Mouse Extra

Well Pirates fanatics you can put the tissues down and start getting happy again, because it appears that those reports are false.  According to the website ComingSoon.net, Pirates of the Caribbean is still the priority, and the source of the info is none other than Pirates’ producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

That doesn’t mean that those other projects aren’t in development, but Bruckheimer told us that for Disney, the priority is most definitely “Pirates.” “It’s a great franchise for them and for us, too,” he said. “A beloved character and Johnny’s really excited about coming back to Captain Jack. He certainly is interested in Tonto, but Disney’s priority is to get ‘Pirates’ made first. You never know what’s going to happen, but they would like it.”

Bruckheimer shared that the original writers, Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot, were “writing ‘Pirates’ as we speak,” and he said it was “funny” and a “whole new way of going” although he wouldn’t share more than that.

There are two reasons I think this is really good news.  The first is that I feel Disney fans in general are going to be happier knowing Disney is focusing its attention on the Pirates franchise.  It’s no secret how popular Captain Jack and his crew are among the Mouse-faithful, and the hype surrounding this fourth film is already at crazy levels…and they haven’t even written a screenplay yet.

The second is that I really like how Bruckheimer describes the ideas for the fourth POTC film as “funny”.  To me, I thought the likeability of the films really tailed off after the “Curse of the Black Pearl” and mostly because the second and third films just didn’t have the wit and fun of the first.  Instead they got bogged down into convoluted fantasy story elements that turned them from a great swashbuckling film into “pirates sail the seas of Middle Earth”.  Hopefully this fourth film gets back to the swashbuckling and humor.

According to Variety, Disney has signed the actress Diane Lane to star in an upcoming film called “Secretariat”, about the horseracing legend of the same name.  The film will be directed by Randall Wallace, who was also an executive producer on the Disney film “Pearl Harbor”.

One of my all-time favorite films is “Seabiscuit”, another film about a horseracing legend.  But that story is a very, very different one from that of Secretariat.  The story of Seabiscuit is the kind of true story perfect for a Disney film, though not actually a Disney film.  It was an inspirational rags-to-riches-and-comeback tale that was moving and warmed the heart.  But that certainly was not the case with Secretariat.  All that horse did was crush just about everyone it ever raced.  He was known for finishing races so far ahead that photographers needed to struggle to not make their photos look like practice runs, since no other horse made it into the same frame.

But the heartwarming story behind Secretariat was his owner, Penny Chenery.  The woman known as the “First Lady of Racing” did struggle to get where she is now.  So even though there will be little drama during the race scenes, Diane Lane will have something Disney-fied to work with.

And please Disney, don’t try and re-write history here and remake the races into some dramatic neck-and-neck last second comeback finish.  I mean this was 1973, not 1873.  It hasn’t been lost to time.  For those who don’t remember, Secretariat won the Belmont by an incredible 31 lengths!  This isn’t the stuff Disney films are made of.

Disney officials have been very quiet about what exactly they are doing to the Magic Kingdom’s classic rollercoaster Space Mountain.  But according to this morning’s reporting by the Orlando Sentinel, it appears the queue may be getting a serious facelift.

The resort last week filed a construction notice thought to be tied to the Magic Kingdom’s indoor coaster; it calls for the installation of an “interactive queue” and audio-visual upgrades. The notice has touched off speculation that Space Mountain could be in line for an electronic-game-filled queue similar to the one Disney installed at Epcot’s Soarin’ in 2007.

Disney previous disclosed only that they planned on replacing the track, but that the ride would generally be the same.  However, many questioned from the beginning whether or not that was completely sincere.  To shut a hugely popular attraction for that amount of time for only a few barely noticeable upgrades didn’t seem to make sense.

But this does.  The queue at Space Mountain is long, dark, and very boring.  While the ride may stay mostly the same, making a top-notch queue could really make a difference to park guests.  We’ll keep you posted as more information trickles out