If you’re the type that likes to play the stock market, purchasing some shares of Disney (DIS on the NYSE, if you’re actually considering) by 2015 might be a good idea. From their slate of releases, it looks like it’s going to be a big year at the Mouse House. As of yesterday, the studio had confirmed six of the release dates for their films. Today, they added Tomorrowland to that robust schedule when they announced the film’s release to be May 22, 2015.
It’s very appropriate that Tomorrowland shares the same name as the well-known themed area at Disneyland and Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom, and not just because of the futuristic sci-fi settings. We here at mxdwn Movies have already been bringing you as much as we know (as much as anyone knows, really) about the plot of the film and the producers (Brad Bird and Star Trek Into Darkness’ Damon Lindelof) have teased a story that seems unique to a lot of the sci-fi, but even just the nature of the production of Tomorrowland itself sets it apart from a lot of Disney’s films to be released that year.
While Tomorrowland is taking inspiration from the themed-section of Disney’s parks, there isn’t source material with a straight forward narrative to take the story from. This is unlike many other Disney films being released in 2015: Ant-Man and Avengers: Age of Ultron are both comic-book adaptations, the live-action Cinderella movie (directed by Thor’s Kenneth Braunaugh) is an adaptation of the classic Disney animated tale, and the Star Wars Episode VII is… well, the seventh episode in the historic sci-fi franchise. The only original films being released that year from the studio are two new Pixar films (The Good Dinosaur and Inside Out) and Tomorrowland.
Since we last brought you any news about the film, an official synopsis was released by Disney:
Bound by a shared destiny, a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity and a former boy-genius inventor jaded by disillusionment embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space that exists in their collective memory as “Tomorrowland.”
A late May release will put Tomorrowland in the same month as the much anticipated Avengers: Age of Ultron, which is poised to be the biggest release of the year if the box office results of the first Avengers movie is any indication. A release three weeks later will mean that the two films won’t be competing as much, but seeing as to May is one of the hot spots for movies that studios believe will be the cream of the summer blockbuster season, it seems that Disney has high hopes for the film.
Tomorrowland will be Brad Bird’s sophomore live-action effort (his first was Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) after directing two successful Pixar films (The Incredibles and Ratatouille) and the hand-drawn animated classic The Iron Giant.