell even flatter. 

It’s such a shame. Chris Pine is a great actor but should have been given a better villain song. The lyric, “I let you live here for free, and I don’t even charge you rent.” Like, duh – that’s the point. Who wrote these? 

“Human Again” (Beauty and the Beast)

Beauty and the Beast has some of the most iconic Disney songs ever, but “Human Again” ranks at the bottom of that list. 

It’s just forgettable in so many ways and doesn’t fit with the whole vibe of the film. I get that these objects want their bodies once more to be human, but not to be mean, but I don’t care about you. I care about Belle and the Beast and their love story.  

“This Wish” (Wish)

Wish didn’t have great songs, and “This Wish” was probably the best out of all the mediocre ones, but it wasn’t the best version of the classic Disney “I Want” songs. 

Star Ariana DeBose shines in her role, and her voice is stunning, which we’ve all known from her time in the original Hamilton cast and West Side Story cast, but this song wasn’t. The lyrics aren’t the best and are just not as inspiring as others. 

“Kanine Krunchies” (101 Dalmatians)

Why are there even songs in 101 Dalmatians? The only song I remembered was “Cruella De Vil,” but I suppose that was for good reason because "Kanine Krunchies" is awful and doesn’t fit in the film.

“A Place Called Slaughter Race” (Wreck-It-Ralph 2)

The older I get, the more I realize that Wreck-It-Ralph 2 wasn’t a great sequel, and there are many reasons why. I don’t remember half of what happened because it was so forgettable, but this song? "A Place Called Slaughter Race" of all things to sing? Why? 

“Sing Sweet Nightingale” (Cinderella)

I like Cinderella in comparison to many of the other earlier Disney princesses. Cinderella’s voice is beautiful, but this song – sung by the step sisters – I could live the rest of my life without hearing it again. I don’t need those shrill voices of "Sing Sweet Nightingale" anymore. 

“Reindeer Are Better Than People” (Frozen)

Frozen has some fantastic songs, but others just don’t hit, and “Reindeer Are Better than People” is one of them. 

Not only is it short – barely a minute long – it’s just a guy singing to his reindeer about how much he hates people and prefers reindeer company. There are no great lyrics there. Jonathan Groff’s movies and TV shows are great and he’s so talented and has such a fantastic voice, but it was squandered in Frozen. 

“It’s Gonna Be Great” (Winnie The Pooh)

So the 2001 Winnie the Pooh movie is cute and full of fun little gags and the characters we all know and love, but “It’s Gonna Be Great” makes me sad and annoyed, too. It’s the perfect song to show how different Eeyore is from everyone else and how he is not like Tigger whatsoever, but it’s just that it’s repetitive. It drives me up the wall. 

“A Guy Like You” (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame has one of the best Disney villain songs of all time, “Hellfire,” but it also has “A Guy Like You,” so it balances itself out, I guess. 

The song feels mocking in a way. The gargoyles are singing it to Quasi to make him feel better about himself after he feels he’ll never be loved, and it almost feels like they’re making up reasons that he’s loveable and trying to be genuine, but it falls flat. 

“One Last Hope” (Hercules)

Hercules is an underrated movie and I love it. Hercules is my Roman Empire, and I still think it’s one of the best Disney movies ever. But “One Last Hope” is a rip-off of “Friend Like Me.”  Obviously, it’s not the same premise, and the actors are different, but “One Last Hope” tries to imitate Genie’s quirkiness from Aladdin and build up our hero into something bigger than he is, but it doesn’t work the same. 

“The Siamese Song” (The Lady and the Tramp)

Duh. This has to be on the list. 

Not only is “The Siamese Song” from Lady and the Tramp annoying, but it’s also problematic for very obvious reasons. I’m pretty sure we’ve all collectively agreed to forget about this song in general. 

“When I See An Elephant Fly” (Dumbo)

I learned that I like Dumbo way more than I thought I did as a kid because I sobbed during “Baby Mine,” but now I watched “When I See An Elephant Fly,” and I think, “Hmm…maybe not the best choice in music.”

I won’t even touch the crow issue with a ten-foot pole, but the song is repetitive and not super catchy. It has a decent beat, but that’s about it for me. 

“Some Things Never Change” (Frozen 2)

Frozen 2 is just alright. Truthfully, it felt like Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) took a backseat in this movie to pave the way for Elsa’s true story (which I liked the most about it). But the music for the other characters didn’t hit as hard. 

Case and point – “Some Things Never Change.” It’s meant to be the opening song and tries to imitate “For The First Time In Forever,” but it doesn’t feel the same and is pretty slow. 

“Perfect Isn’t Easy” (Oliver And Company)

Oliver & Company is one of those films that fell under the rug, and “Perfect Isn’t Easy” is the perfect example of why because most of the songs weren’t super good. It doesn’t even matter that the actress who sings this song is the utterly talented Bette Midler – it’s just a silly song that attempts to tell jokes, but none of them quite hit the mark, and then it falls to the ground of the forgettable Disney songs. 

“One Little Slip” (Chicken Little)

The early 2000s and 2010s CGI films for Disney were a tough time when they were trying to improve their technology, and Chicken Little was an unfortunate calamity from that. 

Critics panned the film itself, and honestly, years later, I can admit that it’s not a good movie. Chicken Little isn’t a musical, but the opening song, “One Little Slip,” is as forgettable as this movie is. 

“Trashin’ The Camp” (Tarzan)

Phil Collins created an excellent soundtrack for Tarzan, but “Trashin’ The Camp” was not a great addition. The song is honestly annoying and aggravating to the ears, and I suppose that makes sense for what the jungle animals are doing to the camp – trashing it – but it’s just so bad, and in a movie that has “You’ll Be In My Heart” and “Son of a Man,” that’s a sin. 

“Yodel-Adle-Eedle-Idle-Oo” (Home On The Range)

Home on the Range is another pretty forgettable Disney movie, and “Yodel-Adle-Eedle-Idle-Oo” is the most forgettable Disney villain song. I didn’t even recall this behind a song before researching this article. Sung by Randy Quaid, it is just a yodel song meant to show that the main villain, Alameda Slim, can lure animals to him, and it’s just…weird. 

“Scales And Arpeggios” (Aristocats)

Look, I know I was a kid once, too. I had to learn my “Scales and Arpeggios” when I played instruments and sang, but this song from The Aristocats hurt my ears. 

I know they’re just kids, and I know that they’re not doing anything inherently wrong. They’re just trying to learn how to sing and play piano, but if I listen to more squeaky voices sing these songs, I might lose my mind. 

“What Made The Red Man Red?” (Peter Pan)

Ooh boy. How do I go about this? The original Peter Pan overall is quite enjoyable, but the song regarding the Native Americans was, ah…not good. Not good at all. 

“What Made The Red Man Red?” is possibly the most audacious Disney song as it is primed with racist ideas of what the Native Americans were back in the 1950s. Thankfully, most Disney songs are nowhere near as bad as this one, but this is pretty high on the terrible song list. 

“The Scuttlebutt” (2023’s The Little Mermaid)

I love Lin-Manuel Miranda songs, but “The Scuttlebutt” from the 2017 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid can take a seat, please. Even Awkwafina and David Diggs could not save this song. It’s just not good; I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t need to hear the gossip, gag, or whatever it is that Scuttle wants to deliver to me if that’s the song the bird sings. 

“Pink Elephant Parade” (Dumbo)

No, what I have creepily screenshotted is not from one of the best horror movies out there – it’s from Dumbo. I’m pretty sure every kid at some point had nightmares from the “Pink Elephant Parade” song from Dumbo. The context behind it isn’t wrong – Dumbo was drunk for the first time, so it’s natural he’d see strange things, but this song is just strangely animated and scares me even now as an adult. 

“The Morning Report” (The Lion King) 

The Lion King has some of the best music ever written for an animated film – heck, it has some of the best music written ever if we’re honest. But “The Morning Report” was completely unnecessary. It’s not bad. Nothing Elton John writes is ever wrong, but compared to the rest of the soundtrack, it’s unnecessary and takes away the film's vibe. 

“A Girl Worth Fighting For” (Mulan)

Mulan does have some of the best Disney music. It’s not heavily painted in musical format, making the songs used even more effective because they carry so much meaning in the film. However, “A Girl Worth Fighting For” could have been omitted. 

The only thing I like about it is the way it ends, and the happy mood of the film suddenly shifts to much darker when they stumble across that burned village. But the song is pretty agitating to listen to, and truthfully, the lyrics are kind of meh compared to today’s standards. 

“Lack Of Education” (The Fox and the Hound)

The Fox and the Hound isn’t known for its music, as it’s not a musical, but it does have some songs in it that are good – however, “Lack of Education” is not one of them.  Truthfully, this song annoys me because it feels like the animals are speaking to each other rather than singing, and I hate that kind of music so much. 

“Hello, Little Girl” (Into The Woods)

I know that “Hello, Little Girl” is part of the original Into the Woods musical, and Johnny Depp was great as the Wolf in the film version, which I’ve rewatched before. But, still, I wouldn’t say I like the song – especially in the movie. 

I get weird predator vibes from The Wolf, and I know that’s sort of the point, but I think it’s just the lyrics that make me so uncomfortable, and I do not want this song in this soundtrack. I could live without it. 

“Days In The Sun” (2017’s Beauty And The Beast)

The 2017 live-action Beauty and the Beast has some great performances and even introduced us to a new original song, “Evermore,” which was beautiful. But this original, “Days in the Sun,” didn’t need to be there. 

It’s a song sung by the castle objects, and it’s a depressing tune about them singing about their “days in the sun” as humans during happier times. I mean, why? Why do we need this? This is supposed to make me happy. 

“When I Am Older” (Frozen 2)

“When I Am Older” tries to capture the magic of “In Summer” in Frozen 2 and fails miserably. The only thing good about this is Josh Gad’s excellent voice acting, but that’s about it. 

“Savages” (Pocahontas)

Pocahontas released “Colors of the Wind,” arguably one of the best Disney songs of all time, but “Savages” is one of the worst. It’s nice that the song points out that both sides of war experience racism, not just one, but it’s repetitive and forgettable. 

“Say It With A Slap” (Fun And Fancy Free)

Fun and Fancy-Free was a Disney film from 1947 that pretty much vanished into thin air, and it has one of the worst Disney songs ever, “Say It With A Slap.”

The premise of the song? You can show your love by slapping your friends or significant others. What? Excuse me? I think the heck-not.  

“Heigh-Ho” (Snow White And The Seven Dwarves) 

With the upcoming live-action remake of Snow White, I had to put “Heigh-Ho” on here because I’m so tired of this song. I don’t want to hear it anymore. It’s repetitive and annoying, and if I have to whistle one more time, I think I will go crazy. Those dwarves don’t have to sing every time they go home, please. 

Disney certainly has some great songs out there, but next time, skip these and check out some of the better ones. I think I’ll listen to “Let It Go” instead of any of these. 

Few horror movies make quite as big a stir as Winnie The Pooh: Blood & Honey did when the overly violent trailer was released. The initial glimpse of the film understandably drew a wave of criticism, with many (myself included) feeling uneasy about the beloved Disney version of the character being involved in violent scenarios. The movie's release was a success, and now, unsurprisingly, a sequel is in the works. The film's producer has promised an "explosive, shocking, and gore-filled" follow-up, with Tigger joining the other twisted inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Woods, but with a twist. 

According to Boxoffice-Mojo, the first installment of this horror-infused twist on the beloved children's franchise raked in more than 5 million dollars while working with a reported production budget of just 100,000 dollars. This impressive performance all but guaranteed another movie. While the initial movie received its fair share of scathing reviews from critics, it's clear that the project's unique concept attracted a significant portion of the audience to theaters. Nevertheless, the filmmakers aren't resting on their laurels; they're gearing up for an even grander and more ambitious sequel. In an exclusive interview with IGN, producer Scott Jeffrey dropped some tantalizing hints about what fans can expect from Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey 2, promising:

What's sure to get fans of the first film buzzing with excitement is the news that Tigger is finally making his debut in the series. If you recall, Tigger was noticeably absent from the gruesome events of the original Blood & Honey. This absence was due to legal restrictions, as the beloved bouncing tiger wasn't part of the public domain during the first film's production. Instead, the filmmakers drew their inspiration primarily from A.A. Milne's timeless 1926 children's book, which notably omitted the exuberant tiger. But the upcoming sequel, slated to hit the 2024 movie schedule, will see the orange feline unleashed into the dark narrative as he officially steps into the public domain in January 2024, making him a fair-game addition to the cast.

But Tigger won't be the cheerful, energetic character we remember from the cartoons or the live-action Christopher Robin movie. According to Scott Jeffrey:

IGN also shared a first-look image of the once adorable tiger, but in my humble opinion, it looks more like one of the Kangoroo fighters from the ‘90s children’s film Warriors of Virtue. Come on, any other '90s kids share this movie memory? I’m sure Tigger will be very scary in context, but I can't unsee the similarities. 

Are you intrigued by the addition of Tigger? Does it tempt you to rewatch or check out the original film for the first time and give the upcoming sequel a chance?

Mark your calendars for the Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey 2 release in February 2024. In the meantime, explore our list of upcoming horror movies or, if you prefer something less spine-chilling, look at our 2023 new movie releases to plan your next cinema outing.

The horror movie Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey has been a curiosity ever since it was first announced that the A.A. Milne character was going to be adapted that way after entering the public domain. While the general consensus is that Blood and Honey isn’t very good, it’s at least understandable why some people might want to give it a look, just to see what the talk is about, but fans in China won’t have that chance as the movie has been pulled after initially getting the go-ahead.

China keeps tight control on what foreign movies get released in the nation, but Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was set to open on 30 screens in Hong Kong this week. THR reports that now the movie has disappeared from schedules. Moviematic, an organization that had planned a pre-release screening for Tuesday night announced it had been canceled for technical reasons. 

Blood and Honey had already been subjected to significant edits to remove most of the gore from the film, but those cuts had apparently been enough to give the movie the approval it needed to screen, making the last-minute pulling of the film all the more surprising. This has led some to suspect that the ultimate reason the movie is now gone has to do with a long-standing unofficial “ban” on Winnie the Pooh in China.

It may sound wild to hear that Winnie the Pooh is a controversial character but in China that is very much the case. Bloggers and others in China that have been protesting against the government there have used the character as a symbol of protest, by drawing a physical comparison between Pooh and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Ever since then, there has been something of a crackdown on depictions of the character. It’s been suggested that this is the reason that Disney’s Christopher Robin didn’t get a Chinese release in 2018.

What makes the Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey situation a bit unique is that, if the movie getting pulled is related to the government’s feelings about the bear, this is the first time we’ve seen such a move in Hong Kong. While technically part of China, Hong Kong has its own government and so has been able to act on its own in most cases. However, China has been passing new laws in recent years to restrict dissent in Hong Kong, and this may be an example of those laws taking hold. 

Whatever the ultimate reason, it sounds like fans in Hong Kong who wanted to see Winnie the Pooh and Piglet murder some people are going to be out of luck. That may honestly be a good thing since the movie apparently doesn’t have much going for it beyond its bonkers premise. 

The last time beloved childhood icon Winnie the Pooh got the live-action movie treatment was 2018’s Christopher Robin, which notably used the iconic voice of Jim Cummings. Winnie the Pooh is heading back to the big screen again, but in a way that none of us could have previously imagined. This honey-loving bear is now a serial killer with the help of his pal Piglet, as seen in the newly released horror trailer for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Of course, the internet has a lot of things to say about that. 

If you haven't seen  the Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey trailer (above), it is not a fan video created by a YouTuber with an overactive imagination. This is a real movie produced by the independent film production company Jagged Edge Productions. Considering its director, Rhys Waterfield, has produced indie horror films that have tarnished childhood tales like Easter Bunny Massacre and Jack and Jill, it’s no surprise he went after public domain Winnie the Pooh next. 

The plot is something akin to the most tear-jerking moments in Pixar’s Toy Story 3--you remember, when Andy left his toys to go to college? In this flick, Christopher Robin does the same thing to Winnie the Pooh and his pals. Only their reaction is to hunt down Christopher Robin and his friends in a gory slasher reunion. 

As soon as the trailer for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was released, Twitter users could not hold back on their reactions. One Twitter user gave some useful advice on how we should treat our toys so we can still keep our heads (edited for capitalization). 

Another just seemed positively tickled pink that adding Winnie the Pooh to the public domain gave is Blood and Honey. 

Another tweet had a more mixed reaction. That user noted they already have bad vibes coming from this new slasher, but still won’t stop them from wanting to see it. 

