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Thursday, August 29, 2013

The 2013 D23 Expo

The 2013 D23 Expo was pretty wild. I wasn't there, but I followed Ricky Brigante (@InsideTheMagic) on Twitter in the nick of time. He brought some great play-by-play to his Twitter feed to help everyone find out what's happening when it happens without being there. Now, through the help of his tweets and videos, we will take you on a whimsical journey to break it all down. Unfortunately, there was no new mention of the Jon Favreau Magic Kingdom film, the Guillermo del Toro Haunted Mansion film or the Tim Allen/Tom Hanks Jungle Cruise film. But, hey. There's still some other things to look forward to!

First Day:

The Imagineering Pavillion only allowed select people in and there were some pretty neat revelations.

Captain America is the first Marvel character to be introduced by Disney.





Another big reveal was that of the Hatbox Ghost animatronic. It looks like that, after the holiday decor comes down, the Hatbox Ghost will be making a return to the Haunted Mansion. Nothing was confirmed, but that's what I'd bet on.





Two other major exhibits were shown in the Imagineering pavillion. A display on the progress of the new Avatar land in Animal Kingdom and also a teaser for upcoming Star Wars mania at Disney Parks due to the LucasFilm acquisition.



Second Day:

 The animation presentation begin with an introduction from CEO Bob Iger. He said, "Believe me. There's a lot coming next." Not a whole lot of details. At the animation presentation, Pixar went first. Bill Hader came on stage to promote the upcoming film, The Good Dinosaur with Lucas Neff and Judy Greer.



The next Pixar film is...



Mindy Kaling, Lewis Black, Bill Hader, Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith (she took the stage) will play Disgust, Anger, Fear, Joy, and Sadness, respectively.





John Ratzenberger came out on stage as Pixar's Lucky Charm and it was on to DisneyToon Studios, the company behind the fairy films, Planes, and straight-to-DVD sequels. Tom Hiddleston and Christina Hendricks came to the stage to promote the origin story of Captain Hook in a fairy film.

Walt Disney Animation Studios came up next.







Complete highlights of the animation presentation, including Hiddleston singing Bare Necessities and Idina Menzel singing 'Let it Go' from Frozen.



D23 Expo Show Floor Tour, courtesy of Ricky Brigante.



Third Day:

 A big event on the third day was the live action presentation.

Star Wars was a headliner.



Not much else was said for Star Wars, but there would be something for Marvel. Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman and Tom Hiddleston took the stage for Thor 2. Chris Evans was there for Captain America 2. Guardians of the Galaxy was teased, but that's about it.



DisneyNature was there for a bit. Then, Angelina Jolie was introduced as Maleficent.


Ty Burrell, Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, Kermit the Frog, and Miss Piggy all made appearances for the sequel to The Muppets. Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine and Emily Blunt were all cast in 'Into the Woods.' Artwork from the live action upcoming Cinderella film was introduced.

A film that I'm quite excited about was up next. Tomorrowland. The 1952 box was opened, but nothing was explained. There was a hoax photo of Walt Disney and Amelia Earhart.



Saving Mr. Banks, the closest live action film to release, was up next. Naturally, I was excited about this.





The live action presentation then ended.


The Disney Legends were inducted including a heartfelt speech from John Lasseter to Steve Jobs which can be seen on the YouTube channel, I don't want to take up too much space here.

Later that night there was a Richard Sherman and Alan Menken Disney songbook concert that is also visible on the InsideTheMagic channel, it was very good and such great quality. Sherman is awesome.

Fourth Day:

The last day was really just about Disney Interactive and video games and such like that. Obviously, those are interesting to some people and then the info can be found on either the YouTube or Twitter profile of InsideTheMagic.




To conclude, I'll provide the overall recap podcast. Thanks to Ricky Brigante, great coverage.



Good expo, hope you all enjoyed what was provided!






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1 comment:

  1. Wings1295August 30, 2013 at 8:56 AM

    That is a ton of stuff to look forward to! I think Toy Story of Terror, Finding Dory and the new Star Wars movie are the most exciting.

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