‘Pete’s Dragon’ Disney Releases Motion Poster For 2016 Live Action Remake [Video]
The much-anticipated remake of the 1977 Disney moviePete’s Dragon is set to be released on August 12. Now, Comingsoon.net is reporting that Disney has released the first motion poster for the upcoming reboot of a story about a lonely boy and his dragon best friend.
Disney’s Pete’s Dragon tells the story of Pete, a poor and solitary orphan boy who discovers his best friend in an unlikely source; a dragon named Elliot. In the remake of the beloved Disney film, Pete will be played by Oakes Fegley. The Pete’s Dragon cast will also include the talents of Bryce Dallas Howard as Grace (the park ranger who discovers Pete’s secret dragon), Wes Bentley and Karl Urban as local mill owner Jack and his brother Gavin, and Oona Laurence plays Natalie, the girl who becomes friends with Pete. The cast of the new Pete’s Dragon is rounded out by Robert Redford. The Oscar-winning actor tackles the role of Grace’s father.
“For years, old wood carver Mr. Meacham has delighted local children with his tales of the fierce dragon that resides deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. To his daughter, Grace, who works as a forest ranger, these stories are little more than tall tales…until she meets Pete.”
The 2016 Disney reimagining of the 1977 classic Pete’s Dragon combines a live action cast with a state-of-the-art CGI rendered Elliot the dragon. The film is directed by David Lowery, and the screenplay is co-written by the director and Toby Halbrooks. To accomplish the dazzling and cutting-edge visual effects needed to bring the Pete’s Dragon to life, Disney enlisted the services of Peter Jackson’s WETA Digital, a visual effects company based in New Zealand.
Though much-anticipated, Pete’s Dragon is far from Disney’s only recent foray into the realm of live action remakes. The company has worked with some big names in recent years to bring some of its most cherished and beloved animated classics to life. In 2015, Disney released the live action version of the classic love story, Cinderella,Collider reports. A live action version of The Jungle Book is also set to be released on April 15, just a few months before 2016’s Pete’s Dragon, hits theaters.
The last five years or so have seemingly been the years of the movie remakes, with every season bringing a handful of new films remade from past films. Disney, however, seems to have taken the idea of the remake to a different level. Pete’s Dragon 2016, like the others in the slew of Disney live action reboots, is reportedly highly filmmaker-driven. While they admittedly do give the family-friendly studio some big payouts, they are not just live versions of animated classics. Directors leeway in their adaptations, as demonstrated by the highly-theatrical hand Kenneth Branagh employed with 2015’s Cinderella and the mind-blowing visual effects utilized by Jon Favreau in this year’s The Jungle Book.
The upcoming live action films from Disney are predicted to rake in some serious cash. Pete’s Dragon is anticipated to make at least $25 million in its opening weekend, Geeks of Doom reports, while The Jungle Book is predicted to have an opening weekend of $55 million or more. If Pete’s Dragon and the rest of the slew are as successful as execs and critics believe they will be, we can likely expect several more years full of Disney live action remakes.
The release of the motion poster for Pete’s Dragon was apparently timed by Disney to be a teaser for a teaser. The entertainment giant has scheduled the release of the first, full-length teaser trailer for Pete’s Dragon on Sunday February 21 at 8 p.m. EST. The Pete’s Dragon trailer will air during the Wonderful World of Disney: Disneyland 60 on the ABC network.
[Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images]