For all we know, maybe this new flick could be on the list of the best horror-comedy films ! Maybe a great date night film. No? No?

Actually this movie looking wild but not great seems to be a common trend. A third tweet said that despite Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey possibly being "one of the worst films ever made," they are also planning to see it. 

Sidebar: with this image on the Tweet--I have to ask this- are we expected to believe Winnie the Pooh and Piglet are anthropomorphic animals in this upcoming horror film or just humans wearing masks?

Another reaction had a tweet that posted three photos from the trailer of Christopher Robin with his new girlfriend, the demented Pooh bear, and once sweet and adorable bear going after his new victim in the pool with an axe. This Twitter user made sure to mention that this horror retelling could be a cautionary tale of sorts when you choose a girl over your favorite stuffed animals. 

Based on all of these Twitter reactions, it looks like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey could have the potential to enter the campy genre territory and that means audiences are curious enough to probably buy tickets. Keep up with CinemaBlend so you’ll be the first to know when this independent horror film will slash its way into theaters. 

After being shuttered for a year now, California theme parks including the world-famous Disneyland are finally gaining some forward momentum in regards to reopening, as well as an upcoming foodie event. The parks have started outlining what exactly that will look like, and if you were an optimist hoping things would look how they used to once the Disneyland and California Adventure parks resume operations, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are going to be some changes. In fact, I’d venture to even call them major changes.

First and foremost, Disneyland and California Adventure may reopen, but we already know they won’t reopen to full capacity. In fact, when theme parks --also including Universal Studios Hollywood and more -- reopen, they will only be allowed to open to 15% capacity. This will obviously have a major impact on the availability of attractions, or as Disneyland put it in its own blog post:

The “park admission” comment is interesting to me, as it's a reminder that Disneyland will also be requiring reservations once the parks do ultimately reopen. It’s seemed to be working for Disney World, which will be keeping reservations for the time being. To note though, I’d expect weekends to be a really difficult proposition, even once the parks reopen. Disneyland and California Adventure are also making some other huge changes that mirror what has happened with other theme parks. This includes FASTPASS’ going by the wayside, along with MaxPass, the suspension of Extra Magic Hour and Magic Morning and cutting back on parades.

I’ve been to Disney World since the pandemic reared its ugly head and these changes are very similar to what has gone on at Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios. In addition, there are also safety restrictions and rules including how to stand in line and when it’s OK to be eating or drinking. Even though the Florida parks have been open much longer, events where people congregate, including parades and fireworks extravaganzas, are still out. So, it’s no huge surprise that Disneyland will also be making these major changes, but it will still likely be a shock to the system for those longtime fans who return to the California parks for the first time.

One passive programming initiative that Disney World has already taken and Disneyland will take has to do with the characters delighting in new ways in the parks. I’ve seen Cinderella’s sisters doing a comedy sketch, Allice doing her own Wonderland bit, and Pooh doing his own act from a safe distance. Markers are spaced out so fans know how to stand and there’s no waiting in line involved, like a Pooh or Cinderella experience might normally entail. This is a particular change to the park that is actually awesome, so it's not all bad news.

Plus, even with no FastPasses available that 15% crowd capacity limit should mean that lines are still manageable, even when the parks will be at capacity moving forward. So, despite the myriad disappointments, there are silver linings there. You'll have to wait to experience all this yourself, though, as the "spring" reopening is rather vague even as we are springing forward, as it were. We'll let you know as soon as Disneyland and California Adventure have official opening dates, though April is expected.

Marc Forster's Christopher Robin features a very different version of Winnie The Pooh and his cuddly friends than we are used to seeing on the big screen. While the characters have long lived in the world of 2D animation (their last film released back in 2011), the new movie sees them not only rendered in 3D, but also looking more realistic than ever. It's a strangeness that's balanced out by familiar voices -- namely Jim Cummings as both Pooh and Tigger -- but as Cummings recently explained to me, you should notice that his version of the lead character in the feature is an altered take compared to his past performances:

Jim Cummings has been voicing Winnie the Pooh for more than 30 years now, and his take on the character is iconic in pop culture. The opportunity to perform in Christopher Robin, however, offered up some very different circumstances and context, though, which led him to change the sound slightly. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jim Cummings this past weekend during the Los Angeles press day for the new movie, and he revealed this change while talking about his relationship with director Marc Forster and their work together.

In Christopher Robin, Ewan McGregor plays an adult version of the titular character, who has long forgotten his time playing in the Hundred Acre Woods and has started a family of his own. In that time Winnie The Pooh has aged as well, elegantly shown in his realistic appearance as a worn-down teddy bear, but he's still there for Christopher when he is in need -- reuniting with his old best friend when the former imaginative boy starts to prioritize his work over his wife and daughter. Audiences have never seen Pooh quite like this, and in side-by-side comparison the difference is recognizable.

Also important to note is that Jim Cummings certainly seems to have appreciated the opportunity to give a different kind of energy to Winnie The Pooh, as he had nothing but nice things to say about the approach for the project, and Marc Forster's vision. Said Cummings,

You can watch Jim Cummings talk about his different take on Winnie The Pooh for his performance in Christopher Robin by clicking play on the video below.

In addition to Jim Cummings and Ewan McGregor, Christopher Robin also stars Hayley Atwell, Brad Garrett, Peter Capaldi, Toby Jones, and Mark Gatiss, and is in theaters this weekend.

At this point, Winnie The Pooh can safely be called a big screen legend. The character has been showing up as a Disney character going back to the theatrical shorts made in the mid-1960s, and he and his stuffed animal pals have been pop culture staples ever since. Now their latest cinematic adventure has arrived in the form of Disney's Christopher Robin, and while not all reactions are super glowing, the movie is being appreciated as a cute diversion and a nice bit of family friendly fun.

To start with CinemaBlend's own critic, Mike Reyes saw and reviewed the movie for us this week, and he expressed real appreciation for the work put in by director Marc Forster, stars Ewan McGregor and Hayley Atwell, and the artists bringing Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and more back to life. Watching Christopher Robin felt like a nice homecoming for him, and an affecting return for some very important characters. Wrote Reyes in his four star write-up,

As of now, Mike Reyes' opinion falls in line with the majority of critics, who are giving the movie mostly positive marks, but right now Christopher Robin is balancing on a knife's edge with a 60 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Helping keep the thing currently rated fresh are people like Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of AV Club, who has given the new movie a "B-." Rather than being over the moon about it, he explains that it's a path we've seen taken before, but it's still a pleasant road the revist. Also referencing the Goodbye, Christopher Robin feature released last year, Vishnevetsky said,

Not all critics have been willing to give Christopher Robin the pass, however. For example, Alonso Duralde of The Wrap has published his thoughts on the feature, and they aren't super glowing. Apparently not even the cutesy side of the movie really worked for him, nor the nostalgia of hearing classic voice artist Jim Cummings perform as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. He explains in his review that he's not really sure who the audience is supposed to be, and makes it clear that it definitely isn't him. Duralde says,

Most reviews for Christopher Robin aren't taking a firm stance either way - neither calling the movie exceptionally good, or really bad. Leah Greenblatt's piece for Entertainment Weekly is a nice example of that, having also given the film a passing "B-" grade. She clearly wasn't blown away by the whole exercise, but did find enough positives in it to call it charming and appreciated the cuteness very much on display. Greenblatt explains,

Now that you've heard what the critics have to say, you can make your own opinions about Christopher Robin. The film, sporting a cast that includes Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Peter Capaldi, Toby Jones, Mark Gattis and more, is in theaters now - and be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more of our coverage.

Voice actor Jim Cummings has been an integral part of the Winnie The Pooh franchise for decades. He first voiced the cuddly bear back in the late 1980s, started voicing Tigger in 1990, and has been doing both ever since. As such, it was weird that the new movie Christopher Robin initially only hired him for the former role, but that all changed fairly recently. Originally actor Chris O'Dowd was hired for the part, but as Cummings explained, the performance didn't quite work:

It was this past weekend during the Los Angeles press day for Christopher Robin that Jim Cummings discussed his strange journey with Tigger for the project, sitting down with members of the press, including myself, as part of a roundtable interview. The actor was asked not only how he initially felt about not being cast as Tigger, but also what went on behind-the-scenes that resulted in what is essentially a last minute change.

At the time of the interview Jim Cummings admitted that he hadn't seen the most recent cut of the movie with his performance as Tigger -- but he did have a theory about why the early version of Christopher Robin didn't work. Specifically, he believes audiences have grown accustom to what Tigger should sound like when he's in movies, and the movie was doing too much both changing his voice and his typical appearance (rather than being the bright orange, friendly tiger he is in the cartoons, he is depicted as a realistic, worn-down stuffed animal in the new film). Cummings explained,

Just watching the trailer it is legitimately amazing to once again see Winnie The Pooh and Tigger featuring their classic voices, so in the long run it does seem like Christopher Robin and its creators made the right choices in the end. Audiences will be able to find out for themselves very soon, as the move will be in theaters this weekend -- and be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more from my interviews with the movie's cast and director!

Disney has hit us with a major one-two punch of nostalgia this week; first came the trailer for Mary Poppins Returns and then came the trailer for Christopher Robin, knocking us into a puddle of emotion. For many people, the highlight of the Christopher Robin trailer, and the moment when we all got something in our eye, was when Pooh, who is being reprised by Disney veteran Jim Cummings, said "Christopher Robin." Having Jim Cummings return to the role his voice is synonymous with was critical to bringing this character to life for director Marc Forster, as he explained:

It is a good thing that having Jim Cummings voice Winnie the Pooh was important to Marc Forster, because I shudder to think of the alternative. If Christopher Robin had turned around in that trailer and Pooh had spoken in any voice but Jim Cummings', I suspect it would have inspired a major revolt and not the immediate outpouring of love and emotion it has enjoyed thus far. This is because, as Marc Forster told ET, Jim Cummings has lived with this character for 30 years, voicing Pooh in the animated movies, The New Adventures of Winnie The Pooh TV series, the 2011 film and even the Kingdom Hearts video games. He is Winnie the Pooh. This is a film built on nostalgia, bringing Pooh back into the lives of so many who are now grown up and taking them and Christopher Robin himself back to the simplicity and wonder of childhood. Marc Forster also said that this will be a very emotional movie (you don't say). The nostalgia and the emotion that comes with it only works with Jim Cummings as Winnie the Pooh.

Now as far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't even have been a question from the second this film was greenlit who would voice Pooh. But sadly, in this day and age, voice actors don't get as much work in big films. Prominent voice roles in animated fare often goes to live-action actors so the studio can slap a familiar name on the poster, something that kids could care less about. And despite his insanely long list of voice credits (seriously, look at his IMDb), Jim Cummings is not a household name. I know I'm fighting a losing battle in this belief, but at least, in this one instance, Disney knew that the familiarity and power of a voice was more important than the power of a name.

Jim Cummings will be joined by a new group of names voicing the residents of the Hundred Acre Wood, including Chris O'Dowd as Tigger, Toby Jones as Owl, Peter Capaldi as Rabbit, Brad Garrett as Eeyore and Nick Mohammed as Piglet. They join Ewan McGregor and Hayley Atwell for the Winnie the Pooh-meets-Hook film, Christopher Robin, arriving to melt our cold, jaded hearts on August 3.

Yesterday we got our first taste of Disney's next live-action adaptation of an animated classic, the Winnie the Pooh follow-up Christopher Robin. It turns out, people have a lot of feelings about it. If you haven't seen the brief trailer yet, check it out below. Although be warned, it's going for an 11 on the adorable scale, you might need to have some tissues nearby.

For the most part, the reaction to the incredibly heartwarming teaser has been seeing a lot of grown adults turn into a blubbering mess at the sound of Jim Cummings as Winnie the Pooh. It's incredibly touching to see the little bear pop up and watch the look on Ewan McGregor's face. If you have any connection to the Disney version of the character from your childhood, you may have reacted like this guy.

This is a common reaction, it's certainly the one that I had when I watched it. There's something about that last line of Pooh's about not seeing cracks, but wrinkles, that just broke me into pieces.

Having said that, not everybody has responded to Christopher Robin by turning into an emotional basket case. Some want to see this thing go violent. Specifically, some fans of another CGI bear who has been winning over audiences at the theater want to see the two go toe-to-toe. Who would you put your money on in Pooh vs. Paddington?

There's a third popular response on social media, which reminds us that for one generation Ewan McGregor will only ever be Obi-Wan Kenobi. The bit from the trailer reminds a lot of people of one particular scene from the prequel trilogy.

When the trailer hit yesterday the team here at CinemaBlend had a minor freak out over Winnie the Pooh. As it turns out the old Disney animated films and shorts were sort of a big deal for a lot of people. Needless to say, we mostly reacted like this.

Hopefully, the rest of Christopher Robin turns out to be as powerful as these few seconds, though, if it does, I'm not sure my emotions can handle it. Christopher Robin arrives in theaters August 3.

Walt Disney Animation Studios has existed for over 100 years and from day one it has been a global leader in animation. Disney has produced 62 feature films over the last century, many of which are still considered some of the greatest animated movies of all time. But which one is the best?

With the recent release of Moana 2, we take a fresh look at the history of Disney animation. Where does the studio's newest endeavor rank among the greats? Read on to find out.

63. Home On The Range (2004)

Home on the Range is a movie that there's a very good chance you forget even existed, and there's a reason for that. It's the single most forgettable Disney animated movie. It's an absolute shame that the one time Judi Dench lent her voice to a Disney film, it was this dull and lifeless story. The fact that she plays second fiddle to Roseanne Barr is all the more confusing. Barr's appearance might have made sense if this movie came out in 1992, but in 2004, it's far too late for anything in this film to be relevant.

62. The Black Cauldron (1985)

The Black Cauldron nearly single-handedly killed Disney animation, and that's just the beginning of this one. The story crams together details from several different fantasy novels, and it's clear, as the various bits and pieces of the movie feel crammed together with little to no connective tissue explaining anything that happens. It has a protagonist who is utterly unlikeable from start to finish and side characters that are actually worse. The film had such potential as a more mature Disney feature, and in another era, this would have been handled properly with an eye toward making this a franchise in its own right. Instead, we get an adventure made up of characters you'd never want to go on an adventure with in the first place.

61. The Aristocats (1970)

The Aristocats was the first feature released by the studio without Walt Disney and it shows. It's got quite possibly the most useless villain in Disney history, and that's a fatal flaw when you're talking about films that include some of the best villains in all of cinema. The plot, overall, is utterly nonsensical, with a butler who attempts to kill his employer's cats after he learns they will inherit her fortune before the butler does. Not that the employer expects to be dead anytime soon, making the whole thing bizarre. Frequent Disney voice actor Phil Harris has done better work for the company, and so has Eva Gabor, for that matter.

60. The Fox And The Hound (1981)

The Fox and the Hound isn't a bad movie, but if the idea were proposed today, there's no way it would get the green light. There just isn't enough of a story here. Disney has done small-scale stories before, but the emotional core of those is missing here. There just isn't enough to get a hold of and get invested in with The Fox and the Hound. No characters get fleshed out enough to become liked or hated, and that includes the characters in the title. It's a movie starring cute animals, and that's not nothing, but it's hardly enough.

59. Oliver And Company (1988)

While Disney was trying to find its way in the '80s, the studio released a version of Oliver Twist that saw the characters reimagined as animals in New York City. The premise isn't terrible, but the story gets so reimagined that little of the classic remains. Billy Joel’s inclusion as both the voice of Dodger and part of the ‘80s pop soundtrack is about all you need to know.. The movie desperately wants to be cool, and as is usually the case, when you try too hard, you end up having the opposite impact. There are some fun moments in Oliver and Company, but the film is mostly forgettable overall.

58. Chicken Little (2005)

Chicken Little was one of Disney's early forays into computer animation, and like a lot of animation from that era, it doesn’t hold up the way classically drawn animation does. The story that goes along with it has just enough of a plot to be considered a movie. Much like Oliver and Company, it tries far too hard to be hip, which, especially now, has the effect of dating the material terribly. There's a kernel of a good idea in here, as the first part of the movie focuses on a son trying desperately to be accepted by his father, and that part works, but that story is pretty much over by the midpoint and all you have left are the space aliens.

57. Dinosaur (2000)

Dinosaur was Disney's first foray into a computer-animated movie which opens with a fantastic sequence that sees a dinosaur egg get separated from its nest and go on a silent (except for the score) journey across a beautiful prehistoric Earth. It's quite stunning. And then characters start talking and it all goes to hell. While Dinosaur's animation is clearly dated, it holds up acceptably. What doesn't hold up is the story, which is essentially The Land Before Time, but with less interesting characters.

