Pixar Fanboy

Images just for illustration, not the actual covers

It appears the rumors were true. Blu-ray.com is reporting that retailers are now listing a March 23, 2010 release date for both Toy Story films on Blu-ray! I figured they would be released before Toy Story 3 hits the theaters in June, and I can’t wait to watch these in HD.

Some of the features listed are:

Toy Story

• Toy Story 3 Sneak Peek – The Story
• Paths to Pixar: Artists
• Black Friday: The ‘Toy Story’ You Never Saw

Toy Story 2

• Toy Story 3 Sneak Peek – The Characters
• Paths to Pixar: Technical Artists
• Celebrating Our Friend Joe Ranft

This isn’t quite official yet, but I’ll keep you posted. I’m sure we’ll get an official announcement from Disney/Pixar sometime soon, and they’ll act like it’s the first any of us have heard about it, but we can humor them.

Lee Unkrich, our favorite Pixarian on Twitter, just posted some cool Toy Story 3 news via a video he made.

The biggest news is that Disney will be extending the run of the Toy Story 3D Double Feature to allow more people to see it. I kind of saw this coming, because why wouldn’t Disney want to make some extra money by having it stay in theaters longer?

Also, Kristen Schaal will voice a new (and as yet unnamed) character in the film. You may recognize Kristen from the Flight of the Conchords HBO series.

Also, the new voice of Slinky Dog was announced as Blake Clark. Lee explains that Blake was actually friends with the late Jim Varney, and that he seemed to channel him in his recording sessions. I can’t wait for June 18th!

Here’s the TV spot for the Toy Story Double Feature that’s been floating around for a couple days now. I love that they actually put some care into these and aren’t just editing a bunch of clips together.

Also, there’s another reason to be excited about this. The Toy Story 3 trailer will be attached to the double feature! If you’d like some spoilers on the trailer (with new plot details), head over to Jim Hill Media for his round-up.

When the space shuttle Discovery landed last week, it brought back a Buzz Lightyear action figure it had been carrying. It was part of a Disney and NASA partnership to encourage the study of science, and they took some cool video of Buzz floating around in zero gravity.

Via Gizmodo

The blogosphere was flooded with speculation in the past two days about Pixar making good on the Disney/Marvel deal by making an Ant-Man movie. According to SlashFilm, someone from CHUD quickly got in contact with Edgar Wright, who has been developing an Ant-Man movie for the past few years, and got an official answer.

“The news that Pixar is involved is not wholly accurate and a little premature to comment on. I love Pixar’s work more than anyone and indeed would love to collaborate with them.”

It’s a “No”, but it doesn’t sound like the idea is completely out of the question. No one knows what Pixar will be doing, if they’re doing anything, with the Marvel brand, but I would love to see them collaborate with Edgar Wright.

What Marvel characters would you like to see brought to life by Pixar?

The big news today was of course that Disney is buying Marvel Entertainment for a whopping $4 Billion. Unlike most Marvel Fanboys on Twitter today, I’ve been really excited about this news. I think Disney will be able to handle the Marvel brands in a great way.

I didn’t, however, expect to hear anything about Pixar, but an article on Film School Rejects detailing the Disney/Marvel investors conference call points out that John Lasseter has met with Marvel about a Pixar team up.

This could have been taken out of context, because Lasseter is in charge of more than just Pixar now, but I think something will come out of Pixar with the popular Marvel characters someday. Will it be a feature film? Maybe not, but think of that shiny new studio they’re building in Canada that was going to focus more on shorts and television content. That’d be the perfect place to make some official Pixar/Marvel animation, and I think that is pretty exciting.

Update I found a direct quote from the call.

When asked about a Pixar/Marvel team-up:

“We won’t co-brand, but they will collaborate. When we put these two creative groups together. Sparks will fly.”

Are you on Twitter yet? If you’re a fellow Pixar Fanboy, here are a bunch of reasons why you should be! Below you’ll find the definitive Pixar Employee Twitter list, courtesy of Jeremiah. If you have any that aren’t on the list, get in touch and we’ll make sure to update it.

Read the list after the jump.

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Not only is Lee Unkrich a great editor, director, and overall swell guy, but he also keeps his promises. Just like he said, when he reached 5,000 followers on Twitter, he smashed a cake in his face.

More rumors are swirling that Disney and Pixar are indeed planning a Monsters Inc. sequel. Jim Hill Media reports that among other domains, Disney has purchased Monsters2.com. Disney’s domain name purchases have been a pretty reliable source of unannounced movie news in the past, so I’d say Monsters Inc. 2 is a little closer to being announced.

Via Jim Hill Media

This is the last vacation-related post, I promise. Last Thursday, which happened to be my birthday, we drove to Sonoma Valley to experience wine country. Later that night we stopped at a pizza place called The Red Grape. A few minutes after sitting there, I looked over and realized there was a wine bottle signed by John Lasseter!

John lives near Sonoma in Glen Ellen and recently started a winery of his own. I really wanted to slip that bottle in my wife’s purse, it would have made a good birthday present.