While seeking refuge, 9 finds a groups of other beings like himself who are trying to stave off extinction.  The small community is in hiding but 9 convinces them that the only way to truly survive is to rise up, face the adversity and find out why they are being targeted.  Naturally, the answers make them realize that the future depends on what they are able to accomplish.

Tim Burton is a genius when it comes to these strange, often dark films.  He doesn’t make a lot of movies but the ones that he does produce are usually memorable.  Some of my favorites include Edward Scissorhands, Batman and The Nightmare Before Christmas.  He’s also producing the upcoming remake of Alice in Wonderland.

The pictures are pretty creepy but you’ll get a better idea if you check out the trailer:

images: Focus Features

Post from: EveryJoe

9 is an animated fantasy adventure from the talents of Shane Acker, a first-time director whose credits include animation work for The Lord of the Rings. It’s a “stitch punk” tale about nine little robotic creatures who are imbued with the spark of life by their human creator — just before the human race becomes extinct, thanks to malevolent robots who wipe them out. These nine robots, each named after their sequential number in order of their creation, become caught up in a wild adventure when the same machines that destroyed the humans set their sights on them. The entrance of the last robot, 9, complicates matters because he is very, very special.

On hand at the panel were creator/director Acker, producer Timur Bekmambetov (best known as the director of Night Watch and Wanted), producer and geek god Tim Burton, and voice talents Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly.

We were shown an extended clip from the film which was not at all what you usually see in animation. 9 is definitely a “grown up” animated movie, with a PG-13 rating, full of intense action and endless thrills. Personally, I can’t wait to see this one if for no other reason than that it’s something genuinely creative — a world, characters, and a story we have never seen before. It’s coming from Focus Features on September 9, 2009.

Below are some pictures from the panel.

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9 film stills: Copyright 2009 ©Focus Features.

Post from: EveryJoe

Comedian and actor Patton Oswalt, aka the voice of Remy from Ratatouille, moderated the “Disney 3D” panel, kicking off Comic-Con’s first ever panel to show film footage in 3D. Special 3D glasses were handed out to everyone in attendance to make this possible.

The first 3D film Disney showed off was A Christmas Carol, the latest Robert Zemeckis “digital cinema” film, starring Jim Carrey. Carrey plays eight roles in the film, all of which you can see in the following picture. The one on the far right is Scrooge, far left is Tiny Tim, and the bottom three are the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future. I’m not certain about the others.

We got to watch an extended scene from the film in 3D — the scene where Bob Marley’s ghost visits Scrooge to tell him about the coming spectral visitors he’s about to receive. We also got to see a bit of the Ghost of Christmas Past’s entrance. More than anything else, I was impressed with the incredible mood of the scene. It wasn’t rushed, moving slowly to build tension, and it really oozed atmosphere. I won’t spoil it for you, but when Marley’s ghost shows up, it’s more intense than any version of A Christmas Carol you’ve ever seen.

A brief fan Q&A session followed the screened footage. One fan asked if Zemeckis would ever return to live action films, to which he replied, “never say never,” but he’s happy doing CGI films right now because of the level of control they afford him over the working palette, camera movements, etc. Another fan asked if he was ever going to get around to doing a Roger Rabbit sequel. Zemeckis said that he had nothing currently planned, but he wasn’t opposed to the idea — and he promised that if he did do it, those characters would remain true to their 2D animation roots, and not be “dimensionalized” with modern technology.

Next up was Tim Burton, who was making his first ever appearance on stage at Comic-Con. (Oswalt explained that Burton has attended many times before, but this was his first time on a panel.) Burton showed us a short teaser trailer for Alice in Wonderland — which Oswalt was so enamored with, he insisted that we watch it two more times. It’s still being filmed even now, so there wasn’t a lot of finished footage to see, but what we saw was impressively trippy. Or as Oswalt put it, “Thanks, Tim. You know, I’ve always wanted to try PCP.”

At the end of Burton’s Q&A he surprised the audience by calling onto the stage his “imaginary friend, who keeps showing up in a lot of my dreams”: Johnny Depp! The crowd — already filled with highly excitable persons of the female persuasion due to the Twilight panel happening later on — went ballistic. People jumped to their feet screaming, cheering, and on and on. It was a bit of a letdown though, really, because Depp stayed on the stage for all of about one minute, and barely said two words. It happened so fast, it caught everyone off guard, including me. I switched on the video camera and captured most of it, though, which you can watch here:

The last film on the docket was Tron Legacy, aka the movie formerly known as Tron 2. The cast and filmmakers were all there and spoke a few words each, but the real highlight was getting to see concept art from the film, which depicts the digitized world of Tron as though it has continued to live on and evolve over the last twenty-some years since the first film. It’s repeatedly “upgraded,” if you will, and now is a state of the art digital wonderland. Familiar elements from the first film, such as the light cycles, return here, but are dramatically updated with modern sensibilities. Take a look:

It was also announced that Daft Punk is doing all of the music for the film.

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Post from: EveryJoe