56. The Sword In The Stone (1963)

The Sword in the Stone is a strange film because one wonders why they bothered to make it a King Arthur story in the first place. The titular object only appears at the tail end of the story and instead, the film focuses on a teenage Arthur and Merlin running around as different animals in some sort of bizarre attempt at educating the future king. Outside of the final moments, this could have been a different story, and probably should have been. It's more like a collection of shorts than a cohesive story. The actor playing Arthur apparently went through puberty during recording as the character's voice changes from high pitched to low and back again throughout the film. Clearly, nobody was paying much attention to this movie.

55. Melody Time (1948)

During World War II, Disney Studios stopped producing the fairy tale films they were known for and instead focused on "package films," collections of shorter animations that were cheaper to produce during what was a lean time in America overall. Melody Time was one of the final films produced like this. While there's nothing wrong with any of the shorts in it — they're all fine — there aren't any that are of particular note either, which makes Melody Time really the least interesting of the package films. There's no cohesive narrative or even theme between the shorts and it feels even more thrown together than the rest of the collections.

54. Meet The Robinsons (2007)

A story that nobody was looking for based on a book that few were familiar with, Meet the Robinsons takes a simple idea from a children's picture book and expands on it to reach a theatrical length. The story we end up with, dealing with time travel, alternate timelines, and other such sci-fi elements — but in only the simplest possible way — feels utterly contrived and not nearly as creative as we know Disney can be. The entire movie feels like a set-up for a big reveal that is telegraphed from the beginning.

53. Brother Bear (2003)

Brother Bear features one of the most irritating Disney sidekicks in history, which is saying something. The heartfelt message at the center of the story is a worthy one, but every time the film gets close to building some real emotion, the Phil Collins soundtrack jumps in to steal all the thunder and kill any feeling that might have been building in the audience. If the music was particularly good that would be one thing, but when it plays over one of the most heartbreaking conversations ever in an animated film, hearing what the characters say could have made Brother Bear one of the all-time greats.

52. Ralph Breaks The Internet (2018)

Ralph Breaks The Internet works as a sort of inverse of Brother Bear. The movie has a solid ending that includes some really emotional moments and some important themes. Unfortunately, it takes a really long time to get there, and doesn’t seem quite sure what to do with itself while it's waiting. There are some great jokes, including a hilarious musical number and a great bit with all the Disney princesses brought together, but it’s such a product of its time, one wonders how long it will be relevant.

51. Make Mine Music (1946)

Make Mine Music was the first short collection released by Disney as a feature film. It's essentially Fantasia, by another name. One of the segments, Blue Bayou, was actually originally created for that film, but with all different sorts of music, not simply classical. There's no connective tissue between the shorts, which Fantasia has, which makes some of the jumps between them feel really disjointed. Shifting from the calm and peaceful Blue Bayou into All the Cats Join In (with music by the Benny Goodman Orchestra) could give you whiplash. Still, it does contain a couple of classics in Disney's version of Peter and the Wolf and Casey at the Bat.

50. Fun And Fancy Free (1947)

Fun and Fancy Free is another package film, only this one contains a pair of longer stories, rather than multiple shorts. First is Little Bear Bongo, about a circus bear that escapes to the wild and falls in love, and second is Mickey and the Beanstalk, about Mickey Mouse...and a beanstalk. It's one you've more than likely seen, though it's less likely you've seen the feature film version that includes narration from ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy. If their style of humor works for you (and it does for this writer), it's actually pretty great.

49. The Rescuers (1977)

The Rescuers was one of those 1970s Disney films where it was clear the studio wasn't quite sure what to do with itself. The film sees a collection of mice who have made it their job to help out humans, including, in this case, a little orphan girl who has been kidnapped because she's small enough to fit down a hole where the remains of a treasure from a sunken ship can be found. Yeah, the plot is rough. Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor voice Bernard and Miss Bianca, our two rodent leads, and they work well together. Everyone working on this one must have done something right, as they got a sequel.

48. Hercules (1997)

This movie is a beautiful mess. Hercules is about finding your place in the world. Or perhaps it's a movie about the problems with celebrity culture? A classic “chosen one” hero's journey? Hercules doesn't know what it wants to be. Still, there is something oddly charming about everything in the film that isn't Danny DeVito. Amongst the film's issues, there are a couple of standout performances, including an all-time great villain in James Woods' Hades and female lead in Susan Egan's Megara, who will be forever criminally overlooked because she was in a movie that wasn't a smash.

47. Pocahontas (1995)

Once upon a time, Disney believed Pocahontas was the movie that would win the Animation Studio the coveted Best Picture Oscar. Needless to say, that didn't happen. It's clear from the beginning that Pocahontas wants to be something grand and important, but the execution of the idea never quite works. It's false equivalency of both Native Americans and European settlers as "savages" tries desperately to be insightful, but it's not. The music is also off-key, as there's almost nothing memorable about the soundtrack. It's a visually stunning film, but that's about all that makes Pocahontas special.

46. Strange World (2022)

The most recent Disney animated feature, as of this writing in June 2023, Strange World was certainly not one of the studio’s biggest hits. And while the movie does have a lot going for it, including colorful and inventive animation, and a story inspired by classic pulp adventure stories, there’s not a great deal of substance surrounding all that. It’s a fun movie, but not a great one.

45. The Three Caballeros (1944)

The Three Caballeros was the follow up to Saludos Amigos and another Disney package film. It's essentially a sequel to one of the shorts from Amigos (more on that in a moment) that sees Donald Duck receiving birthday gifts, that take the form of animated shorts, from friends in South America. The shorts are fine, and they at least have a related theme. But watching an animated duck lust after human women on a beach is just disconcerting, which is something that occurs multiple times throughout the film. You might learn something here, though, which is always worthwhile, as each short focuses on a different part of Central or South America.

44. Saludos Amigos (1942)

Saludos Amigos was the first Disney package film and it comes out the better for it. This is unique among these collections because in addition to the animated shorts, it includes a look at the animators who created them, in the form of documentary-style footage of Disney animators on a trip to Central and South America so that they can learn about the sorts of things they'll need to animate. This makes Amigos feel a bit more like a coherent feature than most of the other collections.

43. The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh (1977)

As the title implies, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is more a collection of stories than a single film, though there is enough connective tissue to make this feel like a movie. The Heffalumps and Woozles bit is likely what most people remember, if only for the sheer bizarreness of the segment, and from a purely creative standpoint, it is the highlight of the film. Beyond that, we have classic segments like "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" and "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" that have become classics in their own right.

42. The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

The Rescuers Down Under is often overlooked in Disney's canon, as the film was a somewhat surprising sequel to a movie that was a favorite to very few. It exceeds its predecessor by virtue of being beautifully animated, something that can't really be as easily said of the original. The film's setting of the Australian outback is something that's lovely to look at. While the story itself is about on par with the original, this movie does have the benefit of George C. Scott voicing a Disney villain, which means it can't be all bad.

41. The Jungle Book (1967)

The Jungle Book was the last animated Disney feature that Walt was involved with before his death. The movie started a sort of trilogy (which includes the Aristocats and Robin Hood) of animal-focused stories with a similar stable of voice actors and the use of a significant musical act in one of the voice roles. In this case, it was Louie Prima as King Louie. The Jungle Book is a solid story, and the film actually has one of the better soundtracks, as many Disney musicals are lucky to have a single breakout song, and The Jungle Book has three (Bear Necessities, I Wanna Be Like You, and Trust in Me) that have gone down in history.

40. Winnie The Pooh (2011)

The second Winnie the Pooh movie probably wasn't what people were expecting from Disney in 2011, which explains why it wasn't particularly successful, but the film is actually solid. It's silly, to be sure, with the entire plot revolving around a simple misunderstanding of language, but the silliness is part of the charm of Winnie the Pooh as a character, and the more recent film still captures this near perfectly. Add in a perfectly cast John Cleese as the narrator and the songwriting team behind Frozen all before we knew what "Let it Go" was, and this one is worth going back to see.

39. Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Atlantis: The Lost Empire was an obvious attempt to try something very new, as the art style and the more action-adventure focus of the plot was not what the studio had been known for up to that point. The film's performance made it clear that this wasn't what audiences were looking for from Disney, but the film makes for an enjoyable enough pulp adventure in its own right. The action works in what is essentially Disney's version of an Indiana Jones movie, and one that's better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

38. Bolt (2008)

Bolt's premise is one of the odder ones here. A dog is the star of a TV show, but doesn't know that he doesn't really have superpowers. It's a silly set up, but the movie itself is really just a road trip with a handful of entertaining characters. While it doesn't quite reach the level of some of Disney's more recent films, there's more fun to be had here than you'd expect at first, and it's got surprising heart considering its off-the-wall setup.

37. The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr. Toad (1949)

The best of Disney's package films is clearly The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. The movie combines two stories, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Wind in the Willows. While this is clearly two separate stories crammed together, they work remarkably well as a unit, with the first being mostly upbeat, with surprising moments of darkness, and the latter being mostly dark with some surprising humor. The fact that the films contain two of the most famous voices ever, Basil Rathbone and Bing Crosby, certainly doesn't hurt. Each of these stories is a classic in its own right; together they're a joy.

36. Robin Hood (1973)

Disney in the 1970s was going through a bit of a rough patch, and the movies were not, overall, fantastic, but there's fun to be had with Robin Hood, even if a lot of the film's animation was recycled from The Jungle Book. This is the classic version of the tale, where Robin robs Prince John to give to the poor, only with animals playing the parts of the leads. Think of this as a prequel to Zootopia, as Robin Hood was a large part of the inspiration for the movie that came 40 years later.

35. Moana 2

Moana 2 is the rare Disney sequel that has allowed its main character to grow between films. Disney's animation has also grown, as the movie has some of the most beautiful scenes we've ever seen from Walt Disney Animation Studio. Unfortunately, without Lin-Manuel Miranda, the movie's music suffers and the story, which was originally written as a TV series, has not survived the transition to a theatrical presentation well.

34. Treasure Planet (2002)

Treasure Planet is famous for being Disney's biggest animated flop. The movie was a failure as soon as it came out and Disney never tried to make it more than that. This is too bad because the movie isn't nearly as bad as its box office would imply. It has issues, sure. The Martin Short-voiced sidekick is one of the most annoying in the history of Disney, and little interesting is done with the Treasure Island-based plot, but the sci-fi animation is something different and unique for Disney and fans of swashbuckling adventure could certainly do worse.

33. Dumbo (1941)

Dumbo is a unique film in many ways, not the least of which is that the title character has no voice actor. This fact makes Dumbo one of the most sympathetic characters in all of Disney animation, he has a minimal character of his own, and the audience is forced to interpret his experience themselves. While the film is fairly short (barely over 70 minutes) in that time we see some creative animation in the form of the Pink Elephants on parade, as well as what might be the first of many truly tear-jerking Disney moments in "Baby Mine." Dumbo isn't without problems, however. "The Song of the Roustabouts" has not aged well and is more than a little uncomfortable to listen to today.

32. Fantasia 2000 (2000)

Fantasia was supposed to be a regular occurrence, being released in theaters every few years with minor changes each time. Unfortunately, the original film's overall lack of success prevented this from happening until the turn of the millennium. However, Fantasia 2000's failure means we're unlikely to see another, even though a new Fantasia has the potential to be amazing. The animated sequences are more hit or miss than the original, and the interstitial bits with celebrities doing the introductions are absolutely unbearable, even though some great talent is involved. Still, at its best moments, such as "Pines of Rome" and "The Firebird," it is everything great about Disney animation.

31. Alice In Wonderland (1951)

A lot of the early Disney features feel more like a series of loosely connected shorts than a single story. This is the case with Alice in Wonderland, though the idea works by virtue of the fact that the source material is little more than Alice stumbling into one bizarre situation after another. Walt Disney wanted to be sure that the "nonsense" of Lewis Carrol's original story was properly captured, and it's difficult to argue he didn't succeed. The movie is weird but in a good way.

30. The Emperor's New Groove (2000)

The Emperor's New Groove was originally going to be a very different movie and one wonders what things would have been like if the original version had come to be. Instead, we got what turned out to be Disney's most comedic animated film to date. Everything from the premise to the tone feels less like a Disney movie and more like screwball body swap comedy. The comedy duo of David Spade and John Goodman make it work, although the supporting performances of Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton are what put it over the top.

29. Tarzan (1999)

Disney often gets criticized for Disney-fying classic fairy tales, but the same is also true of the studio's version of Tarzan. The original text is... problematic. In many ways. But the animated version skirts those issues for a much more family-friendly adventure. The combination of hand-drawn and computer animation gives the action a life it likely would not have had otherwise and foreshadowed some of the computer-animated films to come. The Phil Collins soundtrack is used here to enhance the story rather than hinder it, as it did in Brother Bear.

28. The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

The Great Mouse Detective isn't the beginning of the Disney Renaissance, but it is the movie that allowed that rebirth to happen. Two of the film’s directors, John Musker and Ron Clements, were able to use their modest success here to get the job directing The Little Mermaid, and the rest is history. And, we do see the beginning of something magical here, as the first use of computers by Disney animation makes the Big Ben finale something special. Also, Vincent Price's turn as the villain is exactly as deliciously fun and you'd expect it to be.

27. Wish (2023)

A movie in the grand Disney tradition. A strong and determined heroine for a new generation, combined with a diabolical villain and absolutely beautiful animation come together to tell a story that, while it may not be anything new for Disney, hits all the familiar beats in a satisfying way. It's difficult not to get swept up in the adventure, or the catchy music.

26. Big Hero 6 (2014)

Comic book movies are more popular than they've ever been, and with Disney owning Marvel, it was only a matter of time before we got a superhero movie from the studio. Surprisingly, what we got was the little known, manga-inspired Big Hero 6. As a superhero origin story it's an acceptable enough movie. Unfortunately, it seems designed to give us sequels that we'll likely never get on the big screen. Most of the six heroes are little more than set dressing, which is too bad, because what we get of them seems more interesting than the main character, Hiro. Luckily, Scott Adsit's Baymax is there to save the day and make the movie an overall solid experience.

25. Raya And The Last Dragon (2021)

Raya and the Last Dragon was a movie that was swallowed, and largely forgotten thanks to the global pandemic, which is a crime, because it’s, without question, one of Disney’s best efforts. Raya has some of the best action animation this side of the Spider-Verse. It’s the only animated Disney film you could also class as a pure action movie, and it’s a title the film absolutely deserves.

24. Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Quite possibly the most modern Disney film, since everything takes place within the world of video games, Disney successfully made one of the best "video game movies" of all time with Wreck-It Ralph, mostly because it's not actually based on a real game. Each world we visit in the film is uniquely designed, from the 8-bit aesthetic of Fix-it Felix Jr to the bright and colorful, and far more modern, Sugar Rush. It makes you wish you could fire up your game console to play these games for real. John C. Reilly is the perfect voice for an oversized bad guy unhappy with his place in his world.

23. Cinderella (1950)

As one of the classic Disney princesses, Cinderella has a place among true Disney, well, royalty. Having said that, the film that brought her to life is a bit of a mixed bag. Much has been made about the fact that the princesses weren't necessarily the greatest characters when it came to depth or agency. The issue with Cinderella is that these problems probably could have been avoided if the feature didn't dedicate a significant portion of its runtime to the mice and the cat, meaning Cinderella is less of a lead character in her own movie. It's not the first time side characters will get too much exposure in Disney films, but it may be the most disappointing.

22. Frozen II (2019)

It was little surprise to anybody that the global blockbuster that was Frozen became one of the few Disney animated movies to get a sequel. And, it has to be said, in a lot of ways Frozen II meets the challenge. The plot is certainly the weak link, acting mostly as a delivery mechanism for the songs and the characters’ emotional journeys, but the songs are incredible and every character, from Elsa and Anna, to Kristof and even Olaf, go on incredibly emotional journeys. It’s rare to see an animated film handle so many characters so well.

21. Tangled (2010)

Tangled has a more pop-focused soundtrack that might not work for everybody, but it's got some fantastic music overall, including one of Disney's most underrated love songs in "I See the Light." It also showed how far Disney's computer animation had come at the time. Rapunzel's hair is a character unto itself, and the animation to bring it to life was no small task. Rapunzel's childlike innocence is infectious and it carries you through to the end. Tangled also has some of the best action sequences ever put on screen by Disney animation, and a villain who is unique in her ability to mentally manipulate, rather than physically intimidate.

20. Peter Pan (1953)

While Peter Pan is one of Disney's most iconic characters, the movie doesn't actually hold up as well as some of the studio's other classic stories. The use of the Native Americans generally, and their musical moment specifically, is one that hasn't aged well. The movie seems to assume you know the story of Pan already as it doesn't build any of the characters beyond the surface level. It's also not entirely clear who this movie is about. Is it about Peter, or is it about Wendy? Peter Pan is still a classic and kids will love it for generations, though there's not as much there for older children.

19. Zootopia (2016)

Leave it to Disney, somewhere among all the musicals and princess movies, to create one of the most compelling stories about the importance of diversity and acceptance that has been put on film. Zootopia may be one of the newer Disney animated films, but it has everything that makes them great. Strong characters, a compelling and fun story, and a message that is important to all audiences. It's as great a buddy cop movie as it is a parable, and the world has continued to provide more stories, as we’ve seen a series of Disney+ Zootopia shorts, and Zootopia 2 is also on the way.

18. Aladdin (1992)

There's not a lot to say about Aladdin that doesn't focus on the revolutionary performance of Robin William as the Genie. The comedian absolutely changed the way that voice acting talent is handled for all animated films. Only in an animated movie could Williams' rapid-fire, non-stop delivery truly come alive, as anything he could do, animators could draw. If that was all the movie had, however, Aladdin would be little more than a footnote, but it also includes a fantastic soundtrack by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, which makes it a truly beautiful experience.

17. 101 Dalmatians (1961)

Cruella de Vil may not be one of Disney's biggest villains, but her name is well known and with good reason. She steals every scene she's in in 101 Dalmatians. She's like a smaller scale Maleficent, as she's pure evil, but for no explained reason. Often this is an issue, but De Vil is so delicious that you find yourself charmed by her. The same can be said for the film as a whole, as 101 Dalmatians is undeniably charming. So many of Disney's films focus on animals as the protagonists, but this is one of the best.

16. Lilo & Stitch (2002)

While one of the title characters in Lilo & Stitch is a space alien, the film itself may be the most grounded in Disney's history. Music is important to the story, but it isn't a musical. The plot focuses on a pair of sisters who are just trying to get through life following the death of their parents. It's a heartfelt and emotional journey and one that many may have missed if they judged the movie by its marketing. Stitch is fine, but Lilo is who the movie is really about, and her story is a worthy one. This is when a smaller, more personal story from the studio really works.

15. Mulan (1998)

Mulan is a unique Disney film in many ways. It deals with an eastern myth rather than a western one, the heroine is the most proactive in Disney's history to this point in time, and while the film does include a romantic element, it’s not the driving force of the story. Disney had to change their own rules in order to include Mulan in the class of "Disney Princesses" and it's no wonder, because the character resonated with so many. This is their fighting princess, and Mulan will always be embraced if for that reason alone.

14. The Princess And The Frog (2009)

The final Disney Princess feature that consisted of hand-drawn animation, The Princess and the Frog, wasn't a massive hit when it debuted in theaters, which is too bad, because the film is actually pretty impressive. It balances dark elements with slapstick humor well. It's got a fantastic jazz soundtrack, and it's got one of Disney's most unique heroines. Maybe this is why the movie is finally getting a Disneyland ride. Tiana is a working-class woman chasing a simple dream. She's not looking for a prince; she wants to open her own business. Her simple goals could have been what turned some people off, but that's actually what makes the character, and the movie, special.

13. Encanto (2021)

What is there to say about Encanto that has not been said. It’s got an incredible cast of characters who are brought to life thanks to one of the most incredible soundtracks ever put on screen. But Mirabel’s story clearly touched people on a personal level. It’s that heart that makes Disney movies truly special, and this one wears it on its sleeve.

12. Frozen (2013)

There's a reason that Frozen became so insanely popular and it is, quite simply, that the movie is just that good. Also, "Let it Go" is just that great a song. The way it turns the traditional Disney princess tropes on their head without losing the underlying magic is perfect. Even the sidekick snowman is legitimately funny, something that could have gone drastically wrong in so many ways. Frozen doesn't break every mold, but it does fracture several, and it was a hint at what was to come with some of Disney's future movies.

11. The Little Mermaid (1989)

The Little Mermaid is the movie that ushered in Disney's Renaissance in the 1990s, which means it has a place in film history forever. The team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken brought Broadway to these movies in a way we had never seen before, and the influence of Ashman that began with The Little Mermaid is still felt in Disney musicals today. It’s beautifully animated and it has one of the absolute best Disney soundtracks ever created.

10. The Lion King (1994)

The Lion King is one of the most successful Disney animated films of all time. It's got a great villain, and a great villain song in Scar's "Be Prepared," and "Hakuna Matata" is one of those songs that gets stuck in your head, no matter how much you wish it would not. It's also got one of the most epic Disney openings of all time, which carries it through for quite a long way. It's got heartbreaking loss and heroic redemption. Disney didn't expect The Lion King to be the hit that it was, which just goes to show that sometimes they don't even know how good they can be.

9. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1996)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is three gargoyles away from being a perfect film, which is to say that if the three gargoyles weren't in it, it would be fantastic. Hunchback is the most mature film created by Disney animation. It's dark and violent, and deals with very adult themes. It's only when the comic relief shows up that things fall apart; the tone shift will give you whiplash. It's clear they were added to make the movie more kid-friendly, and it makes you wonder what could have been if they had just made a movie for an older audience. It's almost unbelievable that Disney actually made The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but thank god they did.

8. Lady And The Tramp (1955)

Lady and the Tramp doesn't get a great deal of time or attention in the grand scheme of Disney movies, but it's actually a remarkably solid film. Everything about it is lovely. It's beautifully animated entirely from a pet's point of view, and we rarely see humans above the knees. The characters are charming and the relationship between the titular leads is just one of the sweetest created by Disney. The Siamese Cat song, like many aspects of Disney, influenced by stereotypes and hits a sour note, but the characters exit the film as quickly as they enter and what’s left is surprisingly emotional.

7. Moana (2016)

Moana does so many things so well. It's beautifully animated, and has one of the best soundtracks of any Disney musical. In large part, this is due to the way that the film embraced Polynesian culture in its story and its music. Dwayne Johnson's turn as Maui wasn't music to the ears of everybody, but there's little argument that his performance of "You're Welcome" became the ear-worm of the film that many couldn't stop singing. It's got great action and the lead character is a much more nuanced and complex heroine than any that came before. Moana is a modern classic. It’s little surprise Disney is moving so fast to remake Moana in live-action.

6. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs made history when the film debuted at the end of 1937. Disney's first feature-length animated movie is every bit as special today as it was back then. With a modern eye, there are clearly elements that don't work as well as they could, like the story seemingly starting in the middle with a lot of text exposition rather than actually giving us character development, making Snow White less fleshed out than you'd like. However, as the template from which everything was built, it needs to receive its due.

5. Bambi (1942)

Disney has made countless films with animals as the primary characters, but usually, they're stylized and drawn in creative ways so they feel more like people. Bambi feels like you might be truly looking in on real animals in a forest. The movie will always be known for one scene alone, as the death of Bambi's mother is one of the most heartbreaking moments in film history, leading generations of children to tears. Everything else about it is equally beautiful, and this film deserves its place in film history.

4. Pinocchio (1940)

Disney's second feature holds up remarkably well to a modern viewing. It's got a compelling and emotional story, memorable songs (including the one that went on to become the theme song for all of Disney), and great characters. In many ways, Pinocchio could be made today, and it's unlikely a great deal would even change. Jiminy Cricket, with his one-liners and audience asides, feels like an inspiration for Robin Williams’ Genie decades later. Pinocchio has everything you'd expect from a Disney animated feature today, which makes the fact that it was only the studio's second film remarkable.

3. Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Of all the early Disney Princess movies, Sleeping Beauty is by far the standout. Both Aurora and Prince Philip are actual characters, and while the film's brief runtime doesn't exactly let them breathe as much as you might like, we at least get to know them. It also has one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of Disney's villains in Maleficent. Sleeping Beauty was, in many ways, the end of an era for Disney, as we didn't see another storybook princess movie for 40 years. Everything the fimmakers had learned was on display here.

2. Beauty And The Beast (1991)

If Sleeping Beauty was the culmination of Disney's first great era, Beauty and the Beast was the result of an additional four decades of learning how to tell stories. There's a reason this became the first animated film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. The characters feel more real than any that have come before, and the music is absolute perfection. Hand drawn animation assisted with computers has also been taken to a new level here, making the classic ballroom scene a moment that nobody will forget.

1. Fantasia (1940)

Fantasia was a financial bomb when it was first released, but over the decades the film has come to be appreciated for the artistic achievement that it is. Animation is put together with music in a way that elevates both art forms. This was the movie that made it clear that cartoons weren't simply for kids. While it may not be a film with a narrative or deep characters, it shows Disney animation at its absolute greatest, and it doesn't lack an emotional punch, as the best music, as well as the best animation, can always make you feel something.

With Zootopia 2, Frozen 3, and an as-yet-unnamed original animated story on the slate of upcoming Disney movies, there is a lot to look forward to when it comes to the future of Disney animation. Time will tell where these endeavors fit among the best films of all time.

Disney has been digging deep into its content catalog for animated classics to be given the live action treatment. Winnie the Pooh is among the ever-growing bunch, only rather than re-tell the story of the young Christopher Robin spending time with the denizens of the 100 Acre Wood, the Christopher Robin movie will follow a grown-up Christopher, played by Ewan McGregor. Until today, the only other actor who'd been announced to co-star alongside McGregor was Agent Carter's Hayley Atwell, but now we know who's been chosen or being looked at to voice Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger in the new movie.

It was reported today that Jim Cummings, who has been voicing Winnie the Pooh for nearly 30 years, will retain his duties performing the honey-obsessed bear for the Christopher Robin movie. As for Eeyore and Tigger, Disney selected Everybody Loves Raymond's Brad Garrett to take over over as the depressed donkey, while Firefly's Alan Tudyk is interested in stepping in to voice the energetic feline. That Hashtag Show also revealed that Sherlock star Mark Gatiss has been brought aboard to play Keith, Christopher's boss, and Bronte Carmichael will play Madeline, Christopher's daughter.

Jim Cummings took over as Winnie the Pooh in 1988 when Hal Smith retired from the role, but the yellow bear is just one of numerous characters Cummings has breathed life into over his voice acting career. His other notable roles include Tigger, the Tasmanian Devil, Darkwing Duck, Pete from the Mickey Mouse cartoons, Hondo Ohnaka on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, and Dr. Robotnik in the 1990s Sonic the Hedgehog animated series.

Outside of his live action work on Everybody Loves Raymond, 'Til Death and more, Brad Garrett has also developed quite the voice acting resume thanks to his especially deep voice. You might remember him as Dim in A Bug's Life, Fatso in Casper, Bloat in Finding Nemo, Lobo in Superman: The Animated Series, the Easter Island Head in the Night at the Museum movies and Krang in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.

Alan Tudyk was most recently seen playing Van Wayne in the short-lived Powerless series, but he's been an especially important contributor for Disney in recent years, playing King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph, the Duke of Weselton in Frozen, Allistair Krei in Big Hero 6, Duke Weaselton in Zootopia, Hei Hei in Moana and, if we count the Star Wars brand, K-2SO in Rogue One.

In addition to the casting news, some new story details regarding the Christopher Robin movie were revealed. Similar to Peter Pan in 1991's Hook, Christopher has lost his sense of imagination due to the responsibilities of adulthood, with his boss pushing him to prioritize work over family. After Christopher's wife, Evelyn, and their daughter, Madeline, move away, that's when Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger and the other 100 Acre Wood citizens find their way back into his life.

Christopher Robin doesn't have a release date set yet, so check back with CinemaBlend for that information and more updates as they come in.

The beloved children's classic Winnie The Pooh introduced us to the imaginary world of Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and the rest of the Hundred Acre Wood gang. But now, with their Christopher Robin project, Disney's bringing the young boy out of the woods and into live action as an adult in the form of Ewan McGregor. And now we've found out that Christopher has a wife in this new film, and she'll be played by Hayley Atwell, known by many as Marvel heroine Peggy Carter.

Atwell's announcement only further intrigues us about this project, as Christopher Robin's story apparently sees our protagonist all grown up and without his keen sense of imagination. So think of it as Winnie The Pooh meets Hook, with Winnie The Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and company as the Lost Boys intent on giving Christopher Robin back his joyful spark. Though considering there's bound to be antics that see McGregor's Christopher Robin getting into some interesting hijinks, it's nice to know he'll have someone as no-nonsense as Hayley Atwell keeping him in line.

Of course, this announcement from Variety is pretty coincidental, as Hayley Atwell was also spotted in the offices of Marvel Studios recently. So depending on how closely the Walt Disney Studios and Marvel Studios offices are located to each other in Burbank, there's a chance that the Marvel stop was more of a friendly hello during meetings for Christopher Robin. Considering Disney's recent history, as well as her winning track record with Marvel Studios, Atwell's decision to stay in the family looks to be a huge asset in her career.

Disney's been on a spree with live-action projects themed after their animated catalog, and rather than go the straight adaptation route like Beauty and The Beast or The Lion King, Christopher Robin is looking to branch into something new with a pre-existing property. While Beauty has been a hell of a hit for Disney's bottom line this year, its one for one ratio remake was a bit safer than some of their previous efforts, like Maleficent or The Jungle Book. Though that fact right there probably tells us the reason why Disney is going with the newer spin on the classic tale.

Beauty and the Beast is a more recent film that has its audience built in because of the childhood factor, while older films like Sleeping Beauty and The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh are not as frequently watched with children past a certain era. So rather than retell a classic tale, Disney now has a chance to bring the classic into a more modern context, while retaining what everyone loved about Christopher Robin's adventures. With that modern context comes a chance to invent new characters that didn't exist in the more traditional era of Disney's motion picture apparatus. We're hoping that with Hayley Atwell's reputation in tow, this new character announced will serve as more than just a doting female figure, and in a capacity that lets her be a part of the adventure.

Christopher Robin doesn't have a release date yet, but if you're interested in learning the story behind A.A. Milne's creation of his character, you can see Goodbye Christopher Robin, which hits theaters on October 13.

Disney has been taking two approaches with the live action remakes of its classic animated movies. The first is faithfully re-telling the story and only changing a few things here and there, like how Beauty and the Beast was handled. The second is going for dramatically different interpretations, like what Maleficent was for Sleeping Beauty. For the upcoming live action Winnie the Pooh movie, Disney is going the latter route by having the 100 Acre Wood denizens reunite with Christopher Robin as an adult. Now there's word that Ewan McGregor might be the one playing the grown-up Christopher.

Fresh off playing Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast, Ewan McGregor is now in talks to play Christopher Robin in his upcoming namesake movie. In this story, McGregor's Christopher has grown up to be a successful businessman, but has subsequently lost his sense of imagination and has been prioritizing his work over his wife and daughter. His life will be thrown for a loop when Winnie the Pooh and his fellow animal friends return. Basically, this movie sounds like the classic Winnie the Pooh tales mixed with Hook. Along with the McGregor news, THR also mentioned that Hidden Figures screenwriter Allison Schroeder will pen the latest draft of the script, which was originally written by Alex Ross Perry and later worked on by Tom McCarthy.

Aside from Beauty and the Beast, and to a lesser extent the Star Wars prequel movies, Ewan McGregor doesn't have much experience starring in projects that can be seen by the whole family. His recent credits include August: Osage County, American Pastoral, Jane Got a Gun and T2 Trainspotting, all of which fall into PG-13 or R territory. He can currently be seen as Emmit and Ray Stussy in Fargo Season 3. If a deal is finalized, starring in Christopher Robin would be a good way for him to get some exposure with younger moviegoers following his tenure as a walking and talking candelabra.

Until now, Disney's Winnie the Pooh theatrical projects have all been traditionally animated. The last theatrical movie, simply titled Winnie the Pooh, was released in 2011 and earned mostly positive reviews. As mentioned earlier, Christopher Robin will allow the Disney to take this property and adapt in a way never done before in the company while ideally staying true to the spirit of these characters. It's also worth noting that there is a separate movie coming out later this year called Goodbye Christopher Robin, which stars stars Domhnall Gleeson and Margot Robbie, and will be about how author A.A. Milne created Winnie the Pooh.

Directed by Quantum of Solace's Marc Forster, Christopher Robin doesn't have a release date assigned yet, but it's one of the many Disney remakes coming in the near future. Don't forget to check out the full schedule of Disney's other upcoming releases.

Fairy tales. They are among the oldest stories that survive in our culture. They are some of the earliest stories that we hear, and the ones that we remember. Beginning in 1937 and running more or less to the present day, Walt Disney Animation began to turn many of these classic tales into feature films. Since then, multiple generations have grown up with these films, and for many audience members, Disney has made the definitive version of these ageless stories. At this point, the definition of the term "fairy tale" is essentially, "An animated movie made by the Walt Disney Company."

Now that Disney has turned every story ever written into an animated feature, they've now begun to remake each of them as a live action film, as well. However, most of these stories are so old that they're in the public domain, and Disney isn't the only studio that noticed how much money fairy tale movies can make. This means that not only are there more fairy tale films in development than you can count, in several cases, there are multiple studios working on the same property. How can you keep it all straight? Here's every single fairy tale movie we could track down (that we're not sure isn't dead). Clear your calendars!

Jungle Book

Didn't we just see The Jungle Book? Oh right, this is a different one. Previously Jungle Book: Origins, the film has apparently been retitled as simply Jungle Book. While Disney's version used simple computer animation, Origins will be using full motion capture to try to bring a new level of life and expression to the characters. To that end, Warner Bros. hired a motion capture expert, Andy Serkis, to direct the film as well as play the role of Baloo the bear. Waiting more than two years after Disney's try will hopefully be enough time for people to want to see this story again.

Release Date: October 18, 2018

Mulan

Mulan has become one of Disney's most popular princesses, mostly for being a heroine who breaks the mold for Disney. She's not driven by love, and she doesn't need a prince to save her. She does the saving. It's no wonder that Disney would look to the story for one its remakes. Fun fact: Ming-Na Wen, Agent Melinda May from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., was the voice of the original character. Any reason she couldn't play the remake in the live-action version? She already kicks butt. Hey Disney, I just did the heavy lifting for you. We recently learned that Mulan will not be a musical but that's about all we know about the film that's currently set to debut in 2018.

Release Date: November 2, 2018

Cruella

Disney struck gold with a movie from the villain's perspective with Maleficient, so they'll be going back to the well with the similarly themed, and titled, Cruella. As Disney had already done a pair of 101 Dalmatians live action films several years ago, with Glenn Close as the fashionista evil-doer, the new version has cast Emma Stone in the role, and will instead focus on the character's early days, and what made her the character we know and love...to hate. Glenn Close is acting as a producer of the new film which is being written by Kelly Marcel (Saving Mr. Banks) and Jez Butterworth (Black Mass). Most recently it has seemed that Mozart in the Jungle's Alex Timbers has been in talks to direct, and if that happens this one could go into full production later in 2017

Dumbo

Dumbo may be one of the strangest choices to transform into a live-action feature film, if only because it's barely an animated feature film. At just over an hour in length, it's difficult to even justify the "feature" moniker. However, with Tim Burton planning to direct the film, we have to say, he never let the source material get in the way of making a beautiful, and epic, story. Most recently Dumbo has been in the news because casting is currently underway. Danny Devito and Tom Hanks are reportedly in talks for roles. Will Smith was also up for the lead, though it appears those discussions have ended without a deal.

Aladdin

Guy Ritchie is going to direct a Disney musical. This is a thing that is going to happen. While the story of a street urchin who makes it big may be very much the sort of thin we expect from Guy Ritchie, a Disney movie is not. Still, that's exactly what we're getting. The film is having an open audition for the leads so we expect we may very well see unknown actors make their big screen debut. It appears the plan is for Aladdin to follow in the footsteps of Beauty and the Bast and be a full musical. This one is starting out as wild as Tim Burton's Dumbo but we're ok with that.

The Lion King

While the announcement that Jon Favreau has been brought on board to do a live-action (read: realistically animated, not using actual lions) version of The Lion King is some of the most recent news on this list, the fact that the project is being fast-tracked means that we might actually see it long before many of the earlier films on this list. One gets the distinct impression that maybe The Jungle Book was really just an expensive proof of concept that was devised in order to discover if a remake of Disney's biggest animated film ever was, in fact, possible. It appears the experiment was a success. The Lion King is currently slated to film prior to Favreau's Jungle Book sequel and has already cast Donald Glover as the voice of Simba and has announced that James Earl Jones will reprise his role as Mufasa from the animated film, because who else would you get to replace him?

Maleficent 2

Maleficent wasn't necessarily the best movie, but it was a wholly remarkable one that included Angelina Jolie doing some of the best scenery chewing that we've seen in a long time. It also made a lot of money, which meant a sequel was very likely. Since the Sleeping Beauty story is over we have no idea where this one is going to go, but since the original purported to tell us the true story of the famous fairy, we're sure there's more we don't know. Recently it has been reported that Angelina Jolie is considering Maleficent 2 as her next project, so if that happens expect this one to start moving forward much more quickly.

Christopher Robin

It's been a while since Disney first announced their plans to use Winnie the Pooh as the source for one of these many live-action remakes. While most of Disney's plans for these movies involve either prequels or direct remakes, Winnie the Pooh appears to be different because it's being set up as a sequel, where an adult Christopher Robin goes in search of his old friends. This has now been reflected in the fact that the film will actually be called Christopher Robin. Most recently, World War Z director Marc Foster was reported to be the director of the project so this one appears to be moving ahead. We're guessing this one will end up looking very similar to The Jungle Book when all is said and done.

The Little Mermaid

While Universal may have been the first to the Little Mermaid story (more on that later), their stumble regarding the casting may be the perfect opportunity for Disney. Not only have they recently announced their own live-action version of the Hans Christian Anderson story, or more accurately, the Disney version of it, but it will include the biggest musical talent of the moment, Lin-Manuel Miranda, along with the composer of the original animated film, Alan Menken. It would seem that they're planning to go the Beauty and the Beast route and make this one a full musical production. Here's hoping Miranda can cast himself as Sebastian the crab. That needs to happen.

Prince Charming

While the Prince Charming movie is being produced by Disney, this one is looking to be somewhat less of a "Disney movie." The studio didn't commission the script, but rather, purchased it on spec. It's said to be a revisionist take on the idea of Prince Charming, and not really a story about any specific character. The name Prince Charming has been given to the characters of several stories, including Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. We're imagining a character, not unlike the one in Bill Willingham's Fables comic. This sounds interesting.

The Sword in the Stone

We haven't heard a great deal about the live action The Sword in the Stone since it was announced about a year ago. What we do know is that Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman is involved. There's certainly an implication there that Disney's live-action The Sword in the Stone may have more in common with Excalibur than it does the Disney original. That's probably for the best with a modern audience. As long we get a special effects blockbuster wizard's duel, we're ok with that.

Tink

Reese Witherspoon has reportedly been tapped by Disney to play the lead role in Tink, a live action film that will focus on Peter Pan's possibly more famous sidekick. The screenplay is being handled by Victoria Strouse, who had the task of writing the script for Pixar's Finding Dory. The film is set to play with the timeline of the well known Peter Pan story, so this film could be a prequel, a sequel, or something in between. It's been over a year since this one was announced so we're not sure what's up with it. Still, it doesn't appear to be dead.

Tinkerbell

Not to be outdone, there's a second Tinkerbell movie planned, which is very much not the Disney story. Melissa McCarthy is attached to make a Tinkerbell movie for Fox. It's not clear exactly what kind of film this is. Nicholas Stoller, who is working on the script, has written everything from Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising to Muppets Most Wanted, so it's anybody's guess whether this will be a family-friendly fairy tale, or one only for adults. McCarthy is generally box office gold, so we'd expect this one to arrive on screen sooner rather than later.

Pinocchio

Another long-in-development project that has seen new life recently is Robert Downey Jr.'s plan to play Geppetto in a live-action version of Pinocchio. While the man inside the Iron Man suit obviously has a strong relationship with Disney, the studio that's been handling this project is actually Warner Bros. Both Ben Stiller and Paul Thomas Anderson had been attached to direct the film previously. After Anderson dropped out, Ron Howard signed on to direct. Still, it's been over a year since that happened and we haven't heard anything since. This one can't seem to stay down for long, so we're guessing it will begin to move forward sooner rather than later.

The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid was the movie that launched Disney's renaissance in 1989, so it's surprising that the first studio to the line with a live-action film version of the story was actually Universal. Sofia Coppola left the director's chair, but the studio looks to have a replacement on the hook, which wouldn't have slowed things down if that was the only issue. Kick-Ass and 5th Wave actress Chloe Grace Moretz was attached to star in the lead role, however, it appears that she recently pulled out herself, so the future of this one is unknown. The Universal take looks to be a significantly darker version than the well-known Disney film, which is fitting, considering the Hans Christian Anderson tale is absolutely black.

Night on Bald Mountain

Of all the source material that Disney will be mining to make live-action movies, this one might be the most unusual. Disney's Fantasia contained animated shorts combined with classical music. One of the most memorable was the animation that accompanied Modest Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain." Now Disney plans to turn the winged demon from that short into its own feature-length film. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless who co-wrote the scripts for Dracula Untold and The Last Witch Hunter together are working on the script. This one could be interesting if we ever see it.

Pinocchio

Robert Downey Jr. isn't the only one working on a Pinocchio movie. The tale of the wooden boy who wants to be a real one was Disney's second animated feature, and the Oscar-winning "When You Wish Upon a Star" has become the unofficial theme song for the entire company. Needless to say, this one is important to the studio. While we haven't heard anything about this film in over a year, as far as we know, Peter Hedges is still working on the screenplay. We don't expect the mouse house will giving up on this one until it's done.

Genies

Around the same time that Disney announced Winnie the Pooh, Pinocchio, and just about everything else on this list, they also announced Genies. Originally, Genies was set to be a live-action prequel that would eventually lead into a live-action version of Disney's classic Aladdin. Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, who wrote the screenplay for Freddy vs. Jason among others, were handling script duties on this one, which was supposed tell the story of how the Genie became trapped in the lamp to begin with. With the announcement that a live-action Aladdin is coming to the screen ahead of this, it's possible this project is being shelved, though no official announcement has been made. They could still follow Aladdin with a prequel if they were so inclined.

Rose Red

One fairy tale character who has been overlooked in recent generations, in large part because of Disney's version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is Rose Red. Many fairy tale fans may not be aware that Snow White even has a sister. Disney looks to be taking steps to rectify this oversight, with a movie based on the character, which is being set up as a sort of live-action companion to the animated original. The story will follow Rose Red as she attempts to wake her sister from the curse of the poison apple. It's an intriguing idea, which has a lot of promise. Now it needs some talent to get involved.

The Jungle Book 2

Just about as soon as The Jungle Book hit theaters Disney signed Jon Favreau to direct a sequel. The first film became one of the highest-grossing films of 2016. There's no wonder that Disney would want to lock in a sequel as soon as possible. There were three total books written by Rudyard Kipling, as well as a fairly terrible sequel to Disney's original animated film, so there certainly exists plenty of material on which to build a sequel. The announcement that Favreau is working on The Lion King first means it will be a while before this one sees the light of day, but with nearly a billion dollar box office take, we can be fairly certain that it will happen eventually.

Mulan

As stated at the beginning, most of these stories are public domain, meaning it doesn't cost any studio a penny to get the rights to any story. Thus, alongside Disney's plans to make a live-action Mulan, Sony has now announced that they will do the same. While the Disney film will certainly be a live-action version of the Disney animated film, Sony is planning a movie that follows closer to the original Chinese legend. In addition, the plan is for the film to shoot in China and use a mostly Chinese cast.

Peter Pan

Peter Pan has seen plenty of live-action adaptations already. From Steven Spielberg's adult Pan in Hook to the recent trainwreck in film form that was Pan. There will be at least one more in between now and the heat death of the universe. Disney has decided that if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself. They'll be producing their own live-action Peter Pan from the same team that brought us the recent Pete's Dragon. Maybe the Disney pixie dust will make this one the hit that the others have only tried to be.

Snow White

Finally, we'll end this massive list where Disney began. In additon to making a film about Snow White's lesser known sister, the Mouse House is also planning a live-action musical based around the company's inaugural feature-length animated film. New music will be written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul who were involved in the production of La La Land so it's clear that Disney is looking to make this movie as big as Beauty and the Beast. Erin Cressida Wilson who wrote the script for The Girl on the Train is handling the screenplay. Whether this film will be related to the Rose Red idea is anybody's guess at this point.

Disney is plowing ahead with live action versions of their classic animated properties, including Winnie the Pooh. Yes, the small bear with an insatiable hunger for honey and his 100 Acre Wood pals will be brought back to the big screen in the near future, and they won't be their usual traditional, 2-D animated selves. However, aside from screenwriter Alex Ross Perry listing some inspirations for the new Winnie the Pooh adventure, there hasn't been any big news regarding its progress until today, when it was announced that the man who directed World War Z has been tapped to oversee the movie.

According to THR, Marc Forster has been hired by Disney to direct the Winnie the Pooh movie, which is now titled Christopher Robin. Along with news of Forster's recruitment came a plot description. While we're all familiar with Christopher Robin as a young boy who enjoyed spending time with the denizens of the 100 Acre Wood, this movie will follow him as an adult, and by this point he's "grown out of the joyful imagination" he had when he was young and is prioritizing his work as a businessman over his wife and daughter. Just as Christoper's home life starts to hit a breaking point, Winnie the Pooh pops back into his life to get his help with finding his friends. The movie is subsequently described as having "strong elements of magical realism," while its main goal is to tell a "emotional journey" mixed properly with a "heartwarming adventure."

Christopher Robin will be the latest entry in Marc Forster's resume of directing work, which kicked off in 1995 with Loungers. His more notable projects include the previously-mentioned World War Z (though he didn't return for the sequel), Monster's Ball, Stranger Than Fiction, The Kite Runner and Quantum of Solace. He also directed 2004's Finding Neverland, which somewhat ties into Disney's Peter Pan since it revolved around the life of the original play's writer J.M. Barrie.

While it was already a given that Christopher Robin would see the 100 Acre Wood animals as CGI creations interacting in the "real world," this reported plot synopsis sounds like an interesting mix of Winnie the Pooh's innocent roots and a more mature story that both younger and older moviegoers can enjoy. Rather than retread Christopher Robin's adventures as a lad yet again, we'll see how the magic in his life is reignited when Pooh reunites with him, even if Christopher is bothered by the little bear's presence at first. It's way too soon to tell how this Disney live action adaptation will be received by the masses compared to all the other ones on the way, but at the very least, the creative direction sounds intriguing.

We'll keep you updated on how the Winnie the Pooh movie is progressing as more news comes in, but let us know what you think of these director and plot developments in the comments section below.

Are you looking for some serious whimsy in your life? Fret not, a live-action Winnie The Pooh film is on the way, penned by screenwriter Alex Ross Perry (Listen Up Phillip). However, the inspiration for this upcoming iteration of the animals that inhabit the Hundred Acre Wood is coming from an unlikely source this time around: A.I..

While speaking with Collider, Ross Perry revealed that he has taken numerous cues from other films to establish the tone of this one, such as The Fantastic Mr. Fox and the Toy Story franchise, in an attempt to create something that balances age-appropriate storytelling with the dynamic a child would have with a prized possession. Beyond all of that, the majority of his his inspiration for the upcoming Winnie The Pooh stems from the relationship between David and Teddy in the 2001 Steven Spielberg film A.I:

Given the tone that Ross Perry seems to be going for in the film, the comparisons to A.I make quite a bit of sense. Hayley Joel Osment’s David and his bear Teddy share a striking resemblance to that of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. While not directly copying, it would seem that accessibility is the primary goal of Ross Perry’s take on Winnie The Pooh, something that will appeal to kids as well as the adults who grew up with these stories in equal measures. This appears to come as a result of Ross Perry’s desire to honor what these characters represent, while creating something fundamentally new for audiences.

Check out the video below to see clips get a better understanding of David and Teddy’s relationship in A.I.

At this early stage it remains difficult to tell exactly the form Alex Ross Perry’s version of Winnie The Pooh will take. We will keep you posted on any and all information associated with the project as it becomes available to us in the coming months.

The current trend over at Disney to reinvent its vast library of classic animated features as live-action movies is continuing with yet another property, Winnie the Pooh. Yes, it appears that the titular "bear of very little brain" that’s "stuffed with fluff" will commence his insatiable quest for honey for the very first time in a live-action capacity.

According to a report by Deadline, Disney is moving forward with the live-action Winnie the Pooh, however, there will be a major twist this time, as it will depict the story’s implied muse, Christopher Robin, as an adult who seeks out Pooh Bear and the rest of his stuffed childhood buddies.

They've also hired Alex Ross Perry to pen the script. A rather deep choice, Perry is probably best known as writer/director for indie efforts like Listen Up Phillip and the recent Queen of Earth. The selection of a talent who’s generally unknown to the mainstream, like Perry, may seem like a bizarre choice for a children’s property as iconic as Winnie the Pooh, which just saw an update with a widely released 2011 animated feature. Yet, there is a method to the facade of madness.

The key aspect of this film lies in its plans to depict an adult Christopher Robin rediscovering the childhood which brought A.A. Milne’s bright, sunny, clumsily whimsical world in Hundred Acre Wood to life. Thus, the story alteration reveals some deliberately demographic-centric plans to broaden the appeal of the Pooh Bear property, to possibly create a happy medium where the film speaks to both the traditional targeted audience of children as well as the adults who bring their kids to the theater.

Of course, the film won’t be alone in this type of mature live-action reinvention, with Cinderella, Maleficent, and Snow White and the Huntsman, and even Tim Burton’s upcoming rendition of Dumbo, being recent genre examples. Yet, in the case of Winnie the Pooh, Disney’s hiring of a relatively unknown visionary like Alex Ross Perry seems to parallel the strategy used with their upcoming live-action rendition of Pete’s Dragon, which sees a similarly uncharacteristic talent in David Lowery, the mastermind behind the dark thriller, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, handle the update of the innocent tale of a young boy who befriends a giant green and purple dragon.

The idea of a more "mature" rendition of Winnie the Pooh, which began with Milne’s 1926 book and seriously took off in 1966, which saw the beginning of a vast array of iconic animated features, sounds intriguing. While cartoons and children’s movies have always been lucrative, they are contemporarily more sophisticated, carrying themes that appeal to children, but are also mature enough to be intellectually stimulating for adults. Toy Story 3’s idea of Andy "letting go" of his toys and moving on to a new stage of his life was probably the most definitive example of this. When factoring an adult Christopher Robin into this live-action Winnie the Pooh, the story almost lends itself to a similarly mature, bittersweet theme.

At the moment no further details are known regarding who will direct the Winnie the Pooh live-action film, or when it will to commence production and see release.

What a difference a voice makes. James Earl Jones lent his signature baritone to George Lucas’ evil creation, Darth Vader, and one of cinema’s most iconic villains was born. But what if Lord Vader were voiced, instead, by Jim Cummings, the voice actor best known for lending his pipes to the gentle, hungry Winnie the Pooh. Well, Star Wars would have sounded a lot like the above clip.

The clip has been around for a while, but is so amusing, we wanted to share in case you hadn’t caught it yet. Cummings is appearing at Connecticon 2013, reading actual dialogue from the Star Wars trilogy (with a few Pooh improvisations). YouTube user Ian James shared the above footage. It’s the best version we could find, with the strongest audio of Cummings’ terrific line reading. Listen to the crowd go nuts at the 35-seocnd mark, when Cummings says, "Honey." It’s the equivalent of hearing Jimmy Page begin to play the opening guitar riff to Stairway to Heaven.

Pooh’s voice doesn’t fit Vader’s visage. Neither, however, did the voice of David Prowse, the actor in Vader’s suit for the duration of the shoot. Here’s footage of Prowse speaking Darth Vader’s lines before Jones added the husky menace in post-production:

Of course, giving Vader a new voice over the years has become a fun exercise for the YouTube generation. Here’s Darth L. Jackson (with a NSFW take on the classic overlord):

And one of my personal favorites, Darth Schwarzenegger:

Sadly, J.J. Abrams won’t have Darth Vader to play around with as he plunges into Star Wars: Episode VII. To that end, we have been waiting for a new Star Wars villain to step up and fill Darth’s massive black boots. Darth Maul was a good start, but Lucas removed him from the series before he had a chance to cast his long, dual-lightsaber-wielding shadow. Could Adam Driver create a villain so cruel and evil, we’re still talking about him 40 years after his debut? We’ll find out soon enough.

The official end of summer may be weeks away, but let's face it, Hollywood gave up on the season last weekend with the release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. James Franco's surprisingly successful monkey movie sent the summer out with a screech and at an internet meme (Why cookie Rocket?) and that means it's time to take a look back at what happened during this year's heat wave.

We're not here to dissect which movie was the biggest box office winner of the summer (with $348 million earned and counting it was definitely Harry Potter) or which movie the critics loved most (oddly enough, also Harry Potter), we have loftier ambitions. The biggest blockbuster movie going season of the year often has implications beyond the numbers, so here we are to break down who came out of the summer smelling like a rose, and who came out Ryan Reynolds. These are the biggest winners and losers of Summer 2011, as we see them.

Winner: R-rated Comedy

It wasn't just The Hangover Part II that managed to piggyback on The Hangover's success this summer. A lot of very famous people were saying some very dirty, very funny things on camera this year, reviving the R-rated comedy in a way that even Judd Apatow might not have been able to predict. Sure, the dreadful The Hangover Part II is the most successful of these, but Bridesmaids was a massive hit at $166 million domestic, and Horrible Bosses-- which used the R-rating to give Charlie Day a chance to be even more funny and ridiculous than he can on TV's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia-- isn't far behind with $106 million.

Even Bad Teacher, which opened to OK reviews and a middling first weekend, has made $186 million worldwide, making it Cameron Diaz's biggest hit in a lead role since Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle in 2003. In a time when most action movies turn themselves into pretzels trying to avoid R ratings, comedies are fully embracing them, becoming funnier and, somehow, more lucrative in the process. It's one of this summer's most promising trends.

Loser: Pixar's Reputation

For 15 years, the name "Pixar" was always a sure thing, a promise of movies that wouldn't just quiet restless kids for an hour and a half, that wouldn't just entertain grown-ups in the process, but would somehow advance storytelling and animation and bravura filmmaking in a way you'd never expect. Pixar was the magic factory, and every movie they turned out seem to break the mold all over again, whether turning the superhero genre on its ear or making a boxy robot into a romantic hero.

Then this summer came Cars 2, the worst reviewed of Pixar's films and, so far, the lowest grossing since A Bug's Life. The movie is still a hit, of course, and Disney/Pixar will make a mint off the popular toys, but the bloom is definitely off the Pixar rose, meaning that for the first time in years, the studio has something to prove. If their next film Brave is also not up to the usual standard, we'll have to start seriously worrying that the great Pixar era is actually over

Winner: The Legacy Of Freaks & Geeks

You wanna know what the worst thing in the world for a sports fan is? When your favorite team trades away a promising rookie, and he turns into a complete stud. Every drained three pointer is like a little needle prick and every behind the back pass a slow motion fuck you. I actually feel bad for NBC. Eleven years ago, the network was broadcasting Freaks And Geeks, a brilliant, Emmy-nominated show less than seven million people bothered watching each week. They cancelled it, only to watch producer Judd Apatow brand himself, stars Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jason Segel turn themselves into household names, Linda Cardellini land a principal roll in the successful Scooby Doo franchise, Martin Starr destroy on Party Down and Busy Phillips wind up on Cougar Town.

Still, the guilt must have been manageable, at least until this summer when Freaks And Geeks main character John Francis Daley wrote the wonderful comedy Horrible Bosses, creator Paul Feig directed the brilliant and commercially successful Bridesmaids and Samm Levine appeared on Doug Benson's best-selling new comedy album. What else can you do but laugh now? It's no longer an issue of Freaks And Geeks having had a few great cast members, every single goddamn person on the show pathologically started destroying life the second it was cancelled. For the sake of decency, I probably shouldn't mention that Franco's Planet Of The Apes made a fortune last weekend and Segel's new Muppet movie looks amazing, but I just can't help myself.

Winner: The Past

There's no time like the past, at least that's what this summer proved. In an era where most big-budget event films try and look as hip and updated as possible, several studios gambled the past few months and wound their focuses backward. Their efforts gifted audiences with more than a few better than expected offerings, and they were rewarded handsomely with generous returns. No doubt the money men will attempt to look for a specific formula to reproduce amidst all these revisionist history goldmines, but the truly remarkable thing is they may not find one more specific than "the past".

Super 8 was a monster movie set in 1979, Captain America, a superhero movie during World War II. Transformers: Dark Of The Moon was an adapted children's series with an origin story from the 1960s, X-Men: First Class was another superhero movie, this one taking place during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Midnight In Paris was a romantic comedy/ fantasy/ time travel story mainly highlighting the 1920s. Yes, for one of the first times in his life, Woody Allen, perhaps unintentionally, joined the philistines in subject matter and wound up with the most financially successful film of his entire career. You can't make this shit up. As someone who loves history, I can't get enough of this recent development, but talk to me again in two years when the byproducts of this revisionist history craze start flooding the marketplace and I have to review Big Mommas House 4: Gots To Get Myself One Of Them Pyramids .

Losers: Horror Fans

The only thing scary about Summer 2011 was the utter lack of legitimate terrors waiting for horror fans at the multiplex. Paul Bettany's Priest was the only bona-fide horror film released wide over the summer months (a few markets were lucky enough to receive John Carpenter's The Ward), and that one went over like a lead balloon.

Studios, instead, opted for creature features like Super 8 and Cowboys & Aliens, but even those were light on chills and skin-crawling moments. Maybe Hollywood figured we needed a few months to recover from Insidious, which remains one of the scariest films I've seen in years. And August is trying to rectify the horror drought by cramming in Fright Night and a fifth Final Destination. But horror fanatics have every right to say, “Too little too late” after being forced to wait all summer for a memorable scare.

Winner: Marvel

Marvel Studios' movie to-do list had two items on it – introduce Thor and Captain America to mainstream audiences ahead of next summer's The Avengers – and the fledgling studio checked both off with ease. Directors Kenneth Branagh and Joe Johnston delivered origin stories for Thor and Cap, respectively, that worked as standalone adventures while also adding vital pieces to the ever-forming Avengers puzzle.

It's also remarkable how the two films mirror each other critically and financially. Thor posted a 77% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and nabbed $180.8 million domestically, while Captain America: The First Avenger scored a 79% Fresh and has earned $146.8M to date. That bodes well for Joss Whedon's pending Avengers film, due in theaters next May. And while Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class had absolutely nothing to do with the Avengers initiative, that prequel's successes only helps the Marvel Comics brand, overall.

Winner: Beyond The Trilogy Franchises

From The Godfather to Back to the Future to Star Wars movie going audiences are used to seeing films in trilogy form, but this summer some of the biggest winners were those films that went beyond movie #3. Between Fast Five (Budget: $125 million, International Gross: $604 million); Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Budget: $250 million, International Gross: $1.037 billion); X-Men: First Class (Budget: $160 million, International Gross: $349 million); and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Budget: approximately $125 million, International Gross: $1.134 billion and growing), these kind of franchise movies made $2.464 billion at the global box office.

Even more impressive, these films, with the exception of Pirates, won over critics as well, three of the four films earning an average score of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. Some people may complain about seeing the same characters over and over again on screen, but if your character was making their fourth, fifth, six or seventh performance during the summer of 2011, you were in the right place at the right time.

Losers: People Who Saw The Smurfs Instead Of Winnie The Pooh

In many ways the two projects are very similar: both are movies based on classic, beloved source material that features a group of characters that are specifically defined by a single trait. But there is one huge, outstanding difference between Winnie The Pooh and The Smurfs: the former is one of the best films to come out this year, while the latter will end up being considered one of the worst. What's devastating is that The Smurfs had a huge opening weekend and an already guaranteed sequel, while Pooh opened against Harry Potter and only made $7.8 million in its first three days.

That said, Winnie The Pooh isn't the loser here, it's everyone who went to go see The Smurfs instead. By refusing to modernize the characters, directors Don Hall and Stephen J. Anderson crafted their A.A. Milne adaptation as a timeless and beautiful work that was perfect for both children and adults. Raja Gosnell's take on Peyo's work, however, had the little blue creatures playing Guitar Hero and rapping over Run DMC. If you saw The Smufrs instead of Winnie The Pooh this summer, it's your loss.

Winner: 2D

Summer 2011 was the year that audiences, at last, started to revolt against 3D. Tired of higher ticket prices and ready to relive the good old days when they could watch movies without glasses, time and again audiences seemed to seek out 2D tickets instead of 3D. Harry Potter fans, for instance, snatched up 2D tickets to the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 at a faster pace than they bought 3D ones, even though 3D showings were often in the biggest and best features. Most cited a desire to finish the franchise the way they started it, without the third dimension.

Fast Five was one of the early frontrunners for biggest movie of the year, and it did it without a 3D option. Factor in the inflated cost of 3D tickets and the truth is that 2D Fast Five was seen by more people than any other movie released this summer, outside of the aforementioned Harry Potter and Michael Bay's unstoppable Transformers juggernaut. People continue to see movies in 3D, in some cases because they have no choice and in others because it's actually occasionally good (thanks for that Captain America), but with movies X-Men: First Class making more money than competing 3D movies selling tickets at a higher price, it seems clearer than ever that 2D is not only alive and well, but wanted by audiences.

Loser: Ryan Reynolds

I like Ryan Reynolds. Scratch that, I love Ryan Reynolds. He's been the best thing about every bad movie he's ever been in, unfortunately bad movies no one wants to see seems to be about all he ever ends up doing. This summer was particularly painful for him, he was the star-power anchor behind not one, but two big-budget, badly reviewed, under-performers. Critics savaged Green Lantern and audiences barely showed up for it. The movie probably won't make back its $200 million budget at the box office, though the studio is still talking about a sequel.

The Change-Up paired Reynolds with Jason Bateman, who entered the fray with one successful summer 2011 comedy (Horrible Bosses) under his belt. The movie sank anyway and ended up as not only one of the worst reviewed movies of the year, but with $18 million earned on a $52 million budget, also one of the biggest flops. It's not clear how long Reynolds can go on like this, the guy's obviously a talent but Hollywood can only take this kind bleeding so long before he's relegated to supporting roles. Summer 2011 may end up as the year the whole Ryan Reynolds thing was kind of over. Hey Ryan, maybe now's a good time to try something edgy. How about Deadpool?

If there’s a person on this planet who doesn’t like Winnie The Pooh, I have no interest in ever meeting them. Whether you’re just a kid who sees the silly old bear and his friends running around the Hundred Acre Wood or an adult who sees each character as a physical psychological representation, the stories by A.A. Milne are classic in every sense of the word. But every time you try and bring classic characters to a new audience there is a risk of alienating those that loved them previously. Fortunately, directors Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall perfectly avoided the problem with their new film, Winnie The Pooh.

A couple weeks back I had the incredible chance to sit down with the directors at Walt Disney Pictures Animation to discuss the incredible new film. In the chat below, we discuss finding both the voice actors and animators for each character, working with John Lasseter and visiting the real Hundred Acre Wood. Check it out!

I’m kind of one of those guys that when I was a teenager watched Twelve Angry Men and said, “Piglet is juror number 2!” So I’m curious, when it came to casting the voice for this, obviously you had Jim Cummings who has been doing the voice for decades, but were you actively trying to find someone who sounded like previous voice actors that played the parts?

Anderson: We asked ourselves early on, which of these characters is really married to the voice and which of the characters is really more about the personality but not necessarily a specific voice? And you get Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, those guys, those characters, there would be huge controversies if they didn’t sound like they’ve always sounded. But we felt like if Rabbit doesn’t sound exactly like he did back in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, probably not going to be as much of an uproar, or the same thing with Owl. If their personalities were different, if we changed that there would be issues. So that’s why it gave us license, we felt a free to shake things up a little bit with some of those characters and say, let’s rethink this. What if we still kept their personalities in tact, but just expanded them, pushed them a little farther into that insanity level with people like Tom and Craig.

I guess one voice you mentioned, Eeyore’s my favorite character, when I was reading last night, I noticed that Bud Luckey also did the voice for Chuckles the Clown. Was that something you saw?

Hall: It wasn’t that, it was actually Incredibles. We were kind of down to the wire as far as casting Eeyore, I mean Bernie was a candidate at one point, he does a pretty good Eeyore. I just happened to be watching Incredibles, he plays Rick Dicker, it think is his name, and I was like “Oh my god, Bud Luckey!” And I came in and told Steve and Peter, and thought he was pretty funny, and when we pitched it to Johnny he just cracked up laughing. It’s like the “Of course, why didn’t we think of this before. He is Eeyore.” So John just gave his full blessing and we called him up, and it just so happens to be Bud’s favorite character of all time and so yeah, all the pieces kind of fell into place. We did say, “You are going to have to sing,” and then we realized, oh yeah, he sings, he did some stints in Boundin’, in Sesame Street, shorts and stuff like that, so he had no problem with that.

Anderson: You know in fact it was, we had already, I think we had done all of our recording at the point when Toy Story 3 came out last summer, and I don’t think I even knew he was in the movie.

Hall: I’m not sure. I saw some reels but I don’t know if I ever knew it was him.

Anderson: Yeah, that’s right, we saw reels but was he cast in there? I don’t know. It was really weird to suddenly, I mean it made sense because it’s Bud and he’s done other voices, but I remember being in the theater going, “Wow, that’s really weird. That’s Eeyore.” He’s Eeyore now, he’s not Bud Luckey anymore, so to hear that voice coming out of that clown was really weird.

And you mention John, you’re talking about, John Lasseter. What was the experience working with him like?

Hall: Well, he’s like the biggest cheerleader in the world and as a boss, it’s awesome because he speaks our language. He is us. He’s just the biggest fan of animation that there will ever be. So he just gets excited by entertainment, and he was such a great collaborator on this film. He must have trusted us because he kind of, at a certain point, we saw him less and less because he was directing Cars 2 obviously, but I think he kind of trusted us to, you know, it was on a good path. He trusted our choices, I guess. We’d run everything by him and he’d seem to buy it.

Anderson: The meetings were always fun and never controversial. I think we kept thinking, “Are we going to have a bad meeting one of these days? Is he gonna yell at us for something?” I’m not saying that we’re perfect or anything but he’s just so enthusiastic about these characters and of course about all Disney, classic Disney, he just loves that stuff. So to us it just meant, “Well I guess we’re on the right track. We must be doing something, we must be honoring the characters in the spirit of these otherwise he would have stopped us.” So that was a lot of, that was great encouragement, just to have him walk out of a meeting with a smile and saying, “Great stuff, keep going, can’t wait to see it next time.”

Hall: I think also, we talked about it early on, just about how, I shouldn’t say it was a breeze because that makes it seem like it was easy, you know it obviously wasn’t. There was just a sort of joy to the project and I think John felt that too. It wasn’t like, you know you’re ripping your hair out thinking, how are we going to solve that, we’re behind in production, all the normal stuff that happens on films just sort of didn’t happen on this one. It was just sort of a really fun kind of, I think we all just felt like it was a fun place. The Hundred Acre Wood is a fun place to hang out every now and then. I think John kind of felt that too.

You guys actually visited the real Hundred Acre Woods?

Hall: Yeah.

What did you take from that trip that you implemented into the film?

Anderson: Well really what I was to make, to create a Hundred Acre Wood that no one’s really ever seen on screen before, because it is observed and recorded from the real place. Locations, you can go to Ashdown Forest now and see parts, you see locations there that we used in the movie verbatim. But the feel of it, the lighting, the foliage, everything, it’s observed. And it gave us a lot of pride and confidence going forward that the story we can tell to everybody is that we did our homework. We didn’t just go to the ARL and drag out all the old backgrounds and just copy those. We actually went to the place out of respect and absorbed it all and put it up on screen. So the Hundred Acre Woods is almost like another character, the place is so important so it helps make a better movie ultimately.

Hall: We didn’t want to make a Xerox of a Xerox, you know. Obviously we knew it was going to be stylistically the same. It was going to be scratchy black line and over that would be watercolor washing. So we wanted to put our spin on it in any way we could, and that meant going to the real place and getting the real foliage in there. For a forest there’s not a lot of trees. It’s not what you think of if you go through a forest around here, like the Redwoods or something like that. There’s very little trees, very few trees. But it’s still a beautiful place, very calm and the light was amazing, so yeah.

And just to talk about the animation a bit, I mean obviously 3D animation has become the norm, do you just jump at the opportunity to make a 2D animated film?

Hall: Yeah.

Anderson: Yeah, think so, yeah. It’s funny, I mean, both mediums are great. They both have such great things to offer and its fun just to be able to be in a building where both is going on. It’s really one of the only places in the world that’s doing, the only studio, big studio, that’s doing hand drawn and computer animation simultaneously. And that’s really exciting, you feel that energy, you feel the vitality and the versatility of this place and the different kinds of artists. So to be able to jump back and forth to both of those different mediums, and for Winnie the Pooh it was the perfect way, it was the perfect vehicle to tell this story. Because obviously it began as drawings, began two-dimensionally, so it just felt right. It has the simplicity, the charm, the handmade feel that you want out of Winnie the Pooh.

Hall: I have to say, too, just the first time Eric Goldberg kind of flipped a scene, like a Rabbit scene, he’s like, “Hey, I’m here, come take a look at this scene.” We’re supposed to be composed, you know, “Yes, Eric,” you know, do that, but I couldn’t and I just reverted to this CalArts student and was just sort of in awe of it. I think both of us, we never underestimated that or took it for granted, sort of the magic trick that these guys do with a pencil and paper. There’s just nothing like it. Theirs is still an awe.

Walking around today I got the sense that it’s impossible to be jaded by all of this, every single time, you start from these pencil sketches to the final product, I mean it’s magic, it’s really impressive.

Hall: And we draw, we do storyboards, we’ve animated before, and so we should be jaded by it. I don’t know I just remember that, yeah it’s just really cool. They’ve also integrated the rest of the studio, I mean they’re providing some exploratory animation for CG films, we’re becoming a very ambidextrous studio. Which I think is kind of awesome.

Obviously you’ve worked in both 2D and 3D now, other than the equipment which is obvious, what is different about building a 2D versus 3D film?

Hall: You should speak to that.

Anderson: Well, for me I guess I’d look at it as computer animation is more like photography, whereas hand drawn animation is more like doing a painting. If I want to capture this landscape, I can take a photograph of it, which is more of a realistic representation. There’s still interpretation, there’s how you light it, there’s what lenses you use, there’s all kinds of creativity that you can do, but it’s more of an exact, it’s a little bit more of a one to one representation of the location. But were I to take out a canvas and do an impressionistic type of painting, there’s even more interpretation involved in that and it’s farther from the source. It’s the artist just doing so much more interpretation with that. So for me that’s kind of how I see the two. They are both caricatures of reality. The computer animation we make is not photorealism, but certainly you’re dealing with texture, you’re dealing with lighting, you’re dealing with space, even though it’s virtual, it’s very, you perceive it as depth. Versus 2D where it’s all impressions of that. It’s impressions of fabric and it’s impressions of trees and of atmosphere, you’re creating that illusion through graphics, through story, through lighting, shading, color.

With animated films, you also have just so many moving parts. You have illustrators for each individual character, I’m curious, how do you keep that all organized? How do you keep being the heads of the production? How do you keep your head on straight?

Anderson: It helps when everybody is so goddamn good at what they do. They really know what they’re doing, and not just, certainly the artists, but also the production/management side of things. Our Producer Peter, Associate producers, production managers, all the department managers. They all came off the Princess and the Frog so they were a well-oiled machine. So this crew was just, give them something to do and they’re already wound up and ready to go. They’re all professional, they all understand their jobs, they know how to make these movies blindfolded. So for us it was just about, we have to make sure that the content is worthy of being in their hands, you know? So it was knocking ourselves dead in the story room, in the editorial room, making sure we had great content. I don’t feel that we had to do, you know, we didn’t do a lot of whip cracking. Everybody was very self-managing.

Hall: And very good at solving problem. Any problem that would come up, you would get nine hundred solutions to it. It just became about picking the right one. There was a phrase we kept saying through the course of this whole movie, “That’s a good problem to have.” You know, when we first looked at who was going to be the songwriting team for the movie and we kind of did a contest, but we through out the Honeydream idea and a few different teams kind of competed for that. And they were all good, any one of them would have been great stuff, but Bobby and Kristen kind of stuck out a little bit. That phrase, we said that so much during the course of this movie, “That’s a good problem to have.”

When you first got the project, was there any certain names that you immediately thought of that you wanted to be involved with the project?

Hall: Well I think we would have done something horrible, to us or are vehicles, if we didn’t cast Andreas with Tigger, that would have been, that was just such a natural fit. And being such a Milt Kahl fan, it was just the perfect thing. So I think we kind of thought, Andreas will get Tigger, Mark Henn seemed to be the perfect choice for Winnie the Pooh, and then everybody else we kind of played with, like Bruce doing Piglet and casting against type, and Eric, I mean with Rabbit, that was a character that I don’t think any animator would have loved that assignment, but we felt like, in the hands of somebody like Eric Goldberg, he will turn that character into something really fun and enjoyable. In one of our test screens, they always, they break it down into twelve people or so, and the first question they ask is, “Who’s your favorite character?” and all the hands go up. One little girl said Rabbit, and I was like, “Why?” “Well, because he’s so funny when he gets frustrated with Pooh.” I told Eric that, I was like, “In the history of this franchise, nobody has ever said Rabbit is their favorite character,” and that’s a testament to Eric’s animation and Tom Kenny’s voice. They just work so well together.

And when it came to those test screenings, before our screening the producers mentioned that there were, that you tested it a lot, I guess for starters, who were you testing? Who was in the audience?

Hall: Well we do it internally, that’s just our process. Over the course of a movie’s life you screen it about seven times, about every three months internally. Just for the studio and for John Lasseter and the story trust, which is our other directing colleagues. So you screen it, you gauge reaction in the theater, you go back up into the story room with John and the story trust, and you get everybody’s notes, how are we going to make it better, and after two hours you kind of break it apart and you put it back together again. And then we did official test screenings, how many did we do? Two, three?

Anderson: I think it was three.

Hall: The first one was actually pretty early, there was still a considerable amount of story sketch in there, but it was good to do that because that one kind of taught us the pacing lesson. It was pretty clear that we still had some scenes that were paced incorrectly and they were actually hurting some other scenes that were paced correctly, but because we kind of took our time over here it kind of hurt the colony. So that was a tough one to sit through, but it taught us a lot of lessons.

Like which scenes in particular?

Hall: Well the beginning of the film, we really took our time. There was a scene where Pooh finds Eeyore, he doesn’t have his tail, God, that was like twice as long. And animated, and in color. So I think that’s going to be on the DVD. And there’s great animation, great business of Pooh almost playing a doctor.

Anderson: The opening song, Pooh Bear takes care of his honey, off his tummy, that Pooh sings at his house, that was, it had another verse to it. Transitions, the Tigger intro was completely different. He didn’t get the balloon stuck on his back. Transitions through a lot of it, we needed to just get out earlier and get to the next bit later. So things like that. Some of it was nipping and tucking, and others were more wholesale, lop that whole section out and get rid of it because it’s just water-treading.

Hall: It was also, at that meeting, the 2D meeting was awesome because it allowed us to do that, to do it very quickly. I mean we went back in the story room, we story boarded those sequences, the guys went and recorded quickly, sent them to the animators, they got it, boom it was animated before you knew it.

And two years is ridiculous for an animated film. Was it stressful?

Hall: No, I never felt it. I thought we would when we got into production I think, when we heard the quotas, and I know the animators were just like, “We’re never gonna hit this, we’ve never hit this.” Of course they did. It never felt to bad really, I don’t know.

Anderson: What’s different about this movie from what we usually do here is we usually start with the blank page and creating worlds and characters from scratch, which is a great process, very rewarding, but it was kind of a nice thing on this movie to, you’ve already got your world established, you’ve got your cast of characters. Not only do you know your characters but you know how they speak, you know how the voices sound, you know their rhythms and speech patterns. So we didn’t start with the blank page, and it afforded us the opportunity, we could actually just start, we could start drawing from day one, and start coming up with scenarios and brainstorming ideas. And that translated all the way down the line. The story artists had the books and shorts to look at for reference, so did the animators clean up, there was all that wonderful material that we’re standing on the shoulders of that helped this movie a bit faster, because we weren’t banging our heads against the wall going, “Just what is the movie? We don’t even know what that is! We can’t answer that question!” We didn’t have that problem.

Hall: “Who is Pooh in this movie?”

Anderson: Yeah, “Who is Pooh and what...” We didn’t have that issue which was a luxury in a way. We kind of felt spoiled because you just don’t get that opportunity here.

As I mentioned in the feature about my trip to Sony Pictures Animation, I am a voice-actor geek. As a result of watching far too many animated movies and television shows when I was younger, names like Mel Blanc, Paul Winchell, Tress MacNeille, John Kassir, Frank Welker, Hank Azaria, Billy West and Peter Cullen have always stuck with me. Certainly deserving of being included on that list is Tom Kenny, who many might know for voicing Spongebob Squarepants and Wheelie and Skids from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but has other amazing credits including Rocko’s Modern Life, Dilbert, The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter’s Laboratory. I’ve been a fan of his work for years now and needless to say, it was an incredible experience when I got to interview him a few weeks ago for Winnie The Pooh.

Visiting the Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, CA, myself and a group of other reporters had the chance to sit down with Tom Kenny to talk about tackling a character like Rabbit, a character well-known for his short fuse. Check out the interview below in which Kenny talks about getting animated during the recording sessions, which character he most relates to in the Hundred Acre Wood and the number of times he gets asked if he uses voices while in bed with his wife.

Where are you from?

I am from Syracuse, New York. I’ve lived out here for many years, Studio City currently. Yeah, I grew up in Syracuse, started doing stand up in Boston in the eighties, moved to San Francisco and did stand up there through the eighties, wound up here, whenever the LA riots were, that’s when I moved here. Is that ’92? I moved here in ’92. That was the week I moved in here. The same week that I was carrying furniture through the streets, so was everybody else, you know?

When you were doing stand-up was it like Fred Travalena where you used your voices?

Well, thank you for evoking Fred Travelena. He was one of those guys that was on TV all the time when I was a kid. He was ubiquitous, right? Game shows...I loved him. But no, well I guess my stand up used voices in that I would do characters and things like that. But my ability to do impressions is horrible so, yeah I was never an impressions guy, but I could do like...my mom, I probably got this from my mom, she was able to do spot-on impressions, not of celebrities but you know, of like the lady down the street or the principle nun of the school. My mom was really good at those kind of impressions, I kind of inherited that from her. But in terms of celebrity impressions, hopelessly awful, terrible. But I had found in buying two or three crappy celebrity impressions, I can often come up with a voice that sounds original enough that it books me a voiceover job. I’m Mr. Mashup.

Did you actually make an effort to match previous incarnations of the Rabbit?

You know, I was going to, and then they said no. Before the audition I said I’d go back, I said, “There have been three rabbits, which one should I be paying attention to? Which one are we voice matching?” And they said “None, it’s attitude. We’re looking for attitude and character, it doesn’t have to be dead on voice match.” I was like, “Whew.” So yeah, I had it a little easier than Jim, who has to invoke Piglet, sorry I mean Tigger, and Pooh, Sterling Holloway and Paul Winchell.

Rabbit is this character that constantly gets frustrated and flustered, how into it do you get when you’re in the recording studio?

Oh, very. That test of like, sitting down, to me feels weird right out. It’s like, what is this thing? Pretty much any recording studio I go in they go, “Oh, it’s Tom, lose the chair, and move everything out of his way because he’ll knock things over.” Everybody’s different. Some guys are able to bring that power, that energy from a sitting position, but I just can’t. I tend to flail around a lot, go crazy. I think they had a camera in the booth the whole time, I’m sure Eric Goldberg was looking at the footage, he’s always looking at everything. He animated by hand, you know, he was the guy, I was very, very aware of who he is, in fact I think I pestered him at like animation award shows and stuff, “I love you so much!” He’s legendary. Knowing that Rabbit’s physical dimension was in his hands was a load off my shoulders. When he’s animating, it doesn’t really matter what you sound like. He’s going to solve it with his wonderfully expressive drawings.

Did you do any research on rabbits or that particular rabbit? Or did you just...

It was kind of like gorillas of the mist, I kind of lived amongst them, like the Night of the Libra, one of those seventies movies where rabbits take over the world. But you know, I did research actually, just because I’m a very paranoid person. So when I knew that I was going to be reading for Rabbit, even though they said, “We don’t want to match the voice,” I went back to the original trio of shorts, just because I figured that was the purest first, I knew that they were refocusing, rebooting, so to speak, on the franchise, so I just went back to the first stuff and just saw what makes Rabbit tick. For me, it’s funny, and I talked to other people who thought this too, when I was a real little kid I thought that Rabbit was a lady. I thought Rabbit was a female character. Like an elderly Rabbit version of Kanga. I don’t know why I thought that, but other people go, “Yeah I did too! I didn’t realize Rabbit was a dude until I was like ten years old!” You know so, it’s in the hips. Big child-bearing hips. They breed like rabbits. So I went back and watched those, and then I said, who’s somebody...They wanted him to be a little more likable too, they said he’s a little too angry in those old shorts, we want to be able to do two things with him.

We want to get more comedy out of him physically, and Owl as well. I think they figured, if you’re gonna, with characters like Owl and Rabbit that are a little more second tier, you can tweak them a little bit and it’s not sacrilegious. You know, obviously Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, they’re canonical. You’ve got to keep them exactly the way they are. But Owl and Rabbit you can maybe tweak them a little bit and, so that’s what they were looking to do. So I went back and looked at a lot of old Jack Lemmon movies, because there’s a guy who’s persnickety and nervous and orderly, but he’s still likable. He’s got his apron on and he’s burning the dinner, and he’s waiting for the woman he has a blind date with to come over to the apartment, or whatever, that kind of stuff. That was, aside from watching the original three Pooh shorts, that was the stuff that I watched before the initial audition. There was a couple of more callback auditions when they narrowed it down, and nobody was more surprised than me when they said, “Hey, Lasseter picked you.” So, knock on wood. It’s nice to be employed. You don’t want me waiting on your table. I tried to do that and I just wasn’t good at it. I’m not fit for real employment.

Would you describe the character as kind of a straight man?

Rabbit? I guess he’s not so much a straight man as he is like a character actor, like the fuss-budget character. It was kind of a nice gig, kind of a nice change, because with something like Spongebob, that’s a character that I was there from the beginning, since before the beginning, since the pre-pitch stage. I felt like that was whole-cloth that I was able to start with and with Rabbit you’re inheriting this whole mantle. It would keep me awake nights, believe me. And you know, what was the question? For me it was kind of nice to be, it was kind of like being Norm or Cliff on Cheers, you know what I mean, it’s like, you’ve got your thing that you do, you sit at the bar, you do your stuff, the parameters are very much there, and you know, Pooh and Piglet and Tigger do all the heavy lifting, and Eeyore.

Would you describe your personality as being closest to him or which character?

Of the Pooh, of the Hundred Acre Woods characters? Wow, I’m kind of nice and fairly stupid like Pooh. But I’m also hyper active like Rabbit. You know I would say probably more Piglet, I would say, if I had to pick one, I’d probably be Piglet. Nervous, pink, androgynous, no I’m kidding. But he seems the most hyper of all of the characters. But you know, like Rabbit, now that you mention it, there are certain, I don’t like people dropping over unannounced, you know what I mean? You’re like, “This is the weekend I just want to be with my wife and kids.” [Knock-Knock-Knock]... “Hey man, we were playing the Game of Life, come on, get out of here.” So I guess there’s some Rabbit in me too. But that’s the beauty of these characters, in each of their personalities, the kids, Disney was smart enough in the sixties to take that DNA right from the stories, right from the books. They’re really complex. The characters are very complex and unexpectedly so. Because you think of them as being these very simple minded and simple characters, but especially when you read the stories, there’s a lot of stuff between the lines, like heavy stuff going on. When I read it now to my seven year old, I’m like, no wonder kids and adults like these. It works for all ages, you appreciate it on different levels.

Have you been a fan of the books since you were a kid?

Yeah, the books were always a staple in our house. I read them to my younger siblings. I’m sure the voice I’m doing for Rabbit now is probably similar to the one I did when I was a kid reading Rabbit. And I read them to both of my kids, they are thirteen and seven, so the seven-year old is still in that... So they’ve been pretty much a life-long companion. They were always in my house growing up, I bought copies before I had kids just to have because I liked them. And now I read them to my kids.

What do your kids think about you voicing Rabbit?

They have not seen the movie yet but they’re really excited about it. I’ve seen the movie, I can’t wait for my seven year old to see it. And I can’t wait for my thirteen year old will like it too. Someone was telling me they did a college screening of it that was through the roof. This college audience went nuts for this Winnie The Pooh movie, I was like, I know. That doesn’t really surprise me because, substances aside...“We’re talking about Honey, right? Are you on Honey? Pooh, are you on Honey? Look at me.” I think when you start college, where you are when you start college, that’s the first time that the world is starting to get a little serious. And I think it’s the first time where people get nostalgic for the stuff that gave them that warm fuzzy feeling when they were a kid. You’re leaving home, you’re living in a place by yourself, that stuff of your childhood suddenly assumes a significance that it didn’t have before because you’re moving away from it. I think that’s, obviously that’s the reason why Toy Story has everyone in tears. It’s amazing. And that’s what these guys do, that’s that Disney does. I’m sorry, I’m having a Toy Story 3 flashback where I was sitting next to a guy, it was me and my wife and kids, and I was next to a guy, it was a packed theater, and this big guy with a baseball cap on, and I didn’t want him to hear me crying, and then I look over and he’s crying too. It’s Wizard of Oz, you know, his mustache is dripping. It’s cool that animation has the power to do that, sometimes more than live action does, I think. There’s something about the drawings. There’s something about those characters and the fact that they’re not humanoid in appearance that, I don’t know, in some ways it makes them more evocative or deeper or something. I can’t explain it, it’s a term paper.

Jim Cummings was telling us that when he goes through the drive through, he likes to play with the voice box.

Does he really? Oh that is so sick. That is so sick. Oh man people would freak out.

Have you ever done that?

I don’t know that I have ever done that. I have occasionally, when I read at school or something, when I show up they’ll have me do the school announcements as Spongebob doing the announcements, you just hear kids freaking out all over the school. That’s the unexpected perks of this job, is that you can go into a school or a kid’s hospital or whatever, and this dumb thing that you do actually seems useful for a couple of minutes. He does the drive through, that’s a good idea. I’m amazed at how many people ask me, “When you and your wife are getting intimate, do you ever do voices?” “No! Oh yeah, all the time. That’s such a turn on for her. You freak.” It’s like God, she would kick me out of her room and lock the door. Ew!

Thank you for telling us that, because...

I knew it was going to be your next question. I saw that question coming

Do you get that question sometimes?

Not just sometimes, all the time. “Hey, can I ask you something man? You’re married right? When you and your wife...” No! It’s amazing how often, it’s like, I can’t believe how many people are even thinking about this.

It’s interesting.

It is! I know, I know. There’s so much interesting psychology in play with all of this stuff that keeps you thinking.

So did you start doing voices when you were a kid? Did you ever use it to call your school and excuse yourself or something?

Ha, um, there was a brief period when I was starting to do standup where I was calling comedy club owners as my manager, talking about this young, new, hot client that I had. “He’s wonderful, he’s Tomcat-y, he can do twenty-five minutes that will have you on the floor. You will be laughing.” “Okay, well have him come in.” Pre-internet. It was a little easier to pull off those scams before the Internet. But I was doing work that I was willing to do, when I was a little kid, this was the job I wanted. It’s kind of unusual to want to do something when you were a kid, then you actually wind up doing it, and you actually like it. It’s as fun, it doesn’t suck, it’s as good as you thought it was. You know, like a kid who wants to be an astronaut going, “Hey, I like being in space, this is nice.” “I like fighting fires.” Guys like Mel Blanc and Jim Varney, Daws Butler, those guys are always my idols. It’s kind of a weird thing for a kid to be into, until you start doing voice-overs as a profession, and you meet all the other kids that were like you and you realize that they were living the exact same life. They were obsessing over the same stuff. You’re like, “Wow, I wish I knew you when I was eight, we would have been friends.”

Are there similarities between the world of Spongebob and the world of Pooh, in terms of...

I guess there’s a similar maybe knavish, guilelessness to the characters, to the leads. Especially to Pooh and Piglet. Yeah, I guess there is. I mean, Spongebob is more antic, more cranked up and Winnie the Pooh by design has a very different rhythm. Kind of a nice, gently, rolling rhythm. Which isn’t to say that it’s dull or sleepy, but if Pooh gets to amped up it feels weird. You know what I’m saying? It doesn’t feel like Pooh anymore. I’ve gotta say, watching the screening, I was sitting there going, it’s kind of nice to be watching a summer movie in a theater where the world doesn’t get destroyed. There’s no cars blowing down the street. There’s no Armageddon in this movie. Except Eeyore loses his tail, that’s the closest they come to the apocalypse.

I really view what you do as a true art, but in recent years there has been a progression toward using A-list celebrities. I’m curious what you think about that.

What did Jim say? To me it’s just an occupational hazard, you know what I mean. It’s one of those things, you can’t stop it. It is what it is. I’m sure that there are probably mathematical reasons why it might behoove them to use somebody who’s known from this TV show or something or this movie or whatever. Another voiceover, not Jim, another voiceover guy that I know is always ranting about this. Like, always ranting about it. And I was going, you know, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, we’re doing two completely different jobs. Calm down. They’re job is to be a movie star and to sound as much like themselves as possible. Our job is to be a character actor and a chameleon, and sound as little like ourselves from thing to thing as possible. We have to, between all the projects that we all work on, you’ve gotta sound like a bunch of different people. That’s a skill that they don’t have. I know famous people. It looks like a drag to me. Do you want to be famous? I don’t. I think we’ve got a better gig than them. I don’t want their life, in fact I think so many of those people have gone, “Man I wish I could trade places with you.”

That wouldn’t be Billy West by any chance, would it?

Yes! [laughs] How did you know that?!

I’ve heard him talk about it before.

He gets so mad about it!

You talked about how animated you are when you’re doing the voiceover.

Yeah, I’m a spaz.

How much of Rabbit’s animation can you see from you?

You know, they had the camera going, and Goldberg is a very observant guy, so you know, I guess I’ll have to ask him, but I’m definitely an apoplectic swimmer. I don’t know how to do it any other way. It’s like, yeah. I’m the guy, I bust myself all the time, because I’m the guy doing the voiceover and my character is supposed to be on the phone, and I’m always like this. I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m such a crappy actor, I have to actually...this is so embarrassing.”

This is a week all about friends on a mission. One group is trying to find a new tail for a melancholy donkey. The other group needs to stop the most evil wizard in history from taking over the world. Which one do you think I'm more excited about?

Just remember, I'm not reviewing these movies, but rather predicting where they'll end up on the Tomatometer. Let's take a look at what This Rotten Week has to offer.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2

Here is a list of the greatest human accomplishments since the dawn of the 20th century. (In no particular order). Neil Armstrong walks on the moon. Jonas Salk cures polio. Henry Ford invents the assembly line. Al Gore conceptualizes the internet. J.K. Rowling writes the Harry Potter series. That's it. Everything else is secondary.

And while the previous list is somewhat tongue-in-cheek (Al Gore? Please.) the Harry Potter series is most assuredly a cultural reference point. Its mass appeal, spanning from pre-teen kids to above middle aged adults, is something we may never see again. That it happened on both the literary and cinematic fronts is nothing short of extraordinary. And though people will always say “the movies don't hold a candle to the books” (do they ever?), the Harry Potter films work almost independently from the written word. That is, they work great on their own.

There's always a fear that what's put on screen won't live up to the images a reader has formed in their imagination, especially with something as umm, magical as a place like Hogwarts, as ominous as aspects of the Ministry of Magic, or even as slapstick as the Weasley home. But much like Peter Jackson's Middle Earth, director David Yates*** has almost defied the expectation of what Harry's world encompasses. That there remains a decidedly human element to the whole thing is accomplishing the near-impossible.

*** I only mention Yates, and none of the other directors for the series, here for a couple of reasons. One, and most obviously, he is directing the finale. But two, he took over the franchise when the tone of the series took a sharp turn after The Goblet of Fire and we were privy to much more of the wizardry world than just the confines of Harry's house and Hogwarts. The whole series has been fantastic, but Yates took over in the late innings when it was most important to get it right.

Critics have always enjoyed the Harry Potter movies and all have finished in roughly the same range (80-90%). But it seems Yates and company have saved the best for last because right now The Deathly Hallows: Part II is sitting at a cool 100% through twenty reviews. Only two movies with more than one hundred reviews have ever pitched the perfect game (Toy Story 2, Man on Wire), and I'd say this latest Potter installment stands a somewhat outside chance of pulling it off. The reviews are absolutely gushing with love for the flick. It'll be interesting to see who knocks it off its perfect perch and makes my prediction wrong. I'm going for it. The Rotten Watch for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part II is 100%.

Winnie the Pooh

Since having a new baby I'd like to think my heart has softened just a little, like going from a diamond to just regular plastic. The old me would have instantly written off a movie about an obese, honey-obsessed, mentally challenged bear and his group of loser friends including a severely depressed donkey, a tiger who'd benefit from a heavy dose of Ritalin and an overly didactic owl. And don't forget Christopher Robin, man that kid doesn't stand a chance does he? But that was the old Doug. The new Doug sees a timeless, heart-warming story about friendship and growing up. Oh my god, what's happening to me?

But in an age of Pixar driven CGI-based, 3D fare with movie studios constantly pushing the envelope of animation it's almost refreshing to see a movie retain a quasi-classic element in its production. Winnie the Pooh doesn't appear to have the frills or bells and whistles of the 21st century animated movie. Director Stephen J. Anderson's (Meet the Robinsons - 63%) adaptation of the A.A. Milne books appears to have eschewed the gloss in order to stay true to the original idea of the Hundred Acre Wood. And critics seem to appreciate the tact. At 73% through thirty reviews, the flick has some critical legs. Maybe I'm not the only one whose heart is softening a bit. The Rotten Watch for Winnie the Pooh is 71%.

This poll is no longer available.

Recapping last week…

A so-so week for the Rotten Watch with Zookeeper (Predicted: 27% Actual:15%) trailing my expectation slightly. Close to the ten percent mark. And while on the surface it seems I should have lowered my prediction from the outset, included with director Frank Coraci's s$%^y resume that I listed last week I put more credence into Kevin James's similar work of inanity, Paul Blart: Mall Cop (33%). That seemed the best comp for something like Zookeeper.

Meanwhile, Horrible Bosses (Predicted: 44% Actual: 74%) was a huge whiff. Comedies are hit or miss and I knew this prediction was a gamble. It didn't pay off, as the movie appears to hit many of the right notes.

Next week, Chris Evans dons the red, white and blue while Justin Timberlake makes an ill-fated career choice. It's going to be a Rotten Week!

I’ve often wondered why so many high profile actors and musicians are attracted to children’s films, and through all this pondering, I’ve only come up with two viable solutions. Either it’s one of the easiest paychecks anyone could hope to get in Hollywood or it’s a uniquely fun, child-like experience absent most of the pressures surrounding studio-made films. In reality, it’s likely a combination of both, but I like to place a bigger emphasis on the second reason, especially when it comes to adaptations of classic stories. Regardless of how old I get, it’s unlikely any book or movie will ever be as important to me as Peter Pan was when I was seven. It seems Zooey Deschanel feels the same way about Winnie The Pooh.

The actress, singer and hottie has recorded some songs to be featured in Disney’s upcoming version of the Milne classic, and in conjunction with that, the studio has released an excerpt of one of the songs and a brief interview to hype her appearance. Among her contributions are a version of the classic theme song “Winnie The Pooh” and an original duet with M Ward to be featured over the closing credits called “So Long”. Take a look at her discuss her contributions in the video below…

I love the cut-to shot of Winnie jumping in the pool of honey. He’s a bear of simple taste. Winnie The Pooh opens in theaters on July 15th. If people are as excited about seeing it as Zooey Deschanel seems to be about performing in it, the film should do big business at the box office.

The Princess and the Frog has been touted repeatedly as Disney's return to hand-drawn animation, with the not-so-veiled suggestion their their non-Pixar output will be as good as 90s classics like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. And while Princess and the Frog apparently is pretty great, the studio doesn't exactly seem to have all its eggs in the hand-drawn basket.

Slashfilm writer Brendon Connelly was on the Disney lot recently doing research for a documentary on Princess, and got producer Peter del Vecho to spill a few details about movies they have coming up, including a Winnie the Pooh feature and another called Snow Queen, which has been in development for years now at Disney. Ron Clements and John Musker, who co-directed The Princess and the Frog, are also working on something fairly top-secret. The studio has plenty of animated projects coming up, of course, including Rapunzel and the full Pixar slate, but that's it for hand-drawn.

It seems pretty clear that they'll wait to see how Princess and the Frog performs before committing to more hand-drawn projects, and you can't blame them for that. They've got some room to fiddle with Pixar consistently bringing home the dough, but I'm not even convinced that people want more hand-drawn animation. Winnie the Pooh, sure, that's a classic. But anything else with cel animation needs to have a very, very good reason to exist that way, otherwise risking being ignored entirely. Their caution doesn't exactly fit in line with the studio's talk of a hand-drawn renaissance, but it's also the safest way to go at this point.